Week 6, Term 1

This week in LC1 we have continued to focus on the dispositions courage and collaboration, as well as the concepts of respect and kindness. We finished up our tennis workshops and had our friends from Hobsonville Point Early Learning Centre join us for PINs again today. We're still keen to hear from parents or other family members about workshops you could run for PINs. If you have an idea but you're not sure how to make it happen, have a chat to your child's guardian teacher and we will work it out together. If your child would like to run a workshop you can talk to their guardian teacher about this too. We love for our students to lead workshops on the things they're excited about and interested in. 

Here's a video of this week's PINs activities. Enjoy!

This week our school met together to launch our Buddy Bench. A student from LC1 last year came up with the idea of having a buddy bench in the playground so that if students don't have anyone to play with, they can sit on the bench and other students will see them and invite them to play. This student planned and executed the buddy bench as their project learning for the term. Our students all know what it looks like (it is brightly coloured and will be in the school's main play area) so if your child talks about not having someone to play with during break times, please encourage them to use the Buddy Bench. 

Our students are really enjoying their Grasshopper Soccer and Playball sessions. We hope they're telling you all about the skills they're learning. 

Our Take Home Toys have been a wonderful way for our students to share about themselves and some of their favourite things to do at home. On Fridays when our toys come back to school the students who took them home share their adventures with our guardian groups. This develops their oral language and helps them gain confidence when talking to larger groups. Our other students look forward to hearing these stories and during this time they are learning to listen intently and be a respectful audience. Thank you so much for your support with our Take Home Toys at home. We really appreciate the time and effort you've all put into making our toys a member of your family for the week and creating pages for our books. Every child will get a turn to bring home their guardian group's toy so if you haven't had a visit yet, it will happen. 

Week 5 Term 1

Our week began with a very exciting “Cultural Day” on Monday. This was how we were kick starting our next Immersion phase which will be on Identity. We had a lovely assortment of costumes from a variety of cultures from England, Tonga, China, Korea, Russia, New Zealand, India, Africa and Holland. Our day involved participating in a variety of art and craft activities reflecting different countries. We also had some lovely parents come in and run workshops including; Dutch baking, An insight into Scotland, Mexican art and Indian cooking.We also had a NZ workshop where we learnt the Haka and some rugby skills.

This week we have been focusing on the concept of ‘Respect.’ We have been learning how this relates to how we work with others and how we care for our environment. We will continue to reflect on this daily. Please discuss this concept at home and help support students with tidying up after themselves and showing respect for others feelings through their words and actions. Here is a link to a story from our Bucket Filler sessions where a boy called Felix is learning how his bucket can be filled or emptied through his own and others actions. Take a look at this at home together: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4gjjB3PWu8

We are continuing to reflect as a team on our planning systems and have begun to set up planning boxes for groups of students to access follow up activities. This is something that is a Work in Progress and is encouraging the students to self manage their time and resources. We will keep you informed on how this is going. 

Our Pins workshops continue to be a great success feel free to contact us if you would like to run a session next Friday.

Week 4, Term 1

This week we have been busy in LC1 continuing to learn about collaboration and courage.  We are working hard to work together with our buddies in the common.  

On Thursday Playball lessons started after school with lots of very excited children.  We also had our second session of Tennis Monsters.

We also had some fantastic PINs workshops today, which the children enjoyed.  It was great to have our Kindy friends join us for our second session.  There were so many choices from pizza making, mobilo, rippa rugby, obstacle courses, dancing to drawing and painting and even a mathematics workshop.

Week 3, Term 1

This week we got to try lots of new experiences in LC1! 

We had Play Ball and tennis workshops which the students really enjoyed. We have also been learning some new art techniques as well as running our first round of PINs and our guardian group's take home toys had their first visits with some of our LC1 friends. 

PINS

This Friday was our first week running PINs (Passions, Interests, Needs workshops). These workshops are run by our teachers, parents from LC1, other family members, older HPPS students, and also our LC1 students. From next week, we will also have some children from Hobsonville Point Early Learning Centre attend our PINs workshops too. These workshops are an opportunity for our students and their whånau to share their interests and expertise with our Common. If you're keen to run a workshop for us, we'd absolutely love to hear from you! This could be anything of your choice; from drawing, cooking, gardening, something you do for work, to crafts, etc. Email your child's guardian teacher and we will happily support you through the process of planning and running your workshop. 

Take Home Toys

Each guardian group has their own take home toy. Each student will get a chance to have their group's take home toy visit their house at some stage throughout the year. Our students and teachers will choose who brings the toy home each week. The toy will come home on a Friday and needs to be returned to school the following Friday so the next person can take it home. When the toy visits your home, there's no need to do anything special with it, just allow your child to make the toy a member of your family for the week and then help them to create a page in the accompanying book to show what your child did during the visit. The students are very excited about this and we hope it's a bit of fun for the whole family.

Weeks 1 and 2 Term 1 2017

Hello Everyone!

We have had a great two weeks in LC1. We have been working really hard to build relationships with the children and encouraging them to build relationships with each other.  We have spent time focusing on our dispositional growth and in particular we have been looking at courage - what it means and what it looks like in practice.  We have set up a number of group activities to challenge the children, encourage collaboration and promote courage.  So far we have tried to build the tallest tower using newspaper and teams had to come up with and play games with only three pieces of sports equipment.  

Ambassador Elections

After much discussion, preparation AND anticipation, we finally held our election for the LC1 Ambassadors.

An ambassador was a role that we decided would be really valuable to LC1. Someone who is a good leader, who can support the learning of others, speak to and show visitors around our space and generally be a good role model.

Once children had indicated an interest in the role, they attended a number of workshops.  These included watching or listening to speeches made by famous people throughout history - Martin Luther King Jnr, Malala Yousafzai, Winston Churchill.  We thought about what makes a powerful speech and how to go about delivering one.

The children made some time available at school to work on their speech and they also spent time at home working on it. 

All the children and adults in the Zoom Room and LC1 voted for their three favourite candidates. The results were very close.  In fact, three candidates won 12 votes so we have ended up with 8 ambassadors as opposed to the 6 we had originally decided on.

Each and every candidate did a fabulous job and we are extremely proud of them all.  Congratulations to everyone who participated in this process.  We know that it wasn't easy and that it took courage to stand up in front of everyone and deliver your speech.  Well done to the candidates that were appointed ambassadors.  And to those that missed out, we are looking forward to providing you with another chance to become an ambassador early in term 4.

Below are the speeches from our candidates.

Hello everyone, my name is Daniel.  I am a student from LC1.  I want to be an ambassador because I can show people around and I can help people’s learning.  Also I can show my learning to other people.  Thank you.

Hi Everyone,
There are many reasons I think I would be a great ambassador for our class LC1.

• I have a lot of experience in LC1 as I have been here for nearly 2 years!
• I know the learning model, teachers and routine of our day.
• I am not shy and I am very confident.
• I am a kind, friendly and fair boy.
• I will be on duty and show visitors around with enthusiasm.
• I will be helpful when needed to the teachers and children in class.
• I love my school and I will do my very best to represent everyone.

Please vote Dylan! I will make you proud! Thank you.

Hi, I'm Diego and I'm a student from LC1 that wants to be an ambassador. An ambassador is a kind of person that shows new people around the school so the visitors know where everything is. I want to be an ambassador because I think that I'm confident, brave and not shy for the job. I am very friendly to other people and like to help them when I can. Sometimes starting a new school can be scary. So when I am an ambassador new students don't need to be afraid because I will be here to help them. Please vote for me. I am the best ambassador for LC1.

Hi I am Finn. I would like to be an ambassador because I think I'll be a good role model. I always focus on my work and help tidy up, when the common is a bomb site after we've all been working very hard.

It is really important to look after new kids and to make them feel happy and safe. I use my initiative because I pick up someone else's rubbish without being told to and also if someone looks sad I go and help them sort out what's wrong.

When visitors visit our school, they want to know how we learn. I explain to them that teachers write options on the board and we look at the options and decide what we want to do during the day.

Please vote for me! I think I would be a really great ambassador.

Hello my name is Beth. I would like to be an ambassador. If I become and ambassador I will show grown ups around and help children with their work. Thank you.

Hi my name is Franiu and I would like to be an ambassador. I'm a good helper and I'm OK to talk to different people. I know about school and I'm friendly. Please vote for me.

Hello everybody. I'm Janneke. I would like to be an ambassador so that I can help the teachers, help all the new kids and help and talk to visitors. Please select me so I can help you. Thank you.

Hi I am Isaac. I am going to tell you why I will be a good ambassador. I am not shy and I help people out. I am friendly and good at talking to people. I can also talk about my learning.

I think I can be a good ambassador because I'm not shy to talk to people. And I'm good at helping people with their learning. I especially like helping others with their Maths. Also I know how LC1 works. And I like showing visitors around. Theo.

I want to be an ambassador because I am good at tidy up time and showing others what to do. I want to show visitors around the class and tell them how we do things. I like helping the teacher and others. Jeremy

Hi my name is Joshua and I would like to be an ambassador. I will show people around. Thank you for listening.

I think I will be a good ambassador because I am not shy. I care about others. I will be a good person. From Zoe.

Hello Everybody. I'm Olivia. I would like to be an ambassador. I would like to help the teachers. If I become an ambassador I would show visitors around and help kids in LC1. And I would help my friends with their work. Thank you.

Avani's speech to be posted after the holidays.

Special Visitors From Japan

We were really lucky to host students from a school in Japan this term.  We were looking forward to watching a performance from the students but had no idea that they had some fantastic workshops up their sleeves!!!  Check out what we got up to below!

Traditional Game
We played a traditional Japanese game which involved singing a song and then playing a game of Paper Scissors Rock. The winner then got to choose a player to come over to their team.  The winners were the team with the most members.

Sumo

We competed in our very own Sumo competition.  The winner got to wear a really cool sumo wig!

Origami

The students taught us how to make paper planes.

Drawing Traditional Symbols

We learnt how to draw some traditional Japanese symbols as well as the Japanese flag. We took our time and were very happy with the results!