Learner Attributes continued

Learner Attributes.

We are continuing to explore the Learner Attributes on a daily basis and talking to each other about them and how we can develop them.  They are displayed in so many amazing ways in the classroom and around the school.

I am a Goal Setter:

This piece by Oto shows the intensity of the Taniwha, focusing on achieving its goals.

I am connected:

Charlie, Arabella, Pippa, Janne and Gemma were yelling, “Look how we are connected!”  A lovely expression of the idea of connection spilling over into the playground.

I am Powerful:

Parker’s poster which is his response to the ideas we have been exploring in Inquiry shows that our students want to express their beliefs about what is right and wrong.  We have been thinking about sustainability from many different points of view.  The theme of protecting our environment, and in particular the marine environment was echoed at this week’s Plastic free Peninsular launch.  It’s great to see we are all involved and willing to take some action to express our views.

I am a Thinker:

Thinkers work with ideas: they create and they reflect and they work in with others to make sure their ideas work. Perry is thinking about his role at Capital E.  

Making a Sports Desk Video

We all had an amazing opportunity to work with the team and equipment at Capital E this week. With a pre-written script, everyone applied for a position that they wanted within the production team, pulling on character strengths to show that they would be able to perform the role well.

There were a huge variety of roles, including director, location director, sound effects, costume, actors, presenters, visual effects, graphic designers, camera operators, actors and, of course, reporters. Most children had a clear preference for either an onscreen or offscreen role.  Everyone had to work together as a team to have a successful show.

On the morning before we headed off there were a lot of butterflies in stomachs! When we returned, the number one question was, can we do that next year? A big thank you to all the parents who came and helped out.

Have a look at our productions...

Te Papa Trip

We had a wonderful time visiting Te Papa yesterday to learn more about Matariki. Thank you to all of our parent support! 

Wig Wednesday

On Wednesday, we raised our awareness of those suffering from cancer, and money to support the Child Cancer Foundation. In Matariki Mahutonga we practiced empathy by doing a quick write on Tuesday about what it would be like to lose your hair. Then, on Wednesday, Stephanie spoke to everyone about being in the maintenance phase of her treatment and what that meant for her. She displayed some of the bravery that she's had to call on in her treatment by sharing her story with us. Thanks everyone for your great and enthusiastic support of the day!

Stephanie's leukaemia journey from Matariki on Vimeo.

"Thank you Stephanie for coming to talk to us about your journey"

Matariki - kite flying

Kite Flying 1 from Matariki on Vimeo.
Last Friday the day looked great - no rain and windy. There was an enormous whanau turnout to come down to the beach and share kai with each other. The big remaining question was ... would the kites fly?

The results were variable! There was lift off and one flew successfully in a traditional kite manner (high in the sky), others spun in decreasing circles or never made it far off the ground. Next time ... maybe: more attention to tails and the balance they bring to a kite; lighter materials; or some different designs?

The kites were beautifully decorated to remember our ancestors. But what great enthusiasm and persistence was shown by all to endeavour to get their kite to fly. It was a great coming together as a community in our special place to celebrate a special time, and that is what Matariki is all about.

Statistical Investigation: How Much Do We Use?

How Much do We Use?

This investigation is looking at how we use resources at Worser Bay School.  We are interested in whether or not we are wasting resources, whether we are becoming more conscious of looking after our environment and whether or not we can do anything to improve the way we use resources.   Everybody is finding information, asking questions, surveying people about their opinions and attitudes so that we can get a full picture of what is happening.  

Investigating the Recyling.  How much paper have we put in the recycling this week?  How was it used?

Some Amazing facts:

• We use about 950,000 litres of water each year
• It takes about 10 litres of water to make one sheet of white A4 paper
• We use about 500,000 sheets of paper each year

We will be sharing some of our results with you next week.

Kite Making for Matariki

Kite Building for Matariki

As our Matariki project this year we have been making kites.  Maori sometimes flew kites during Matariki as a way of connecting with the heavens, thinking about and remembering the Tipuna who have gone before us.

We spent the last two days making the kites.  First of all we learnt about the principles of flight: Lift vs Gravity, Thrust vs Drag and we have tried to keep these ideas in mind as we designed and built. Great energy has gone into the project.

Making a Manu Tukutuku.

Today we will find out if they fly!  Fingers crossed!

Great team work!

Cross Country

Amazing Running!

We competed in the Eastern Zone Cross Country last week giving our very best in the muddy conditions.  Congratulations to all who completed the course displaying that learner attribute  I am Powerful. Special mention for Stirling who made it though to the Interzone event which will be held next week.

Focus……..

Power…….

Energy and grace!

Dart Flying Poetry

Dart Flying Poetry:

We did a quick write after flying the paper planes.  These poems came out of that experience.

It flew, it blew, it took a gust of wind

Went high, went low, it took a gust of wind

Turned round, turned a loop it took a gust of wind

Took up, to fly,

With a gust of wind.          By Lucas

Tumbling downwards

Falling like a large lead brick

Along with my hopes

As the plane crashes

I fume quietly in my head

Stupid paper dart                 By Ben

Flying paper planes

As we'll be making small and large kites to fly to celebrate Matariki this week, today we looked at how flight works. We brainstormed to see what understanding we already had, then watched this video about how planes fly.

Then we made our own paper planes. We went outside and had a flying competition. The planes went in all different directions: one flew from by Tautoru to the doors of Mahutonga, some went backwards in large spirals, some hit the ground fast, and others caught the wind for a while and then sank. It was loads of fun.


We'll be talking further about the language of flight as we make our kites this week.

Clay Words: Learning about Word Families

Clay Words: Making Word Families

We have been making word families out of clay to reinforce some of the spelling rules.  It is a creative way to embed some of the things that we find difficult.  Danny and Perry have been helping us learn how to do it.

Learning about the past tense……..

Bullying: What can we do about it?

Bullying  by Angelina.

We say NO! to Bullying…………….

Bullying is a type of action or behaviour that someone does to another person to make them unhappy.  It is cruel and can happen almost anywhere to almost anybody.

Bullying is damaging for everyone.  It hurts not just the victim but it is also bad for the bully him or herself.  Bullies are often people who don’t feel very good about themselves so they bully other people to get more power.

For example someone who is bullied when they are a kid can be sad as an adult.  It leads to depression and anxiety which can last for the whole of a person’s life.  Dr. Mark Dombeck an expert on bullying says that:

Bullying Causes Long-Term Emotional Damage

The experience of being bullied can end up causing lasting damage to victims. This is both self-evident, and also supported by an increasing body of research. It is not necessary to be physically harmed in order to suffer lasting harm. Words and gestures are quite enough. In fact, the old saying, "Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never harm me" is more or less exactly backwards. For the most part, physical damage sustained in a fist fight heals readily, especially damage that is sustained during the resilient childhood years. What is far more difficult to mend is the primary wound that bullying victims suffer which is damage to their self-concepts; to their identities. Bullying is an attempt to instill fear and self-loathing. Being the repetitive target of bullying damages your ability to view yourself as a desirable, capable and effective individual.

Bullying needs to be dealt with by everyone.  For example, if you are in a bad situation you could stand up to the bully and say STOP IT I DON'T LIKE IT!

Bullying can affect adults that are either a boy or a girl and it's very upsetting. There is a type of bullying  that is called family violence. Adults can be bullied in their workplaces by ether the boss or other work people and these workplaces can be either at building sites, schools and offices’s and thats about it.  

Bullying needs to be dealt with in a strong and powerful way.  It can be very bad when a bully bullies you cuz you don't know what to do but there are lots of things you can do to stop it for example, say you were getting bullied and you started to ignore them you would see they would get bored and go away.

Tips for preventing bullying

. ignore them

. stand up to them and tell them to stop

. tell a trusted adult

Bullying can be a painful and upsetting thing but you can prevent it by standing up to the bully. Try it for yourself and you'll be ok.

This is an example of report writing on the topic of bullying. Well done Angelina!

Digging Deeper into Character Strengths

We have been looking at Character Strengths. The first thing we had to do was work out what some of the language means. We used dictionaries to look up definitions and a thesaurus to find synonyms. This helped us to have a better understanding of what each character strength means. 

Then we made a pie chart thinking about where our own strengths lie. It is really interesting to learn more about ourselves. 

This is an example of a pie chart showing where we think our own strengths lie. 

A Happy Time

We've been talking about how important happiness is and introducing the idea of character strengths this week.

We all wrote about a happy time in our lives. Here are a few examples of our work:

The Pit

Lake weed, jump, lakeweed, jump, as I jump I breathe, deep breaths,in and out. I smell, cows, poo, lake weed, water, green-water. I’m skimming like a stone over the puddle of green weed. WEED! Prickly, clingy, weed my new worst enemy. The smell, it stinks so bad it's good. I breathe deep breaths. In and out. It's good. I'm happy. And that's all that matters. Happiness.

                                                                                               By Emma

The jump

I lined myself up and gracefully trotted over the trotting poles. The scent of horses stained my clothes. It was my favourite smell ever. Gathering my reins, I approached the bending poles.

'Look where you want to go, back straight, low hands,' I repeated the advice my instructor had informed.

I gave Pebbles a little kick to keep up her small stride, speedy trot. The sound of hooves got louder, as I gently steered the reins side to side. I felt the eyes of my instructor perched on me like a vulture.

''Much better!'' said the instructor.

I took a deep breath and floated over the next batch of trotting poles. In front of me lay the jump. I leaned forward. Pebbles neatly tucked her hooves up and I felt them bounce up as her front legs landed. A stream of happiness rushed over me. I, at age seven, had successfully landed my first horse riding jump.

I gave the appaloosa a huge hug, ''Thanks Pebbles.''

By Josie

Sand dune

I was on the highest sand dune. Sand. The only thing I could see was sea and sand, sand and sea. And happy  faces just like mine. I was fizzing with excitement.

I could see the sea crashing over everyone that dared to stand below it. I looked down at the sandy slope below me

I clutched my boogie board. Too more people to go, fearful happiness took over my emotions. One more at the bottom.I was up. I placed my boogie board on the hot sand that burnt feet. I lay head first, fear took over. I kicked my feet to start, then hit a bump halfway down jolting my body up, as sand rushed past my body I came to a halt three or four meters away from the sea. I thought to myself this was going to be the best day, the best day ever.

By Meg

Our book reviews

Following on from the workshop on reading that we did last term, we have put together a list of our favourite books with a little summary of what we liked about the book and the plot. We were very careful not to give away the ending though!

Have a look through if you're stuck for ideas of the next book you or your child would like to read. Please note this is still a work in progress and will be added to throughout the year.

Family Stories: Doing Research

We are planning to do some writing about our families as part of learning about who we are and where we come from, leading up to Matariki.  We will be asking everybody to do some research about an ancestor, perhaps a grandparent or somebody further back, who would be good to write about.  Somebody who has an interesting story; about how they arrived in New Zealand perhaps or somebody who lived and worked on a farm, the day the storm happened; it could be anything.

We are interested in the idea of doing some research, collecting facts about that person but then doing what writers do, telling their story through our own lens.  It will be interesting to see how stories might evolve.

The example I am going to use is a relative who won the Victoria Cross in the First World War.

His name was Stanley McDougall.

Research for Inquiry about Balance and Imbalance in Marine Environments.

Research for Inquiry about Balance and Imbalance in Marine Environments.

We have been working with amazing energy exploring the causes and effects of imbalance in marine environments.  We have used Kina as the focus of our study.  It is part of a three day Inquiry focus in which we are going through the whole Inquiry process.   

What have we found out so far?

• Kina barrens are extensive because of overfishing of species like Snapper, Lucas
• Marine reserves are places we sea life can’t be taken so that species can reproduce and get back to healthy numbers, Emma R
• I have discovered a connection between land animals and sea creatures. Wolves in the Yellowstone National Park are like Snapper. The deer are like Kina. The Deer population grew big because the wolves were not there to hunt them-the Kina population grew big because the Snapper weren't there to eat them. The grass is like seaweed.  Since the Wolves weren't there to hunt the Deer, the grass got eaten-since the snapper weren't there to eat the kina the seaweed got eaten. The Wolves moved away-the Snapper are being overfished. When the Wolves were reintroduced the balance was restored.  I am wondering how we can do the same for our fish, Molly A
• Kina can live for over twenty years, Greer W
• Kina’s can see in the dark, Hana
• If you overfish it has disastrous effects, Yasmin
• Marine reserves have a lot more predators on Kina, Parker
• One small change in an ecosystem can cause many problems.  Every cause has an effect and then every effect causes another effect.  Emma R

The Kina:  Culprit?