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!

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.