Week 3, Term 4

Welcome to Term 4!

A slightly late welcome to Term 4! This term we have opened our 'Zoom Room' Reception Space for our children starting school this term.  We welcome Fiona who is teaching in that space this term and all of the children and their Whanau who have and will join us.

Te Reo and Kapa Haka

Last week we began Te Reo workshops with Matua Araz.  We also had a taster session of Kapa Haka.  We will continue to have Te Reo workshops every Wednesday and some of us will attend Kapa Haka on Thursday afternoons.  

Creativity Projects

This term we are working towards putting on a show.  We have chosen the book "What the Ladybird Heard" by Juila Donaldson to recreate and add our own spin on it.  We have three main project groups:

Drama Group: The actors and narrator focussing on key elements of drama and the dispositional goals - Can I see the end point I am working towards? and Can I take on new and different roles?

Technology Group: This group has subgroups within it - costume designers and makers, props and backdrop.  The children are planning and reviewing their designs before finally making them.  They are working on the dispositional goals - Can I see the end point I am working towards and Can I come up with new ideas?

Dance Group: This group has two subgroups within in it - the ladybird dancers and the police dancers. The children are working on the key elements of dance as well as the dispositional goals of - Can I see the end point I am working towards and Can I come up with new ideas?

We are hoping to perform our show at the end of the term. 

Sign Language

On Friday mornings we have the pleasure of Ava visiting us.  Ava will start full time in LC1 next year.  Ava uses sign language to communicate and we have all been trying hard to learn some signs so that we can communicate with her.  We have been learning some songs on Friday mornings, both singing and signing!

PINs

As well as some excellent student led PINs (Passions, Interests and Needs, last week Trudy led a bird watching workshop. The children made their own binoculars and then went to see if they could spot any birds! This week she led a workshop on Traditional Korean games.  Thanks Trudy, you always lead fabulous PINs workshops!

Week 4, Term 3

Week 4, Term 3

Another great week! 

This week, we have been continuing with our projects and gym kids sessions. Some of us in LC1 also had their first session of grasshopper soccer in the gym. 

Te Reo and Tikanga

We have been rotating in our guardian groups for Te Reo and Tikanga. We have been learning how to ask someone what their name is and how to respond in Te Reo. We have also been doing decorating feathers and weaving to put together for our LC1 Korowai that can be worn on special occasions. 

Singing Time 

For the past few weeks, we have been singing on Friday afternoons. LC1 and LC3 come together and sing different songs, led by Sharee. We have been really enjoying these sessions and it's really great to see some passionate singers. This is a great way for both commons to come together.

Portal

This week, only one guardian group could go to the library, as we had to have a big clean up for our cubbyholes. We are trying to keep the cubby areas tidy which is part of 'managing ourselves'. We will have the other two guardian groups go to the portal next week. 

PINS

Another great week of PINS! We are having lots of children who are keen to be leaders- which is great! Many thanks to our parents and grandparents who come in to help run our PINS workshops. Great to see everyone very excited to be part of our PINS workshops. 

Weeks 2 and 3, Term 3

We've had a great two weeks in LC1. Our projects are well underway now. We've also enjoyed our gym kids session and welcomed more new children and their families. 

Gym Kids

So far we have had two of our four gym kids sessions on Wednesdays. We have two more sessions left in weeks 4 and 5. We have been working on balance, handstands and forward rolls.

Projects

In week 3, the 'Animal Babies' group went on a visit to Hobsonville Veterinary Hospital. Dr Deborah Sampson was kind enough to answer some questions that we had prepared for her. She also showed us lots of important tools vets use and interesting things like animal xrays!

Learning Advisory Time

We have be learning what to do when someone is doing something to us that we don't like. We talked about the different steps - 

1. Say 'Stop it, I don't like it!'

2. Get help.

We discussed why getting help is important and who we could get help from e.g. Leaders wearing yellow jackets outside, duty teachers, friends, older students and our own teacher. 

This learning comes under the dispositions of managing self and collaboration. We are going to be looking closely at our Trust Licenses next week and co-creating ideas about what those with Trust Licenses should be allowed to do and what you have to do to get a Trust License. 

Week 1 Term 3

Week 1 Term3

Hello and Welcome to Term 3!

We have had a great start to the Term with the children running their own PINS workshops from LC1. Our blog this week will share and celebrate PINS and how excited some of the children were to run their first PINS workshop. We had lots of children who gained confidence seeing their peers take a PINS workshop and wanted to their own one next week! We also had some international students who took a PINS workshop with Trudy. They had great fun and most of all, the scones were delicious! 

We also started our project. These projects are teacher led inquiries, based on the interests and questions that the children had. They fell out of our immersion on the concept of 'Energy' last term. 

Watch this space for more project updates next week! 

Weeks 6, 7 and 8, Term 2

Immersion

We have changed our timetable this term and currently have immersion workshops four mornings a week.  Over the past three weeks we have had some exciting experiences focussed on our concept of energy.

Scales, Feathers and Fur

For weeks 6 and 7 our focus was the living world of science. We were lucky enough to have living eggs in our learning common! Throughout this context our key questions were:

Do animals have energy?

How do animals get energy?

How do animals use or save their energy?

For this context, our writing was fully integrated to make it as authentic as possible.  Some of us focussed on writing full information reports and others linking emergent writing to the context where possible. 

We have also been linking our priority learning to our immersion context to make the learning authentic.  On our maths table we have been sorting animals and creating venn diagrams.  In art we have looked at different animal patterns and creating our own animals. 

PINS

PINS has been a great success over the past few week.  Ranging from visiting dogs and guinea pigs to learning about Matariki.  The children have had a range of hands on experiences working with a variety of people.  It has been wonderful to see some of our younger children and others that find leading challenging taking on a leadership role and running their own workshops too. 

Maths

In target maths workshops we have been working on the concept of doubling and halving.  Firstly some groups looked at doubling numbers.  We used the 'Doubles Rap' to help us!  You can try it at home too...

We are now working on recognising halves and quarters of shapes and some children are working on finding halves and quarters of sets. 

PE

Four mornings a week we start our day with PE.  This term we have focussed on large ball skills. We have PE in our guardian groups and learn a large ball sport for 6 workshops before changing over.  By the end of the term all children will have had football (soccer), basketball, netball and rugby workshops. We have found it a really successful way to start the day and the children have too!