Connecting with our Councillors

This week in Māhutonga Matariki, we were fortunate to welcome back Yadana Saw and Thomas Nash, both elected Greater Wellington Regional councillors from the Green Party. Their visit was a wonderful opportunity to connect with our local leaders and engage in important discussions around issues that affect our community. Yadana and Thomas were here to gather the voices of tamariki on key decisions about public transport in Wellington. They sought our thoughts on several important topics, including bus lanes, pets on public transport, the phasing out of cash on board buses, and the fees associated with Park and Ride services. It is always inspiring to see how our ideas are valued, and how the voices of tamariki can influence decisions at the regional level.

We strongly believe in the importance of whanaungatanga with the wider community. This visit was a great example of how our students’ voices can make a difference in local governance. We are looking forward to following up this visit with a trip to the city council soon, where we hope to share our submissions and continue advocating for the needs of our community.

Wonderings and Weird Thoughts:

As explorers of the world we need to question. Our first go today was around wonderings and weird ideas. Truly weird.

We are wondering where these questions might take us as we explore the world. Asking questions is the greatest indicator of a curious mind. Einstein's mother famously asked him when returning from school not, what did you learn today? but, what questions did you ask?

Maps and Mood Boards.

As explorers of the world we are taking notice of things around us and really looking closely. Infact we are using all of our senses to respond to things we discover around us and now we are thinking like curators, organising, catagorizing and working how to present collections, commmunicating the most important ideas connected to the collection.

We are also continuing to make amazing maps. Maps help us to make sense of the world, to explain things about our worlds and to find our way.

Wellington is a....Poems!

The poets in Action!!

Editing means the poem keeps on changing. What will it look like tomorrow?

Potting Up!

Sophie's mum came in to help us split and then pot up some plants. We are not only trying to make out classroom spaces greener but are preparing plants for the school fair, thinking ahead!

It is well established that having plants in work spaces improves mood, productivity and creativity as well as improving air quality!

If you have any plants yoiu would like to donate to us that would be amazing. Liz will be coming in on Thursdays. Thanks Liz!

Treasure Hunt with Treasure Maps

We have been making Tresure Maps. The really good ones made finding the tresasure easy. Some people took a long time to find the treasure. Maybe these were less clear?

It made for great activity in the playground, some competition and amazing creativity! Budding pirates?

Our Potato Crop:

We planted some potatoes last year in the garden at different times. Some are flowering now and some are ready to eat. Indie and Finley found some after school yesterday. And, they made chips for dinner!

We have some other things growing in the garden.

Eating food we have grown is very satisfying. Can you see what else you might be able to eat in our garden?

Mapping: Explorers Need a Map!!

Ongoing in Māhutonga Matariki has been map making. We have had a go at putting our first thoughts about what Te Motukairangi looks like as a map.

We began with out first thoughts as the above map. Now we are having a go at making maps which show all the important things to us, favourite places, special places, regular journeys etc.

We are going further with this, designing really original maps; a map of my dreams, a map of a monster......What? A map of a monster? Yup!

Making Collections: Becoming Curators of our Collections.

We have been learning about what curators do in galleries and museums to put together, organise and care for collections of artworks or artefacts. Because we are exploring the world we are starting to observe closely, look for patterns, think about catagorising objects, asking how are they connected and using our aesthetic sense to arrange them. These represemnt our first go; collections we made given five minute only to explore the playground.

We love the way our students are exploring the world, showing the curiosity that we want to build further. Our next steps are to design and curate our own exhibition piece for our classroom museum which we will put together in a few weeks after we have designed mood boards.

These mood boards from last year will serve as models for the ones we will be making soon.