Positive Emotions: Learning about optimism with Magical Moments

This week we have begun to learn strategies to help us grow our optimism. Optimism is all about finding ways to solve problems or build our positive outlook during challenging times.

This week's strategy is called Magical Moment. Capturing a moment that we've enjoyed by think about it carefully helps us to build positive thinking brain connections and fills our bodies with positive emotions. You can learn more about the science behind this here.

Magical Moments can be as simple as remembering something delicious, a funny joke, or a special moment with someone we care about. The most important part is spending time thinking and absorbing all the positives about the experience.

Over the coming weeks we will practise this strategy and learn a few new ones as well. 

Communicating learning through the Arts- Matariki

For our inquiry this term we are learning about all the different stars of the Matariki cluster (Pleiades). Each star holds a particular meaning in Te Ao Māori (The Māori World). We are learning through dance, drama and poetry and will be sharing our discoveries during the Arts celebration.

We watched this clip that explains the different meanings of the Matariki cluster:

Here is some of the art pieces that are taking shape to inspire our ideas:

Dance routines are coming together....

Poems are ready to be added to the music...

Matariki

Matariki dancing around the sky 

bringing people together

Matariki the biggest star

Matariki the healer 

Firing flames cooking kumara

Cooking yummy kumara 

over the flaming fire

Cooking delicious kumara 

so the steam feeds the stars

Matariki

Reminds us to come together

Reminds us to look after 

and enjoy nature.

Dragons Breath, Kittens, and Wild Horses

Scott's literacy group have been reading and writing poems this week. It has been fun to unpack what a poem looks, sounds, and feels like along with giving it a go in our writing sessions.

For our Arts Celebration in week 5 (more on that over the next couple of weeks so keep your eyes posted!) we are planning to write poems in teams to reflect our learning and the focus for our performances. So this week has been a great opportunity to get our minds and creativity buzzing after the break.

Here are some examples from this week with more to come soon!

Wild Horses

Wild Horses
Gallop past rivers and meadows and grasslands.
They stop to have a break

By Sammy M


When wild horses run the ground gets dusty.
Wild horses find food which is grass.

Samuel P



The horses gallop in the creepy, dark forest!
Then to water to all drink.
But then, which way to go out of the forest?

By Jugni


A herd of wild horses is fast.
But one day the herd went to a spooky forest.
It was quiet.
Suddenly, they were spooked.

By Raife


Wild horses race through the forest.
The ground shakes like an earthquake.
They run with their babies.

By Ava

Kittens

Kittens chase each other and fight each other.
They play with each other.
They rest and sleep and love each other.

By Arthur


Kittens play with their friends
And sleep with their mums.

By Esme-Rose


Cats scratch curtains.
Cats chase and catch mice.
They bring them in the house.

By Locky


Kittens feel like a really soft rag.
Kittens pounce like tigers.
They look like fluffy balls.
They like to take naps in the sun like lions.

By Lexi


Kittens start off as small as a chair.
They grow as big as a teddy.
They are soft as a hairy blanket.
They have fur like a lions.

By Alice


Wild horses race past rivers.
Wild horses run through high grass.
Their hooves thomp, thomp
as the sand flies up.
The horses speed through the woods and past trees.

By Milli

Dragons Breath

Dragon went hunting.

He was very hungry for a pig.

He smelt like rotten eggs.

By Frankie

My dragon does a flip.

He looks like a crazy dragon.

He can fly to the moon.

By Leo

The dragon is looking for food.

He is not good at making food.

So he searches for a road.

By Scarlett

Nic and Mikayla's Whānau Group: Learning about Puanga

In Nic and Mikayla's Whānau group, we wrote collaborative poems to signify the importance of Punaga. We also created some star art! It was great to learn with other people across the school.

Here are some of the poems that we wrote:

Marble Run

Wednesday this week Tautoru put on their creative, problem solving hats to create marble runs! Weta Workshop are running a competition to see how schools in the Wellington area can work together to create marble runs out of "stuff".

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We started the morning exploring our materials and there was a lot of experimentation with ramps and jumps, tunnels and turns. So much fun.

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We had a lot of success with getting our marbles to zoom around the classroom and with a bit of help from the teachers managed to share our runs at the end of the day.

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Positive Health at the ASB Centre

We are so fortunate to have a facility like the ASB Sports Centre so nearby. Our visit this term (our first trip for the year!) was filled with challenge and fun. The coaches took us through the skills of gymnastics, netball and cricket. It was a wonderful chance for us to use bravery and teamwork to learn together.

Cricket involved practising our underarm and overarm throws, as well as hitting with the bat.

For netball we practised ball-handling skills, shooting and then having a go at some mini-games. Trying not to run with the ball during the games was the biggest challenge.

Gymnastics was super fun as well as having some very good balance and coordination challenges.

Another great day working on our Positive Health while the rain and wind were blowing outside!

The Writing Programme - writing workshops

It was great to see many of you join for the Writing Webinar last night where Ximena, Carl and John discussed how we teach Writing at school.

We all know writing involves so many different skills. To deliver a balanced writing programme, we make sure we target each skill throughout the week, term and year. Sometimes this may be in the form of specific handwriting lessons and writing fictional stories, recounts and other non-fiction texts. Other times, we teach writing workshops that target specific skills. Writing skills targeted in writing workshops can include sentence structure, using wow words, editing and many more!

Below you can see snapshots of some Tautoru kids honing in on their editing skills. As there are so many different things to think about in Writing, writing workshops are used to target specific skills in isolation (well as much isolated practice as possible!).

In this writing workshop, Mikayla wrote an incorrect sentence on the board. The students corrected full stops, capital letters and spelling mistakes with a word card for support. This allows the kids to begin to develop editing skills which we then reinforce and continue to practise when editing their own writing pieces.