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!

Kotahitanga me te Whanaungatanga

WOW !  Who would believe it is Week 4 of Term 1 already.  We have been working hard in Tautoru to create a sense of Whanaungatanga and Kotahitanga.   

In Tautoru :

Whanaungatanga is creating a sense of family and connection through shared experiences and working together .  This provides us with a sense of belonging. 

Kotahitanga is unity, togetherness and collective action.  

We have been connecting with each other in many different ways and getting to know each other so that we can nurture these positive relationships throughout the year.  

We created mixed media art works using pastels, dye, photography and writing.   We thought about our favourite things and our strengths and passions.   We will continue to learn about each other through our Positive Education and Inquiry Learning so watch this space. 

Our focus word

Our children have been hard at work this week thinking of their Character Strength focus word for 2024. This is a word that embodies their goals for the year, where they will focus their attention and grow. We have selected words such as perseverance, bravery, creativity, curiosity and kindness. These are strengths that our tamariki of course already have, but we want to channel a particular focus to take their goal setting to the next level. 

We find it helpful for students to have a visual reminder of their word in the classroom so they can see it throughout the day and remember their goals. Check out some photos of our words.

Your child has talked to their base group teacher and set particular goals relating to their their focus word. Here are a couple of examples.

"Perseverance will me go past some of my limits, I've done things that I felt too scared to do and they already and they have ended up being really fun. I want to use more bravery this year by speaking up."

"My focus word is kindness. I'm going to make sure I'm kind by including people in my games and in class. I'll take turns and practise sharing."

We are really looking forward to your goal setting catch ups, for Suz's base group next week week and Jess' the week after. 

Welcome to Tautoru 2024

 Kia ora! Welcome to our Tautoru Blog page for 2024. 

We are starting off the year learning our routines and where to find things in our classroom.

This is where we put our bags, jackets and spare clothes (in a separate named bag) for those wet days. It has a named tag which we made for our hook so we can always find it.

This is where we put our book bags. 

The yellow box is for people who read with Jess and the blue box for people who read with Suz or Hayley.

This is where we can put our drink bottles. We can have a drink of water during the day whenever we need without having to leave the classroom. 

This is a great way to stay hydrated on these hot days.

These are our tote trays. We have our own special one with our name on that we designed. 

It holds our books and special felts and coloured pencils. 

We can also use it to put work in that we would like to continue working on later.

This is our 'stage' and library area. We can read whenever we want and it also has a green table with a game on it for us to play (which changes weekly). 

This is an especially good place to go in the morning when we arrive at school as it helps us settle into our day.

And these are our 'super star' and 'super duper star' pegs.

We start every day at green (as we are all star students) but we get to move our peg up if we are demonstrating our character strengths. 

We might be showing kindness, be especially focused and trying our best, being a leader or showing bravery, to name a few.

There is also a new addition which is called the 'infinity star' which Oscar and Luke made us. This is for those extra special achievements. 

Please come and see us, we'd love to show you around!

What's the time?

 Our math focus for this week is time. Reading an analogue clock is such an important skill and our tamariki have been working hard to read times to the hour, quarter and minute. 

First we discussed how time was read before clocks existed. Students knew much more about sun dials than we thought they would! We talked about all the examples of time we see around us and also the uses for time. The most relatable was knowing when the 40 minutes for morning tea and lunch begins! 

We are learning the important difference between an hour and minute hand, what they show and why they are constantly moving. Fractions come into play with learning about half past, quarter past and quarter to, as well as our skip counting in 5's to understand those minutes!

Check out some of these photos from our learning so far, and please ask me to tell you the time at home - it requires practice! 

Junior Athletics 2023

 

This week Autahi and Tautoru got outdoors to get into some Athletics. Alongside some supportive seniors, we raced over hurdles, balanced items on spoons, threw bean bags into buckets and leaped in the long jump. 

The positivity was flowing as cheers of 'You can do it' rang out as the competitors gave it their all. The goals for the day were to try your best and have fun.

The New Zealand Curriculum outlines some key learning experiences

• Develop a wide range of movement skills, using a variety of equipment and play environments.
• Participate in a range of games and activities and identify the factors that make participation safe and enjoyable.

We take part in regular P.E. sessions and learn about ways to move your body as wells as learning new games that encourage participation. We also learn to give things a go and support each other to try our best.

Check out the different activities here:

The bean bag toss had different levels of challenge to stretch everyones skills.

Leaping through the air on the long jump!

A careful balancing act.

These sprints were neck and neck!

Finally we finished it all with an obstacle course around Big Kids Playground. It is so nice to get out and about in our space and move and play.

Autahi and Tautoru trip to Taputeranga Marine Reserve

In both Autahi and Tautoru, we have recently been using Atua as the foundation for our Inquiry. Exploring the realms of different atua has given us rich opportunities to learn about the natural world around us. 

This week, our visit to Taputeranga Marine Reserve was full of great learning about Tangaroa and the children of Tangaroa, the creatures that inhabit our ocean habitats. The Marine Education Centre at Taputeranga is devoted to the sea life of our local coastline so we were learning about creatures that we can find around Worser Bay, too.

Here is a selection of photos from our trip to give a flavour of what we saw. Doctor Victor encouraged us to be explorers, find out new things, and ask lots of questions - and we did!

Visiting the Bait House

Here, we had the chance to get hands-on with some sea stars, anemones, kina, crabs and other creatures.

Doctor Victor showed us how to use our hands like scoops to very gently pick up the animals so that we could take a closer look at them without harming them.

A cushion star and a big sea star.

This beauty is a snake star. We had to be extra-careful when picking it up to make sure we were supporting its body and legs from underneath.

Rockpooling

We also had to chance to explore the rock pools beside the Bait House. Look what we found!

How cute is this little crab?

And how lucky are we to get to spend time learning together and having fun in this beautiful spot?