The Outdoors as our Learning Space

We are so lucky to have so many beautiful outdoor spaces around our school, so this week we took advantage of the good weather and headed to Worser Bay Beach with Autahi as well as enjoyed the outdoors at school for some sports skills.

At the beach we used our creativity and spent time building different designs. Some of us made tunnels, others dug as deeply as we could or creating complex structures using the materials around us. We found interesting creatures and different materials like sea glass, different rocks and shells. It was a lot of fun spending time discovering our outdoors with our new learning buddies.

At school we have begun our sports skills practices focusing on ball skills such as throwing, catching, and striking. These will help us with coordination, teamwork and when playing sports like floorball, netball and cricket.

Last Blog Post of 2021

 Wow! What another amazing year at Worser Bay. Here are some highlights...

And something from the staff...

The Year 6 item...

Learning about Coding- Hour of Code!

So how do computers do what they do? Technology is a new part of our learning tool kit so this week we have been exploring parts of Digital Literacy. This is all about getting to understand how digital technology works and how we can be creators of digital content. 

This week we explored block coding: using digital blocks of code to learn how images are moved around on a grid. Writing code is a lot like when we write stories. When we write stories we have to go back and check our ideas and edit our writing, while when we write code, we have to check it for 'bugs' (incorrect code). 

We used some of the block code programs in Hour of Code. This is designed for children to help them learn early coding skills.

 

Hands-on Maths Learning

 This week we have focused on Measurement during our Maths lessons. Measurement is always a great area of Maths where we can launch into learning with a hands-on approach. This sparks a lot of Positive Engagement and Positive Emotions with the children!

Some of us started by learning about measuring volume with measuring jugs. Our buddies filled the jugs up with water and then we had to use our careful looking eyes to measure how many millilitres of water there was. Water was spilled here, there, EVERYWHERE! Lucky it was just water!
The next day we started working out the difference between amounts of water in jugs. Questions were asked like "How many millilitres more is there in 'this' jug compared to 'this' jug?" "How do you know?" "What's one way you could work that out?" "What might be another strategy?" This was a great chance for us to apply some addition and subtraction strategies we have been learning about.

Others got into measuring weight and converting between grams and kilograms.

Make sure to ask your child at home what they've been doing in Maths this week!

I Am Connected: Connecting across our spaces

 Our Learner Attribute this term is I am Connected and we are connecting every weeks across all our spaces. So what is I am Connected about? It means that:

• I can build relationships with others
• I can communicate clearly
• I can be part of a team- collaborate and contribute
• I can connect to my place, the environment and globally

Our year 3s have been spending time in the senior school making new connections and sharing ideas. They collaborated through sports by going to the ASB Sports Centre with the years 4 and 5 and had a great day making connections as well as linking up with our Tautoru buddies from last year!

The year 2s spent time with year 1s at the beach and working on some beach themed sand art. We enjoyed a beautiful spring day sharing our beautiful environment, looking for interesting objects and building at the beach, then headed back to school to work on our sand art picture.

Mathematical Superheroes

 

Our Year 3 and 4 students have been working together in Maths. We have been thinking about our strengths in Maths. 

These are our Mathematical Superheroes/ Avatars displayed in Māhutonga

We have been thinking about our Mathematical Superpowers so that we can build our Community of Inquiry. We all have different strengths in Maths. If we collaborate and use our different strengths then we are stronger! We have created our own Maths Justification League...

The Justice League have their individual strengths: Together they are stronger!