Week 1 Term 3

Space Place

Welcome back to a new term.  We trust you all had a lovely break.  We are straight back in to some exciting learning as we enter our Immersion phase on Space.  This has really captured the children's interest and they have a lot of wonderings.  Our Space Place has been born and we can't wait to see how it develops over the coming weeks.

The children have drawn and painted their own aliens which we will put up in the Space Place on the planet they have made.  We have also made aliens out of play dough and we took a photo to record our creations.

                             

We are very much looking forward to our trip to Star Dome on Monday to both provoke more thought and answer some of our questions.

Kerry and Rosie

Cultural Day!

Wow! What a fabulous day! It was wonderful to see this so embraced by the whole school! This has formed part of our immersion on 'What's Out There?' Learning Common One were certainly very excited! We spent the day taking part in different workshops, we had Chinese dragons, Maori headbands, Pacific art patterns, flag making, African tribal necklaces and Harakeke weaving.  On top of that we ate a huge range of food from many different cultures during our shared lunch and did a costume parade!  A huge THANK YOU to everyone who made our day so successful.

Week 6 Term 2

Hi Families 

Immersion Learning
We have started our new Immersion Learning this week. It is entitled 'What Is Out There?' We have started by looking at what is out there in terms of our immediate environment, Hobsonville Point. We went on a walk around the neighbourhood to see what is out there!!! We were looking in particular at signs, evidence of change and how much of nature has been left behind.

   

    

We said goodbye to the Moana Room today and welcomed the Construction Room. Again this is a work in progress and will morph and grow as the weeks go by. Come and check it out!

The Trust Licence 
Freya and Madison have been the first proud recipients of a Trust Licence for our Learning Common. We are hoping that many more will be given out over the coming weeks.

Workshops 
This week has seen another great example of child led workshops. It became quite obvious that Mikelis knew more than both Rosie and I about Google Earth so he led a very successful workshop focussing particularly on how Hobsonville Point used to look.

Kerry and Rosie

Week 5 Term 2

Hi Families, Week 5 is all but over!! We are looking forward to our Celebration of Learning on Monday. More details will follow shortly. Advisory Time This week we carried on with our focus on collaborating effectively with others. We role played how to join in with a group of children who are already playing. We practised MOVING closer, WATCHING and waiting for a gap, ASKING with a brave voice.

Project Based Learning We were thrilled to see the mermaid costumes take shape this week. The mermaid groups worked exceptionally hard and all the groups finished their costume. It was amazing to see the girls so confident and capable on the sewing machine-what a great experience and an amazing finished result!!

You might have seen a new addition to our outside space. The boat builders added the finishing touches to their boat this week and it now takes pride of place outside. The children have already had so many adventures in it and sailed to faraway lands!!! We had a request from the children to turn our playhouse into a Mermaid Cave yesterday so Rosie and I turned into furniture movers after school and shifted the furniture out and tried our best to create a Mermaid Cave!! Come and look at the result so far. The 'house' furniture was moved into the large breakout space and has already been turned into a cafe today. We can't wait to watch and see that develop.

Week 4, Term 2

Advisory Time

We have continued with our focus on collaborating effectively with others this week.  We worked on key phrases to help us "Can I play/work with you?" and "STOP it I don't like it". The children then worked collaboratively on activities.  We then reflected and the children positioned themselves in either 'supported', 'self managing' or 'self directed' for this learning. 

Project Based Learning

This week the pirate costume group have made their costumes! If you can, please do come in and look through their learning journey book and see their final costume in the design studio.

Narrative Writing

WOW is all we can say.  The children have blown us away with their creative ideas, positive image of themselves as writers and the progress they have made.  This week we have worked on the middle of the story - the problem and the rule of three (try, try and solve). Some children have written full narratives and begun the editing and publishing process. Come and see our publishing book! 

Term 2 Week 3

Hi Everyone!

We have had a great week this week.  Our project based learning has really taken off, with the buyers from the costume groups going to spotlight to purchase the material and Grandad Ken (our woodwork expert) coming in to work with our boat builders!  Most of us have also had a great week with writing narratives.  We have been exploring known narratives and looking closely at some common features e.g. what do most narratives say in the beginning?  Some of us have begun writing the beginning and others have worked on writing full narratives.  We are blown away by their use of language and creativity!

We have also been very interested in beginning to use cms to measure material, people and wood, linking directly to our projects.  We have learnt to use tape measures and next week there will be workshops available for the children to take this learning further.  

During advisory time on Tuesday we focussed on collaboration.  There were lots of different collaborative tasks for the children, some supported and others not.  The children then plotted themselves - deciding whether they were 'supported', 'self managing' or 'self directed' for this activity.  This will be an on-going focus this term. 

Week 1 Term 2

Welcome back Families! We hope you had a restful holiday. It was wonderful to see 24 excited children happy to be back, chatting madly to each other, sharing experiences with a great attitude towards their learning in term two. The children have starting working in their project based learning groups. They are so excited to get going! We are seeing some amazing inventive thinking in action. This week we have had Constable Lorena in to teach us all about walking, car, bike and scooter safety. We have also been lucky enough to be part of an art project with Tiffany Singh. All children have painted a wind chime and the art will form a big piece of art in our community. Watch this space! Arahonui, Rosie and Kerry