Thank you so much to all of the families that joined us this morning for breakfast to celebrate Matariki. It was so lovely to see you all and was great to see families making connections with other families. We feel so lucky to have such a supportive community. We have included the link to the Matariki Macarena for you to enjoy at home!!! A copy of our performance is on Seesaw.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUabtRqF1tU We have been learning lots about Matariki and been creating lots of great art work during play. This morning we used our class ipads to find Matariki on our skyview app. If you want to see if you can find it using the app at home you are looking for Pleiades. Below we have included some photos that we took this morning.
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We had so much fun learning about the Sun and the planets! Dr Smalley came to see us for Science and told us all about the Sun and interesting facts about all of the planets. We then learnt all about the earth and the sun and had a cool song as our poem that helps us remember it. We have included the video on Seesaw. After that we created lots of interesting pictures that shared our learning. We also sang this really cool song that taught us all about the planets and what makes them special. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did! This week was Sea week so we decided to have Discovery Friday all about Under the Sea. After Celebration of Learning we had Dr Smalley come to Kōwhai for Science and talk to us all about whales and some other creatures that live under the ocean. He taught us heaps of interesting facts about how big whales were (almost the length of our classroom!) and how big their hearts were. We also talked about how long they could hold their breath for and Tate showed us some video clips all about what whales, dolphins and sharks eat.
We had lots of students bring in books and interesting things from home all about creatures under the sea. In the afternoon we had a chance to attend workshops run by the children who brought in interesting things. Those children shared interesting facts, books and bones with us. Today's Discovery topic was 'Dream Big'. Earlier this week, Mrs Sands was 'told off' by one of the Kōwhai kids for using a screwdriver, because "ladies don't do that". So that got us all thinking - are there jobs that only boys can do? Are there jobs that only girls can do? Are there tools that only boys can use? Are there tools that only girls can use? We asked some of our parents to help us out. Helen made a Facebook post, and have a look at what happened! Wow - we couldn't believe the response! Helen received over 300 photos from people sharing their jobs, and how hard they had worked to get there. So today we talked about all these jobs. We talked about who would do each job, and reinforced the idea that anybody can do any job. We talked lots about mahi (hard work), and mahitahi (team work), about perseverance, determination, and 'stickability' (grit). We listened carefully as all sorts of amazing speakers visited us and shared their jobs with us, and we shared a song with each of them to say 'kia ora', thanks for sharing and giving us your time. We guessed what each person did before they told us about their job...
We started the day with a list of jobs that we sorted into 'boys' jobs, 'girls' jobs, or anyone's jobs. At the end of the day, we videoed what we thought about those jobs! Have a look at the difference! What an amazing day. The Kōwhai teachers are absolutely blown away by the support of these speakers, and their willingness to drop everything and come and share at a moment's notice. The Kōwhai kids have all had their ideas and understandings stretched a little, and know that it is perseverance and determination that get you somewhere, not whether you are a boy or a girl.
Feel free to comment below if you have your own story you want to add! PS - we have loads more stories, photos and videos to share, and an engineering challenge for Monday! Watch this space and we'll update this story as it continues... "Under the sea, under the sea, darling it's better, down where it's wetter, take it from me" We all agree - today was a jawsome Discovery Friday! Lots of children had been busy making things at home to share today. Jack made an awesome poster about whales, and Leo made an aquarium full of interesting sea creatures! Jack brought his fishing license, Ivy brought her mermaid tale along, and Larisa brought a video for us to watch (we're saving that for next week!)
We looked at some information on the internet to find out about the mantis shrimp - a really beautiful but dangerous little sea creature that can break through glass to get to his prey!
We finished the day with lots of questions that we want to investigate next week - "why does a whale have a hole on his back?"; "how big is a whale's eye?"; "how do fish sleep?" and lots more! If you've got time in the morning next week to help with our research, we'd love to see you in our Community! And quite by chance, Mrs Sands got an email with a link to a website with loads of interesting 'under the sea' activities, It turns out this week was Seaweek! What a coincidence! You might want to have a look at some of the videos and activities on this website over the weekend. What an exciting day - we can't wait to see what we discover next week! (Parents - we'd love it if you left a comment below to let us know you'd been here! We'll share these with the children next week. It could be a comment about something your child enjoyed from today, or some new learning from over the weekend - it could even be a photo or a link to another 'under the sea' activity!)
It was lovely to meet so many parents at tonight's Powerful Connections meeting, and to hear the level of interest in our programme. As we mentioned, we're really proud of our Learning Community and the chance we've got to do something different, and we love sharing our programme with anyone who will listen! There were a number of questions that we just weren't able to answer tonight. Thank you to those who took the time to record their questions, and to those who waited in the hope we might get to their question in the second presentation. We are sorry we couldn't get to them all! We will be working through and answering these, and will set up a new page for questions once we've answered a few. This page will also include the option to ask on-going questions, and we will continue to add and answer these. As explained tonight, the questions will be submitted and moderated, so you won't see your question appear immediately. Please do continue to ask your questions - they help us to ensure our programme is robust, and that it will stand up to scrutiny. One question that was asked tonight was why have we waited until Week 5 to hold this meeting. In previous years we have held these evenings in Week 2 or 3 of the first term. This year we have seen considerable change at all levels of our school. Every community learning space is now a flexible learning environment, and most communities are teaching in very different circumstances (and with different team make-ups) to last year. It was a deliberate choice to wait until Week 5 to allow teachers across the school time to settle into their teaching spaces and to settle into their class programmes. For those of you who weren't able to join us tonight, below you will find links to the handouts we gave out, as well as the presentation we shared. Please feel free to talk to your child's pod teacher about any queries you may have. Welcome to the Kowhai Community (presentation)
and this is not a trivial pursuit."(Alfred Adler) We've had a busy few weeks at school! We've spent lots of time exploring our new environment and finding lots of different ways to play with each other and different resources. Our teachers are very grateful to the community for their support with resources. We wanted to share what we've been up to so far... There's been lots of sandpit play - a big hit on hot days! We've been digging trenches, filling containers, making mud and driving our diggers and dump trucks along the tracks. We're learning to work together, be creative, share equipment and experiment with different textures. Most importantly, we're having lots of fun! We've had lots of creativity inside as well - there's been drawing, train tracks, dinosaurs and tea parties. We've been using our imaginations, lots of oral language skills, and lots of negotiation skills with others. There's been lots of construction inside (just when we thought all the construction at school had finished!) There's been some great teamwork and co-operative building, and lots of opportunity for creativity, fine motor skills, imaginative play and problem-solving. And there's been LOADS of construction outside! We've negotiated rules for our games, made our own equipment (weapons usually!), played variations of Minecraft in real life (lots of mining for diamonds!) and showed great self management. We've also shown persistence and perseverance to use hammers, nails and saws - this building stuff is hard work! Thanks to Cam for coming to give us a few pointers. What a busy start to the year! Our teachers can't wait to see what will be created next week!
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About usWe are the kids in the Kowhai Community at West Melton School. We are a New Entrant / Year 1 class with four teachers! They are Mrs Herring, Mrs Beaumont, Mrs Buckenham, and Mrs Dunlop. Archives
June 2019
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