Mau rakau

We had a special guest today to help us with our Mahi. 

He delivered the message of striving to get to tau Mata tiki tiki- to reach your potential.

Our first lesson was to hold our rakau correctly. Whakapaipai. Green at the top, red stone the bottom.

We headed out onto the court, on a chilly Canterbury morning, where we could spread out and have plenty of room to move with our rakau.

Positive Relationships

"Co-operation is a team operation. Side by side we will not divide."

It was a bit awkward putting our arm around somebody else's shoulder, but we got over it.

We got in a circle, then had to hold the hand/arm of a person in the circle, but is not beside you. We then had to take somebody by the left hand. Finally, we had to untangle ourselves without letting go. We weren't listening properly... And we let go!

Second time around, we got there... But it was a real test of our respectful communication.

We talked about how we need to co-operate when we play sport. We can't do it on our own in a team sport. We need to work together to succeed.

Tuesday afternoons we split into kapahaka & STEM. Both of them require lots of co-operation. Positive communication goes really well with co-operation.

Our next activity... We needed to co-operate to to get our whole team on a piece of paper, without falling on the Lino. Once we did that, we could fold the paper in half to see if we could co-operate to solve the problem.

Collaboration... Working together to achieve a common goal.

Stepping up with leadership

One of our new Whakarua class members is playing hockey for the very first time. 

Erika, from Ponui-o-toka, took the time to show Joanne how to hold her stick and hit the ball. 

It was fantastic to see her taking the initiative to be there for a new South Hornby Hero!

Black sticks in action

Our first week of Winter Sport has kicked off.

We got stuck in and played hard.

Most of us had never played before, while the other team had some really good player So! 

Final score: 4 - 1 to Weedons.

Whakarua Heroes

Lucas and Reuben both received Hero awards in our celebration assembly today.

Fun with words

We have been learning about homonyms and homophones. We came up with some today, after reading our big book.

Positive Digital Footprints

We are learning to create a positive digital footprint. We often share personal information when we are online. The people we share with could be our friends and family or people we don't know. We need to make smart decisions about what personal information we share online.

Mau rakau

We split into two groups today, girls and boys. We've been working really hard on our rakau... but not many of us look like we have been behind a shovel before! Today, the girls stepped up and put some pressure on the boys. We are really looking forward to learning our new school haka!

What's the big idea?

To celebrate Book Week 2017, we had the pleasure of enjoying "What's the big idea?"

Harmonica makes a boy connect to a long Lost uncle. The big idea was memories.

The lion in the meadow is a kiwi classic. It teaches us that sometimes the things that frighten us most, turn out to be quite friendly! 

Fuzzy doodle shows us our imagination can do amazing things. An idea popped out, springing up... it can appear as anything any time. Sometimes when we want one it's hard to grab, but if you wait they start to come... the big idea was creativity.

The road to rattenburg. -Spinnaker overcame lots of obstacles and was very brave. The big idea is courage.

Spinnaker

A kahuitipua wanted to overtake a park to have it for himself! It wasn't as big and ferocious as he should have been! The rumours made it grow and grow...

Kahuitipua

A librarian (or agent of understanding) helped solve the mystery. Stories can get changed when people don't know all the details... they add bits to fill in the gaps! 

Some of our akonga helped show how a simple sentence can completely change.

Agent of Understanding

We saw, first hand, how stories can get muddled up and get out of hand! When we leave things and pretend they don't exist, things just get worse! The Kahuitipua represented imaginations. Fear made him grow bigger.

Positive Relationships

We have been learning about Praise.

"I show that I am listening, I show friends that I care, I always say nice things, Cause I'm a friend that's always there."

Animal chant

Doggy, doggy woof

Doggy, doggy woof

Doggy, doggy

woof, woof, woof

Piggy Piggy Oink

Piggy Piggy Oink

Piggy Piggy

Oink Oink Oink

Kitty Kitty Meow

Kitty Kitty Meow

Kitty Kitty 

Meow Meow Meow

It got really confusing (and funny) when we mixed them up!

We learned that we can use PPQ.

Praise

Polish

Question

If someone does a piece of work we can: 

Praise - Positive praise for it

Polish - Something they can do to improve what they've done.

Question - to find out more.

Whakarua Bunyip's

Our Big Book for this Week is 'A Bunyip in the Billabong' by Jill Eggleton.

We drew what we thought the bunyip might look like, based on the description.

Exploring Shape

We have been learning about Tessellating shapes in different ways.
Hunter used a tangram puzzle to make a chicken.
Hollie made a swan using the same Tangram puzzle.
Lochlan persisted while trying to tessellate triangles to solve a puzzle.

Check out what our akonga have been doing on their blogs! - They love getting comments!

Tesselation

We have been learning about Shape. Today, we focused on tessellation.

We tessellated shapes in a puzzle.

We tesselated shapes and them used the panel to find rotational symmetry.

History of the tangram puzzle. Tangram puzzles originated in Imperial China during the Tang Dynasty, they are thought to have travelled to Europe in the 19th century on trading ships. Tangram puzzles were popular during World War 1 and have become the most popular dissection puzzle in the world.

It was quite tricky to make the fish if you didn't put the shape in exactly the right place... then the others wouldn't connect properly.

We tessellated shapes on each side, using a ruler to show the line of symmetry.

Test driving furniture

We have been taking a new stool for a test drive!

We like the way it doesn't take up much space and we can rock a little bit while we work.

Do you have one of these in your class?

Positive Communication

This term, in Kiwican, we are learning about positive relationships. Its a little like positive communication, but we're learning about how we can use that to get along better with others. We are going to be looking at how we can treat our friends nicely and get along better.

Our new catch phrase is i show that i am listening, I show friends that i care. I always say nice things cause I'm a friend thats always there.

Shore Ship Shark

PRAISE

What is praise?

We brainstormed examples of praise.

• Amazing
• Excellent
• Good job
• I'm proud of you.
• Keep it up
• You are cool
• Brilliant
• Good score
• Best work
• Perfect
• Keep going

We are going to try really hard to give each other praise throughout the week. 

We got a sneak peak at what's coming...