Out and About at Ākau Tangi - Term 3

Sports and physical skills play a crucial role in enhancing our physical health.   We are always grateful for the varied sports experiences Åkau Tangi provides.  This week we worked with experts in the field of basketball and gymnastics.   Gymnastics involved lots of fun with specific body movements and muscle control.  We also worked on developing our coordination and balance. 

Muscle strength and flexibility was a focus especially on the mats and bars. Strengthening core muscles, in particular, is beneficial for our overall stability and for things that you wouldn't necessarily think of when thinking about big muscle gross motor skills. For example, strength, core stability and good balance supports good posture and even helps with pencil grip when it comes to writing !  

Ball skills, such as throwing, catching, and dribbling help us practise many skills. We had to work hard to develop and improve our hand-eye coordination as well as our spatial awareness.  In Tautoru we are talking a lot about awareness , awareness of self and awareness of others.  This fits nicely together and really helps students understand each other, giving each other what they need in our learning environments,  inside and out.  

Our Social Skills were definitely under the microscope.  We had to dial up our social intelligence, kindness and the skills we know that make good team players.  So much to consider while working with other humans ! .  We fostered teamwork, communication, and cooperation.   The hardest lesson to learn sometimes  is to handle both winning and losing gracefully.  It means being able to celebrate the win but also being considerate and kind too.  We did this well and it is a continuing work in progress.  This is not to say that we don't or can’t experience disappointment, sadness, competitiveness or frustration .  There are no emotions that shouldn’t be felt so we make sure we cover the full spectrum of what we feel daily without lessening the mana of each emotion.   We talk about what emotions mean, how they make our bodies and minds feel and most importantly how we can respond.  This all involves teaching and modelling on the job as it happens.  Ākau Tangi provided us with lots of opportunities to do this. 

We return to school feeling a new appreciation and enthusiasm for sports and physical activity..  Learning sports skills is just a taster and often opens doors for our kids about all the fun to be had when being part of a team.  Boosting self confidence and self esteem at the same time.  

For some it takes a couple of visits, a few attempts or some sheer perseverance,  but each time we recognise improvements and progress.  Health and PE and getting out and about and in amongst ‘it’  is a key part of our local curriculum and Positive Education and Wellbeing Strategy.  We see this as a key part of our job - encouraging healthy life long positive attitudes towards Physical Health and Wellbeing. 

Chewing and Tracking at Our Place.

 

In the last few weeks the kids in Tautoru have been curious about creatures in our environment.  

Off the back of our innovations and inventions inquiry we decided to learn a bit more about the inventions that have contributed to the success of the Miramar Peninsula ‘Predator Free’ Project.  

The Miramar Peninsula Predator-Free Project was and is an initiative based in Wellington, aimed at creating a predator-free environment.  Overall, the Miramar Peninsula Predator-Free Project is part of a much bigger project that set out to restore and preserve New Zealand's unique natural environment by reducing the threat posed by non-native predators.   Mahutonga and Matariki kids participated in the early stages of this project. 

We know that this project targeted rats, stoats, and possums to protect,enhance and bring back local native wildlife. 

There has been lots of community and school involvement over the years so we decided to get involved and see what we could discover.  We wondered if we would discover anything now that we are mostly ‘predator free’.   We had lots of locations where we had seen trapping inventions out and about in our neighbourhoods.

We decided to test out some of the inventions.  We had a go at using chew cards and we put together some tracking tunnels.   While we were on our adventures we found out we knew heaps about trapping, tracking and native NZ species.  Putting out our chew cards was so exciting.   Here are some of the things we shared with each other.  

RESULTS:  

After 2 weeks , we are excited to find that we have had some visitors to our chew cards………but who and what ?  Judging by the teeth marks we think they were ‘invertebrates’ or mice.   We know they are not rats or stoats because the teeth marks are different.   That’s lucky !!!

Tracking Tunnels 

Now that we have discovered the chew cards we decided to try our hand at homemade tracking tunnels too.  We are putting these out and we will check these in the coming days and weeks to see if we can learn more about the creatures in our local environment.  However, through some good old experimenting and wondering we realised that our tracking tunnels were not going to be effective with our original placement of the bait tray at one end so we had to make some changes.   We know that the bait needs to go into the middle of the ‘inked’ section.   We will try fruit, peanut butter and cat food to see what we can attract.  

We can’t wait to see what tracks we find !!  Watch this space. 

Movement + Music = MAGIC !!

Ever had song lyrics stay in your head for the day, after you heard it once on the way to work ? Well that's what we are experiencing at the moment as we gear up for the Arts Celebration !! 

Term 3 is proving to be a very ‘holistic’ and authentic example of ‘valuing the whole child’ and not something that we left to chance either. We recognize that the arts absolutely complement and enhance learning in other areas such as Inquiry, Literacy, Maths and Te Ao Māori. A reasonable story becomes a beautiful poem with the removal of some key words, a poem morphs into a song with a sprinkle of repetition and before you know it you have a haka. Through music we have observed the beauty of movement, dance and actions coming naturally to our students. 

The arts have provided opportunities for students to express their thoughts, feelings, and ideas. They have been active participants in the planning process by creating, performing, and just appreciating the arts and all they have to offer. We are promoting a collaborative working environment where all students have multiple opportunities to shine. This is our mantra for the Arts Celebration. There are no lines, no scripts and plenty of planned spontaneity. You might be asking how this is even possible given the definition of spontaneity. This is never a one person job it takes a village as we always say. We will be needing your help a little closer to the time with some of the finer details.  This information will come out in the next week or 2 so watch this space. 

We have a long way to go yet but savouring each minute at a time.. Without ruining the ‘surprise’, here is a glimpse and some clues into the beginning of our journey. See if you can make some links between all of these and what you might expect to see…

Marvellous Maths

Welcome back to Term 3 ! 

In Tautoru we continue to build our excitement around Maths.   There are plenty of opportunities for our students to be creative problem solvers that can think flexibly.  Our maths programme has key components that we take into consideration when planning including having our finger on the pulse when it comes to meeting a diverse range of students needs.  We aim to keep maths exciting, creating an environment where maths is always an option or a choice and a priority. 

Developing strong problem-solving abilities is so important. This means teaching a variety of strategies to approach and solve mathematical problems, rather than solely focusing on rote memorization that some of us would be familiar with from our schooling.

Connecting mathematics to real-life contexts helps students see its relevance in their world, fostering greater engagement and motivation to learn.  It is quite interesting once you have your ‘maths eyes’ on how many maths opportunities also present themselves during play.   We have a variety of materials available throughout the day where our students can explore mathematical concepts and practise their maths learning. 

Developing critical thinking skills involves analyzing and evaluating information. This is important  in maths as students learn to assess different approaches and solutions to find the most efficient strategy for a problem. 

We work in a range of different ways in Tautoru.  Our mixed ability groups offer the benefits of collaborative learning.  Students discuss ideas, explain their reasoning, and learn from each other’s perspectives. Communication skills are also vital for communicating mathematical ideas.  We are determined to learn 20 new maths games this term and each of these games builds on maths skills, developing number knowledge and strategy.  

Maths Games are also selected to consolidate and reinforce teaching and learning and something students can choose to do throughout the day.    Here are this week's maths games as examples:

Pests, Predators and Our Precious Place.

 Pests, Predators and Our Precious Place. 

In Tautoru we have branched out of our Innovation and Invention Inquiry to look at inventions that help our environment and all things in it.   We were lucky enough to have had a Zoom session with an Expert - Laura who talked us through her volunteer work with Predator Free Initiatives.  We asked lots of questions and were particularly interested in how pests and predators were introduced.  

We have started off looking at the native creatures we have in our special NZ bush and forests and the impact that introduced predators and pests have had on this unique ecosystem.  As part of our inventions work we have been looking at traps, tracking tunnels and chew cards. We are looking forward to making some of these next term to see what creatures we have in our ‘backyard’ here at Worser Bay School.  We have had some interesting discussions about our pet cats.  

We know that our NZ forest and bush has a unique layer system that requires us to think carefully about different creatures.  We know that kiwi are flightless and spend most of their nocturnal time on the forest floor foraging.  They have a rare chance of fighting off a possum, stoat or feral cat so this is why maintaining predator free environments is so important.  We know that hedgehogs eat native birds eggs too !! 

Our learning will continue next term where we will be designing and creating inventions that help our environment or attract native species back to our place. 

We have been mind mapping all we know so far.  

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Te Whakanuia a Matariki me Puanga 2024

Our Tautoru students have been recapping our knowledge of Matariki and Puanga.  Here is some art we created.  Each segment uses pictures and patterns that represent the different stars. 

The celebration of Matariki, the Māori New Year is accompanied by all sorts of traditions, some traditional and some contemporary.   Iwi in Te Whanganui a Tara celebrate not just the rising of Matariki, but also Puanga.  

Puanga is a single whetū and is not part of the Matariki cluster but appears in the evening sky shortly before Matariki rises each year. Puanga rises higher in the sky so it’s recognised by iwi and hapū that can’t see Matariki from their location.  The brightness and clarity of the stars was a predictor of how abundant the harvest would be in the coming year.  

Different locations and landscapes mean that in some areas only Puanga can be seen.   Te Whanganui a Tara and our location mean we are surrounded by hills and mountains, making it a great place to view the stars.  The special site where we stand was referred to as Whetūkairangi - Stargazers.   

Creative Writing

 Writing is a very important part of our curriculum. 

In Tautoru at the moment we are learning how to write about something without giving away exactly what it is. We call this "showing not telling", and this is a fun and challenging way to learn how to write a description.

We are all at different stages with personal goals and next steps we are working on. These all demonstrate how we are re-reading our writing to check it makes sense and giving editing a go.

Here are some examples of our draft writing...

We have written about a variety of things, from a secret cave: 

...to something inside the classroom (think whiteboard, clipboard, pencil):

to something outside the classroom (think big slide, tyre, monkey bars).