The Great Handwriting Challenge

We have embarked on the Great New Zealand Handwriting Challenge in Tautoru.   15 minutes of our day is dedicated to handwriting as per our new NZ Curriculum requirements.  We have never underestimated the power of teaching handwriting so that our students can enjoy being writers and getting those amazing ideas down on paper.  We have already seen a great improvement and the structure and routine is working well too.  

Check out here to learn more:

https://www.thegreatnewzealandhandwritingchallenge.net/

Why should we be investing in handwriting?

• Teaching students how to automatically write letters leads to better quality writing. 

When children can form letters easily, they gain memory space to express more interesting ideas.

• Practising letter shapes builds brain pathways for reading, helping students learn and 

remember letter patterns and words.

• Handwriting builds confidence and motivation. When students are able to hand-write easily,

 they feel better about their writing and are more motivated to write.

• Teaching handwriting is easy and fun. Students love it, and we can teach it effectively in just ten 

minutes a day.

From The Great New Zealand Handwriting Challenge

Also, it’s now a requirement  in the new English Curriculum!
What are we aiming for across our Junior School ?

From Autahi to Tautoru - Year 0 to Year 3

Curriculum requirements

First 6 months

• Form most lower-case letters and numerals correctly and legibly, with each letter or numeral on the line.

• Sit comfortably, apply a comfortable amount of pressure, and use a functional pencil grip, with support.

During the first year

• Form most lower-case letters and numerals correctly and legibly, with each letter or numeral on the line, and attending to size and spacing.

• Sit comfortably, apply a comfortable amount of pressure, and use a functional pencil grip, independently.

During the second year

• Form all letters and numerals legibly, attending to the size, placement and spacing.

• Consistently practise good posture and comfortable grip when writing.

During the third year

• Print all letters and numerals correctly and legibly, attending to size, placement, spacing, and slope with ease and automaticity.

• Consistently practise good posture and comfortable grip when writing across the curriculum.

We can't wait to see what a difference this will make to our writing !   

Tautoru Ways of Working

We have really been working hard in Tautoru to make sure that we are helping each other to be ready for learning.   

Our first step was to create our ways of working -  These are the things that we are going to do to make sure we are all working together as a whānau.   We all signed this agreement by drawing one small action we were going to do daily to keep this document living. 

Each week we have a learner attribute and a character strength focus.  This is similar to our focus word but more responsive to needs in the moment.  The strength is one we are needing to dial up or down and this is a real challenge sometimes.  

This week we focused on 'Judgment' as this led nicely on from Self Regulation.  

We unpacked the Character Strength of Judgment so that we know exactly what good judgment  looks like.  Here are some of the ideas that we came up with together. 

Dialling up our Judgment means: 

1. Making simple decisions by using careful thinking. 
2. Understanding consequences - positive and negative.  
3. Following rules and showing the way. 
4. Considering others' feelings .  
5. Weighing up options - the what 'ifs'.
6. Learning from mistakes.
7. Taking risks that are thought through from a range of angles.  

Quite a comprehensive list so always a work in progress.  As previously stated we learn a lot from trying and making mistakes here and there.   

Here are a few examples from the students.

Keeping our Tamariki Physical

 This year in Tautoru, we are learning to move in lots of different ways. This helps our brain development and stimulates us for learning in many ways. We call this PMP (Perceptual Motor Programme).

Within our physical education (P.E) programme we are following the 'Moving Smart' guidelines which cover: 

These 6 focus areas are designed to help our tamariki develop skills so that they are 'ready for learning'.

It takes a lot of effort to sit on the mat and listen to a story, to hold and use a pencil or pen correctly, to be able to pack our bags and dress ourselves and look after our own needs throughout the day.

These simple physical activies are fun and build our physical and cognitive strength.

Here's a few we've been practising so far:

Trying to stand up and sit down without using our arms and having our legs and arms crossed:

Climbing up the tyres, ladders and the climbing wall:

Practising yoga, stretching and crossing our midline:

Moving by crawling, using our left and right sides opposite to each other:

Moving backwards, using our skills of balance and coordination:

Being able to stretch our our opposite arm and leg and catch them behind us:

Swinging on the monkey bars and being able to hold our own body weight - ultimately building up to being able to do a chin-up!

If you would like to know more about the Moving Smart programme, please have a look at: https://movingsmart.co.nz/ 

and 

https://movingsmart.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Thesis.-Wendy-Pirie.-2011.pdf

Focus Words 2025

Goal Setting Meetings kicked off this week and we are so grateful for the time we had together discussing students goals, hopes and dreams for 2025 and also the perspectives that you share with us that help us get to know your child that little bit more.  We always leave these meetings with a real sense of connection and optimism about the year ahead.     Thanks again ! 

Part of our goal setting process is coming up with a focus word for the year.  This word is usually a strength based word that we can use throughout the year.  It is a powerful tool for guiding our actions, mindsets and work throughout the year. 

The intent of our focus word for 2025 is to:

• help us recognise our strengths and how we can dial these up in different ways. 

• simplify the process of goal-setting by shining a light on the things we might be good at or what we want to improve.

• be daily inspiration and a reminder that we all have different strengths to contribute to our class.

We think widely about lots of different ways we can use this strength across the curriculum.  At the end of the year we love to look back and reflect on these strengths and how we have further developed them over time. 

Here is the list of character strengths we might choose from. There are many others too.

Do you have a focus word for the year, or are you thinking of choosing one?

Our Taonga

We have spent our first 9 days together as a Tautoru whānau.  Some of us returning toTautoru as Year 3s and some starting already super familiar and comfortable in the space and with our routines and processes.  It has been lovely seeing the smiles return,  bringing our school back to life and laughter.  For the first part of the term we are really focusing on getting to know each other and what makes us special.  We are busy at work making connections between our whānau and special places, locally, regionally and globally.  We bring lots to the classroom in terms of culture and diversity and we plan on deep diving into this for a bit so that we can make sure we are celebrating this throughout the year.  

Thank you for sharing your taonga with us.  Thank you for giving us the insights and information about your child’s names and your whānau connections.  It is truly fascinating and wonderful to see the students making connections on a variety of levels.  

Here are some of the whānau taonga that students have bought to share with each other.   As we share these  with each other over the next week or so we will be updating the BLOG so that you can share in this learning too.  We have learnt so much already.  

Space Place - Learning Celebration

We had a great learning celebration -  Our students got to share all of their learning with whānau.  We also topped off our Inquiry with a visit to Space Place.   We went into the stardome to explore the night sky and also got to look through the solar telescope.   

Eye Spy with My Little Eye ....

We have been learning a bit about Our Body and how amazing our body parts are.  We had a close look at all kinds of different eyes this week.   We looked at human eyes and eyes of different animals We know that no eyeball is the same and this is only one of the things that makes us stand out and unique from each other.   

We used pastel to create bright colours,  we blended colours and added texture using shapes and colours.