More Poetry

More Poetry

Megan went to Tautoru to share her poem and help the kids reading it.  
She stayed on to help out some writers.  
Beautiful poem Megan, lovely leadership and a great example of a Tuakana Teina relationship!

Sailing poem

Sea of diamond

Calm waves across the sea                                                                                                                                      

Splashes

Children having fun

Sails blowing left right

Tugging on masts

Little giggling

Boats tumbling upside down

Jellyfish blobbing

Boats boats

                                    

                                           by Megan

EZ Cricket and Trapping Workshop coming up!

Cricket!

Next Wednesday all of our year 5 and 6 students will be playing Cricket in the Eastern Zone Tournament. It is a great day in which all of our kids get a taste of the Eastern Zone competitions. They get to meet a whole lot of new kids, practice their growth mindset skills and even play some Cricket! This year we have entered 8 teams, 3 in the competitive grade and 5 in the social!

Kids are looking forward to it!




One of last year’s teams.

We are seeking at least 6 helpers for the day. Please email Nicola to indicate your availability.



Trapping Workshop

We are hosting other schools in the Miramar area on Wednesday next week who are interested in making their schools predator free.




Successful trappers from 2017


The event will be hosted by Darren van Hoof from Zealandia, supported by Joakim from Te Motu Kairangi reforestation group and teachers from the schools attending.


It’s a good opportunity for us to share some of the great work underway here which might inspire others to follow on.

Learning about the Powhiri

Tomorrow we have our powhiri. We have been practising parts of it together: the karanga (women's welcome), the haka and waiata (songs). We have also discussed some of the different stages of the powhiri together and made posters. The six stages we focused on were:
 - karanga and haka (welcome call and dance)
 - whaikorero (speeches)
 - waiata (songs)
 - koha (gift)
 - hongi (sharing of breath)
 - hakari (feast).

Waterslide Chaos: Travelling Tales

This is our first Travelling Tale of the year. This Travelling Tale was created by 5 schools around the world. It started in the USA then it was passed onto a class in the Netherlands then Canada, Ethiopia and finally to us here in New Zealand. Thank you to all of the students who helped to create this. 

I am a Thinker: Questioning!

This term our Learner Attribute we have been focussing on is 'I am a Thinker'. Within that we have been learning about questioning - even questioning ABOUT questioning!


What makes a good question? 
Today we tried to improve the following questions:

What makes a bad question?

What distinguishes a good question from a bad one?

Are there some questions which are better than others?

Is Where better than How?

Is Which better than Why?

How can we develop a question?
How can we DRAFT, CRAFT, EDIT and SHAPE a question?
Can we further develop a question to make it better?

What did Wellington look like? Who doesn’t have enough in New Zealand? Where is Te Reo Maori spoken? How can we look after people better? Who invented the light bulb? What happens when a new factory begins making something in an area?

Some of us have moved ourselves up the Maunga. The Maunga represents where we evaluate ourselves to be in our Learning Journey. Currently we are focussing on questioning so as you feel you grow in your knowledge and strength of questioning, you can climb up the mountain (maunga). 

Poems from Worser Bay Boating Club

Some of us chose to write poems today while working in the Boating Club. We wrote some of our poems from models that we have used over the week. We will display these poems in the Boat House! 

That was the Beach Shared writing by Kate, Katherine, Kirsty, Emelia, Nell, Isabel, Georgina and Eva Strolling down the beach one day I came across a crab I picked it up, it pinched me And now I am feeling sad To cheer me up I swam in sea I got stung by a jellyfish Poor dear me! So, I climbed upon the rocks A dolphin leaped out of the blue It splashed me, I fell in And now I am covered in seaweed goo!

Poetry: The Best Words in the Best Order.

Poems;  We have been writing about some of our experiences including sailing last week.  Samuel Taylor Coleridge suggested;

‘Poetry; the best words in the best order’.  

We liked that idea and have been playing with words, thinking about their order and which ones might be ‘best’.

Wading out like an old dingy,

Water glistening like a diamond,  

Waves shoving me to shore,

Like rough hands.

Shells shining up at me,

Sail flapping,

Crabs dancing,

Rudder wheezing,

Rope calising my fingers

Seaweed crackling, popping, spitting.

                                                         By Zach

There, sitting on windows

Ground getting further away

Birds laughing at us

The crank of rudders

                                      By Ollie

Calm water

Far from the beach

Flapping sail

Laughter

Water Sploshing

Hardwood tiller

Wobbling

People falling out of boats

Seaweed

Seashells

Fishy smells

                                      By Matthias

Water glistening in the sun

Waves pulling you to shore

Blue, soft, raw, nervous

Long, deep, rocky, windy

Flipping in the water

Freezing, scary, still.

                                   By Cruz.

      

Working with Worser Bay Boating Club

We have been lucky to be working with Dean Stanley at the Worser Bay Boating Club to help develop ideas about the club's expansive new vision which includes a classroom. Dean came in and spoke to our senior students on Wednesday, leaving them particularlry excited about the coming:
 - penguin hotels
 - anemone garden
 - paua nursery

Today we went down to the Worser Bay Boating club rooms, got curious asked questions, researched, investigated rock pools, drew some initial design ideas and played in the sand. We look forward to sharing some of our work with you and others visiting the boating club soon.

Growth Mindset Writing: Collaboration with Auroa Primary School

At Worser Bay School we have a big focus on Growth Mindset. We have talked about trying new things and challenging ourselves to step out of our comfort zone and grow our minds! 

The concept of a Growth Mindset was developed by psychologist Carol Dweck. She says that “In a Growth Mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment,”

This year we will be challenging ourselves by taking the #growyourmindchallenge 

Our students started the year by writing about something that challenged them in the holidays. We shared our writing with our friends at Auroa School and they have written their own Growth Mindset pieces, using our writing as models. 

The additional bonus was that because our students had an audience for their writing they were especially keen to do a good job!

Literacy Links and Online Maths

Every week or so we update our Literacy Links and Online Maths documents and send these out to our students. The expectation is that students will use these at school to work on their goals. 

If students choose to use these at home then that is great too!

We will be sending these out to parents so that they can see some of the things that we are asking our students to do. 

Questioning and Inquiry

Student Inquiry is at the heart of learner agency. Students need to be able to ask good questions to chase their curiosity and wonderings. This helps students to build on the knowledge that they already have.

This term, the learner attribute that we are focussing on is "I am a thinker." An important part of being a thinker  is being able to ask good questions. We would like our students to design and ask red, orange and green light questions.

Our learners thought about the different types of questions when writing our own for the "Forest Protector" Inquiry. Here are some of them: 

We have also made an "attribute mountain" so students can see how we are going with their questioning. The avatars will climb up the mountain as our students improve their questioning abilities.  

Please ask us at home about our questions and how we will go about finding out what we are curious about...

Global Play Day

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” ~ Plato

We celebrated Global Play Day on Friday 9th February. 388, 493 participants took part across the world. Our students enjoyed playing games with each other. It was interesting to see how they used their imaginations to invent new games.

Before we started our students set 2 goals. One was linked to manaakitanga and the other was about creativity.

We also spent time playing with other students across the school.

Find out more: http://www.globalschoolplayday.com/

Basketball

 

 The Trap