Portrait Art

On Thursdays afternoons Year 2s and some of the Year 1s work together to build Positive Relationships. This week we got together with buddies and did some portraits of each other. Sketching is a wonderful way to really notice small details and use Creativity.

We learned about the proportions of the face and how to use shading to add details to the hair and parts of the face.

Positive Health through Sports.

The fine spring weather means getting outside as much as we can! Positive Health is all about the benefits of feeling well though physical activities that promote health. This includes feeling comfortable to take risks and try new challenges, and one way to do this is to challenge ourselves and playing different sports! For some this has been new learning, while for others a way to share known skills and use their Leadership and share their skills. After athletics last week, this week we have had another feast of sports challenges with tennis coaching and football coaching. We used Zest, Bravery and Perseverance to have a go.

Tennis coaching: We learned some fun tennis skills on Monday! It was all about learning how to hold the racket correctly and control the ball. We also had a go at doing some rallies.

Talk to us about how taking on new challenges makes our brains grow!

Girls Football: Maia from the the Wellington Women's Football Development team came to take a coaching sessions to encourage more girls to join the sport. We are all keen to see more girls running after footballs during break times! Many now feel more confident to join in the football games in the playground.

Junior Athletics

 The day started with hot sunshine and sweaty children for Wake Up Your Brain. As the day went on, dark grey clouds loomed but the Juniors got out and active for Athletics.

Activities involved were an obstacle course boot camp style, long jump in the sandpit, quoits and vortex. Our arms, legs, hearts and lungs were pumping!

Check out the determined and joyous faces of the Juniors hard at work.

We are problem solvers!

 This term we have been getting into the technology curriculum, in particular the design process.

First, we looked at a video of other kids being problem spotters and how they used design and technology to solve their problem. Here is the video we watched. Many noted, "Oooh my parents do things like this!", "My parents are architects" and "My mum designs like this too!"

EMPATHISE:
To begin our own design process (the empathise stage), we set out to find some problems that needed to be solved in Tautoru and outside in the playgrounds. Many came bounding back into the classroom passionate about solving the problem of people picking the figs by Big Kids playground or rubbish being left outside!

DEFINE:
We then defined our problems by answering these questions:

• What is the problem?
• Who does it affect?
• How does it effect them/that?

IDEATE:
We then spent a whole afternoon thinking of LOTS and LOTS of different ideas to solve them problem. We had to dial up a few character strengths like Perseverance, Curiosity and Creativity.

Then this week, we narrowed down our solutions and voted on our favourite idea by using what we have been learning in Maths, a tally! After this, we needed to survey other students in the school to find out whether they think the solutions would be helpful or not, and what solution they would like to see/experience.

Next week we will begin the Prototype phase! We are very excited!

STUDENT VOICE:
These are some things some Tautoru students said once we had surveyed Autahi and the seniors.

What was a challenge?

• “to be comfortable to say what I needed to say”
• "I was feeling a bit worried but had a go anyway" (about talking in front of other people"
• “getting in front of all the seniors”

What was something that you learned?

• "Practising being connected by sharing ideas"
• "we get better at something by practising"
• "people have different preferences"
• "it’s not easy to talk in front of people"

What was a new discovery or something interesting that you found in your survey?

• "most people liked spy ninjas" (spy ninjas was a solution idea)
• "I thought an idea was going to be most popular but it wasn’t. I thought team fig but it turned out to be a movie"

What character strengths did you use?

• "I had to use my Bravery"
• "I used humour by laughing when I felt nervous"
• "Bravery because I was scared to go into the seniors but did it anyway"

This is another great experience for our Year 3s to go to the senior area and reconnect with the senior students and Year 2s to connect with the Year 1s. Keep checking out Seesaw to see more photos about our transitions in the lead up to next year.