The Joy of Reading

In our busy world, reading books for pleasure is becoming something we need to focus on. It is such a wonderful way to unwind. In Tautoru, after lunch, we get to read for pleasure. We connect with imaginary worlds, we extend things we are interested in or we share the joy of reading.

We share books with a friend.

We immerse ourselves in a book by ourselves.

We enjoy being read to. Here is Scott with his current chapter book.

Talk at home this week about how you might be able to keep up the joy of reading alive.

We are Learning to be Powerful

Our Learner Attribute for this term is I am Powerful. We can show this when:

• I can think about overcoming challenges 
• I am excited about new learning and I challenge myself
• I understand that not knowing is good 
• I take action 
• I keep trying and don’t give up 
• I can make decisions about my environment 

Here is a group of us being powerful by taking action. We using Positive Purpose by picking up litter.

We have been exploring and writing about what being powerful means to us. We have also been thinking about how we might develop this attribute in different ways. Here is some writing about our thinking on being powerful.

Cara: I think I need to be more powerful. When I went rock climbing for my first time it was so scary. I wanted to go to my mum.  I said "I want to get down." A guy who was next to me said "Sit down on the seat. It will pull you down." It is really fun!

Zoe: I can think about overcoming challenges. I am challenging myself to read two Dog Man books in one day!

Tommy: I am powerful because I try and don't give up. I am excited about new learning and I challenge myself because I learn how to write longer stories. I can think about overcoming challenges because I challenge myself to write three pages!

Algebra

This week in maths we started an investigation into algebra. It has been a fun start our maths learning after the holidays.

We spent the beginning of the week talking about patterns and developing questions for further investigation. 

There are patterns all around us and it has been great to create our own and then sharing the rules with our friends to recreate.

We have even headed outside to create patterns in groups with our friends. The goal is to teach our pattern to another group but we need to practice a bit more first!

 

Life cycle of Plants

As part of our inquiry into plants we have had our little garden seedlings returned to school. Many of our seeds have sprouted and we are all very excited about the measurement, care, and the eating that will happen over the next few weeks. 

In base groups this week we have spent time observing and drawing our seedlings. We have noticed how different each seedling is. We spent time sketching the different shapes and sizes of the seedlings and then visited our school garden to see more of the life cycle in action.

Our school garden has plants going to seed which has helped us to understand how seeds are dispersed and begin their own life cycle. We have also completed a life cycle of a flowering plant which made our garden visit even more connected.

Check out the blog for more posts.

Walking from Cape Reinga to Bluff!

This is the Year 3 and 4 students on our walk

School Kits challenged us to walk the length of New Zealand in a day! We needed 278 people, walking 10,000 steps each to walk from Cape Reinga to Bluff. We reached out to the community to ask you to "donate" 10,000 steps. We also did our own walk (it wasn't quite 10,000 steps but we know that we would've done 10,000 each by the end of the day!) 

This activity was designed to help us connect with the community and to promote healthy activity. 

Thank you to everyone for your donations. We made it! Now for a holiday... 

A map of our walk

Leaf Art

This week we used a rubbing technique to highlight the structure of leaves. We layered crayon and dye to create interesting effects. 

Observing Like a Scientist

 For our inquiry 'Plant Power' we have been investigating all about plants and trying to answer some of our questions.

How do plants eat?

How do they drink?

What are the different parts of the plant?

How do they use their leaves?

What are roots for?

We've learned about the process of photosynthesis and how leaves are like a kitchen: they mix the ingredients that a plant needs to make sap, their food. We also drew and labeled diagrams of leaves and the stalk of celery that showed us how plants drink and absorb water.

We have been looking closely at leaves with magnifying lenses. We discovered that leaves have veins like people do and the leaves look a lot like skin when you see it up close.

Here are a couple of interesting videos you can watch at home and talk to us about.