Positive Relationships: reconnecting with old and new friends

We had a visit from Mr. Nic and some of his year 7 and 8 students from Ilminster school in Gisborne this week.  It was a great opportunity for us to practise our haka and the way we welcome visitors to our school.  We talked a bit about the significance of our school's site, Kupe, Whetu kairangi and the wheke and then we made our way down to the beach.  We practised our hosting, showing manaakitanga and being leaders.   

We walked to the beach, exercising our appreciation of beauty and excellence, as we marvelled at the place we are so lucky to call ours.  We worked in groups, fostering positive relationships, and building sand sculptures.  It was a lovely way to connect.  

Thanks Mr. Nic for a lovely visit and for helping us make new connections and positive relationships.

 

Positive Relationships and Positive Purpose

 This week we went to Autahi to help develop and foster our positive relationships with some buddies.  We each had a buddy, we listened to them reading, helped them to post something they were proud of on seesaw and helped them practise their rocket words.  We thought back about our own time in Autahi and how we enjoyed it when "the big kids" came to work with us.  We also talked a bit about what it was like being a year 1 and learning to do pretty much everything at school for the first time.  We needed to be patient, encouraging and helpful.

Being able to help others can give us a sense of positive purpose.  Being leaders of our school and tuakana to our smaller friends is another way to have a greater purpose.   Positive purpose and relationships are two parts of the flourish model of Positive Education.  These elements contribute to our overall sense of wellbeing.   

Watch this space for more connections with Autahi and Tautoru.

What things in your life give you a sense of purpose? Or help you to foster meaningful relationships? 

Back in the Library:

We are back in the library! Thanks to everyone involved in getting it up and running again. It is a tranquil special space. The mood was very zen as the kids engaged with our beautiful books. We are giving each other recommendations, browsing the material and learning again where the books can be found. And, where they need to be returned to.

What book would you recommend?

What's been happening in Maths?

We are always busy, pushing oursoeves on in Maths to new learning. As well as challenging work with fractions we have been exploring some interesting concepts in Geometry. Incidentally both examples are also ratios. Cloe has been taking small groups to explore the properties of right angle triangles and Pythagoras's Theorem.

We have also been exploring the relationship between the circumference and diameter of a circle. For this we measured circular objects as accurately as possible using string and a ruler. Dividing the value of the circumference by the diameter gives the famous ratio known as Pi. As the kids pointed out; we like Pi!

Sam is measuring the paint pot with a piece of string, just like the ancient Babylonians did it!

We are charting our results and there is definitely some common themes. The relationship is emerging! Three and a bit? Exciting and challenging Maths!

Looking at Times Tables, Factors and Multiples

 

 

We have been building on our knowledge of multiplication facts by noticing patterns and numbers within other numbers.  In this game we choose cards that have numbers represented in dot patterns.  We have to justify why that number could be part of another number, by explaining how it can be grouped or multiplied to create the larger number, then we cover that number on the game board.  This is helping to build visual representations and to make abstract times tables more concrete.  It takes flexibility of thinking and an ability to justify your reasoning.  These are both skills mathematicians need.

 For example, here we've picked a card that has 5 dots on it.  We can justify putting a counter on anything that has multiples of 5.  So here we could be saying, this can be part of 30, because 6 groups of 5 is 30, or 6x5=30, or that it can be part of 60, because 12 groups of 5 is 60, or 12x5=60.

Imaginary Worlds:

We have made an good start on an exciting project during the first week back! Creating our own Imaginary Worlds. This will involve filling it with characters who are believable, settings which the reader can feel and events (problems) which give you the shivers. We have been using Harry Potter, Star Wars and How toTrain Your Dragon as examples of whole Imaginary worlds. We have been trying to get inside the heads of the authors who have created these worlds. What inspired them? What tools did they use to flesh out their world?

We are using mindmaps to plan, getting all the creative thinking down in a mixture of words and pictures.

Creating characters is part of the fun! And, the setting!

Comedy: What Makes us Laugh!

We have launched our Inquiry into humour and comedy by asking the questions, What's funny? What makes you laugh? We have also asked that kids begin to think about what they'd like to find out during this Inquiry and what questions they have. We watched some clips earlier in the day and attempted to analyse the features of each kind of humour. People improvising, keeping straight faces as they made things up on the spot, pushing boundaries, using toilet humour, word play, puns, witty dialogue and pointing out the absurdities in everyday life are some of the territory comedians we traversed today. Danger, humiliation, failures and ridiculous events raise the idea that some humour is pretty dark. The exploration begins!