We are learning about the properties of a square and problem solving together. We explored the concept of “squareness.” We know that a square has 4 equal sides and 4 right angles.
Wednesday 18 August 2021
Squareness- Problem Solving
We are learning about the properties of a square and problem solving together. We explored the concept of “squareness.” We know that a square has 4 equal sides and 4 right angles.
Tuesday 17 August 2021
City Gallery Visit Whakapapa- Our Stories
As part of our Inquiry- Whakapapa: Our Stories, we visited the City Gallery. We learned about our connection to the Johnson Witehira mural ‘Ngā Kākano The Seeds’ (near Te Ngākau Civic Square) and created artworks based on our pepeha.
The City Gallery education team taught about the story behind the mural: the whakapapa of Taraika who Whāngahui-a-Tara (the great harbour of Tara- Wellington) is named after. He was a chief who descended from the great navigator Whatonga who sailed to Aotearoa in Kurahaupō Waka.
Some of us use Whānaganui-a-Tara in our pepeha as our moana (ocean) because it is our harbour too, so now we can make the connection between our story and Taraika.
Thursday 12 August 2021
The Gruffalo
This week we have been dialling up our Creativity to describe the Gruffalo. We revisited descriptive language such as adjectives, similes and metaphors.
Check out some of our author's work below.
Here is a read aloud of The Gruffalo story if you haven't read the book yet. We love it!
The Whakapapa of Ranginui and Papatuanuku
This week, we learnt more about the Atua and children of Ranginui and Papatuanuku.
Haumiatiketike is the atua of wild and uncultivated foods. To explore our learning about Haumiatiketike, Ximena showed us some harakeke (flax) weaving she has been doing as harakeke is one of the children of Haumiatiketike. Then, we did some weaving.
Rūaumoko is the atua of earthquakes and volcanoes. Here is a story to learn more about this atua that we watched together.
After we learned about all of Ranginui and Papatuanuku's children, we did a sorting activity to sort who the atua's children belong to (e.g. Rongomātane's children are kūmara and carrots).
This afternoon we put together all of our learning so far and did some quick role plays of the whakapapa of Ranginui and Papatuanuku. Check out Seesaw to watch the videos.
Ask us at home to talk about the whakapapa of Ranginui and Papatuanuku!
Thursday 5 August 2021
Inquiry: Our Stories - The stories of Tangaroa and Tāwhirimatea
Through our inquiry 'Our Stories' we will learn about whakapapa. Whakapapa is a Māori concept that helps us to make connections between our past, our environment and who we are today. We have been learning our pepeha (our family whakapapa) and have also begun to learn about the whakapapa of Te Ao Māori (the Māori world). Māori whakapapa begins with the story of Ranginui, Papatūanuku and their children.
You can watch the story of Ranginui and Papatūanuku here:
This week we learned about two of Rangi and Papa's children: Tangaroa (the guardian or the ocean) and Tāwhirimatea (the guardian of the wind). We made windmills to connect to Tāwhirimatea who will make our windmills move outside, and we also went to the beach to learn about the story of Tangaroa.