Innovation and Invention

This term in Tautoru we are looking at Innovation and Invention over time for our inquiry, with a Science and Technology focus.

We will be exploring ,designing, making and appraising our inventions and innovations by following a process.

We want to:

• know and understand that technology can be purposeful interventions that have gone through a design process.
• Understand that technological outcomes are products or systems developed by people. These things have a functional nature and often a specific purpose. Once upon a time they are or were a possible solution to a problem or just invented to make life easier.

We will be delving into Computational Thinking: We will be writing and following instructions and procedures. We will be making mazes and using lots of different skills to be creative problem solvers.

We asked our Whānau to bring in anything that they had at home, which our students would possibly not know in todays modern world.

We were supplied with many interesting things to explore- tools, old telephones, typewriters, a walkman, old school scales and old kitchen implements to name a few.

We spent time looking at the equipment and discussing the following questions:

1. What is it?
2. Who would use it?
3. What is it used for?
4. Why was it created in the first place ?

We worked in mixed groups to discuss what we had found out sharing all our ideas. We had lots of questions too.

It was fun to see how things have changed or been improved over time!

School Swimming

 

School Swimming 

New Zealand's landscapes offer countless opportunities for water-based fun. Boating, sailing, snorkelling, experiencing Moanamana and just exploring our beach are a few of our Worser Bay School favourites.  Learning to swim opens up a world of recreational activities, allowing children to fully enjoy and appreciate these special environments.

Learning to swim is crucial for ensuring water safety and something that is built into our Physical Education Programme every year.  It aims to help equip children with the skills necessary to enjoy water environments safely.  Swimming also offers many opportunities to enhance our Positive Health, developing confidence too.    

Our Swimming Lessons took off with great gusto on our first day back, with smiles all round.  We listened carefully and had a great time showing our instructors what we can do already.  We look forward to this adventure every week! 

Garden Habitats

 We've been hard at work over the past couple of weeks, building our Tautoru Garden Habitat.

Our inquiry focus has shifted from large scale habitats to habitats in our own backyard. Our garden (which needed some love!) felt like a great place to base our learning. Firstly, we learnt about what plants need to survive; water, soil, air, space and sunlight. 

We looked at the soil in our Tautoru garden beds and decided that it wasn't a great environment for our plants to thrive. This formed garden project number 1: Empty out the soil, remove the weeds and put the old soil back in, mixed with new soil and compost. This project involved some heavy lifting and your tamariki were hard at work!

Once the soil met our high Tautou standards we were ready to plant seeds. We made sure to spread our seeds evenly throughout the gardens as we know space is an important part of a plants survival.

Alongside our hard work in the garden beds, we've been learning in class about what else in a plants habitat helps it survive - check out these notes we made about bees!

Next time you're at school, please check out our plant habitat by Little Kids, we are very proud of it! 

Habitats

This term we have been looking at what makes us unique, with a focus on Whanaungatanga (creating a sense of family and connection) and  Kotahitanga (unity, togetherness and collective action).  

We have looked at special places to us and have traced around our feet as a symbol of Tūrangawaewae, (tūranga - having a standing place and waewae - feet).

Gathering up all this learning, our tamariki have been interested in the different places we all come from and where we choose to live. This lead us to looking and learning about animals and the different habitats they choose to live and why.

We decided to have our first 'Tautoru University' session.

This is where we watch a video one time and discuss what we have learnt,

watch it again and takes notes,

and watch it for a third time and categorise our learning.

We also read this funny book about a child who designed their very own school - it was crazy! We were very excited to try this ourselves.

We made 'spider mind maps' with all our ideas - using different colours to catergorise the different spaces and needs of each school area, just like a habitat.

Just imagine if these schools were real!

"When you step on a sensor at the school, a super slide will suck you up into your classroom. It scans you so that it knows which class you are in. In the morning you play educational video games and 2k drive, forza, mario carts and minecraft". Felix.

Writing - The Story Mountain!

Now that we have well and truely settled into the school year, we are beginning to introduce and revisit structures to support our writing.

Over the last couple of weeks we have been talking about the 'Story Mountain' - a structure that stories can follow: 

First of all, key characters and a setting are introduced. After this, a build up occurs which leads to a big problem. Our stories then progress to solving this problem, and ultimately ending. 

As we know, stories will have multiple problems throughout, and sometimes we have two (or more) mountains within a piece - which the kids love to call camel stories!

This week we've completed story mountains about Jess getting stuck in a train station in Italy (which actually happened!), and stories a bit closer to home, about losing teeth and what could happen at a birthday party. Come into Tautoru to check them out! 

Maths in Tautoru

 "The first few years of primary school are when crucial maths learning happens. Years 1–3 are when students develop the foundational maths skills and understandings that they need for future success."  

Over the last 5 weeks in Tautoru we have been focusing on developing our number knowledge.  Number knowledge is so important and not something that can be left to chance.  We recognise that number knowledge plays an important part in problem solving and the ability to think flexibly. 

We are using a variety of resources and hands on materials to explore place value and how numbers are made up.  

As well as teaching the 'maths content' we have also been laying the foundations and teaching our students how to work together to solve problems, how to listen, agree, challenge and contribute to group maths activities.  When students are working together to solve problems they have the opportunity to test their thinking, correct misconceptions and ultimately develop a healthy curiosity and love of maths.  

We want to be finding all the maths opportunities in our world, across our rich cultures and real life contexts. Watch this space for more exciting maths learning. 

These are some examples of our students using hands on materials to make numbers and practise our sequencing, writing and reading of numbers to 100. 

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Developing Character Strengths in Tautoru

 

You may have seen this poster created by the students at Worser Bay school.

These are our top character strengths we use daily, weekly or monthly. 

We specifically teach and focus on a different character strength each week in Tautoru. 

These character strengths are an important part of our Worser Bay School journey and encourage us to flourish as life long learners. 

Encouraging children to use a wide variety of strengths helps them to recognise strengths they may not be so familiar with. Encouraging students to identify, explore, use, and develop their strengths is believed to be a powerful strategy in helping them thrive and flourish in the present and the future.

Transcendence strengths such as hope, spirituality, and appreciation of beauty and excellence are potential routes towards purpose and meaning. (Character Strengths Literature review )

So far this year we have had a 'deep dive' into:

 

We have noticed that these character strengths are linked and can all be used daily in our classroom.

We might use fairness when we are working, to keep our voices down so that everyone has a chance to think.

We might use our judgement when we are moving through our classroom, walking and waiting our turn.

We use our kindness by helping someone with their learning.

There are many ways we use these character strengths.

You might think of ways you can use them at home too.

All of our character strengths are embedded in our Kotahitanga o Tautoru - Our Ways of Working.

Come and visit our classroom to see our waka with our whānau inside - we are all on this journey together!