Welcome Back to 2022

Welcome back to a new school year! We loved welcoming back our students last week after such a beautiful Wellington summer. We're excited about the learning ahead! We will be kicking off with an Inquiry ‘Words and Pictures, Igniting the imagination’, a study of comics and graphic novels. We are excited about connecting visual and written language and think that this will be really inspiring for our kids.

We have started to think about goal setting for the year. Last week, we chose a focus word for the year. This is a word that will guide us through the year ahead. This will sit on our shoulder and gently nudge us towards achieving our goals. The staff have also created a focus word for the year!

We know that setting goals helps us to stay motivated and feel success. We break these goals into small steps (kaizen steps). We have our "dream goals" then break these down into smaller steps. 

When goal setting, we use the "SMARTER" akronym. We think the exciting and rewarding part is REALLY important! 

Some goal setting questions for our students: 

What are your dreams? what are you passionate about? How will you grow a strength? What are your goals for Literacy and Maths? Other areas of the curriculum? What is something you need to work on? 

What are your goals linked to the flourish model?
Positive Relationships

Positive Purpose

Positive Emotions
Positive Accomplishment
Positive Health

Positive Engagement

The Flourish Model is at the centre of what we do at Worser Bay School

This term we have a focus on the Learner Attribute of being a goal setter. 

We have enjoyed spending time connecting and reconnecting with our friends. We spent time at the beach on Friday as part of Global Play Day. What a great way to develop and build Positive Relationships. 

Travelling Tale- Danger on the Coral Reef

"Danger on the Coral Reef" is a new #globalgoals inspired digital story created by 4 different classes from around the world. Students from the USA, New Zealand and Vietnam collaborated to create this story with a focus on the Sustainable Development Goal #14.

One of our learners attributes is "I am connected." We are aiming to connect globally so that we have a better understanding of the world around us: 

We used this story mountain to help:

Being Powerful in Lockdown

Our learner attribute this term is "I am Powerful." We have been demonstrating this at home with all of the creative and wonderful things that we have been doing in our "bubbles". We are overcoming challenges, persevering, taking action and making the most of the situation. 

For our Arts Inquiry, we have been thinking about things that inspire us. Maybe some of these will inspire you... 

How to make a Spiderweb

A ping pong challenge!

Being creative with graphing about Covid-19 data by Emelie

"If you google 'giraffe' you can choose to see it in 3D then put it anywhere you like! It is heaps of fun and you can try all sorts of animals."

"We have started to stitch plants out of felt. Yesterday I finished my Venus Flytrap. Now I am working on a spider."

"We have been really inspired by all the memetic and compositional art... thanks for the wonderful ideas."

"You mix 2 cups of cornflour with 1 cup of water, and you can put 3 drops of any food colouring in. Very simple. Mix it up"

Ajooni: When I visited Weta cave last year, there was an artist who made sculptures out of tinfoil. I decided to do the same. Here is my cactus.

Petra: We did a taste test. I got everything correct. I loved the marshmallows and candy floss but the blue cheese was yucky!

What a great way to focus on our Positive Health and practice Maths at the same time!

Listening and Conversations for Learning

We have been focusing on "raising the bar." We are currently setting goals around our learning conversations. This links to our current Learner Attribute focus, "I am a Thinker!"

'Talk Moves' is a powerful tool for learning. Rich talk supports students to make sense of ideas and build a classroom community. This is something that we have been developing in all of our learning conversations. 

Talk Moves prompt:

• wait time
• turn and talk
• revoicing
• reasoning
• adding on
• repeating
• revise thinking.

During our circle time, we have been discussing what an active listener is. We are working hard to face the speaker, think about what the other person is saying and engaging in conversation. 

Why listening is so important? 

Our students said...

Listening is important because you need to get all of the information 

You might learn something new if you keep listening 

You might have forgotten something, listening might refresh your mind 

You might learn how to do something in a different way 

What stops us listening?

Our students said... 

The person talking next to you, even if you don't want to talk to them 

Toys on the mat 

Devices 

Noise in the classroom 

Something that is happening outside the window 

Thinking about stuff e.g. what is for lunch? 

Playing games 

Things on the walls 

What would you be doing if you were actively listening? 

Our students said...

You need to show that you are listening through body language

Focus on what they are saying 

Look at the person talking 

Face the person speaking 

Your brain is thinking 

Add on to the stuff they are saying 

Piggy backing 

Make connections 

Ask questions 

Interacting 

Active listening by sharing ideas 

Not letting someone else distract you 

Repeat what the person says 

Agree or disagree respectfully

What difference does this make for the other person/ people as opposed to someone half present?

Our students said... 

Multitasking is not good because you don't do anything well 

Do one thing at a time 

The person who is talking might feel sad, annoyed, disappointed or misheard

We need to uplift mana and show manaakitanga

These are our conversation guidelines

I am Connected

This term, our Learner Attribute focus is, "I am Connected."

Positive Relationships in the playground

I can build relationships with others

The Positive Relationships domain of the Flourish Model developed by Geelong Grammar School "explores the importance of connectedness and strong relationships for wellbeing. The focus is on helping students to develop social and emotional skills that nourish their relationships with the self and others." At Worser Bay School, "this domain builds on the strong school community and culture of respect. In particular, there is profound effort directed towards creating a School community based on kindness and forgiveness."

We are sharing our Inquiry learning and communicating clearly

I can communicate clearly

We are developing our communication skills through conversations. We take turns, build on each other's ideas and keep focused on the question or idea.

We are working together to create an information board about WBS.

I can be part of a team (collaborate and contribute)

• Collaboration helps us to problem solve. It is great to hear others ideas or solutions.
• When working in a team, everyone has different strengths and skills. Together we are stronger!
• Working with different people helps us to learn how to communicate with different people.

We are connected with the whole school during our Whānau days

I can connect to my place, the environment and globally

We are connecting with Yangon International School in Myanmar

I am a Thinker: Using Digital Technology

We know how important it is to come back to Digital Citizenship. Staying safe online runs through all that we do. We have been exploring our online behaviour. We have asked ourselves would I be comfortable looking at this website with my parents/ teacher? Also would I do this in my normal life?  

We thought about our school value of respect and unpacked what this would  look like when we are online. 

Our Learner Attribute focus this term is "I am a thinker." We have been thinking about thinking as we have discussed our value. We have also worked hard to make our thinking visible. 

Making Connections to help us with our "Maths is Beautiful" Inquiry

Eiffel Tower by Caspian

We have been thinking about the beauty in Maths. As part of our Inquiry, some of us have been thinking about Architecture and Maths.

One of our questions was: What was the design and building process for making the Eiffel Tower?

Our friends at Brindas School in France helped us to answer some of these questions and they made a movie for us. 

Caspian and Sammy responded: 

Dear Friends at Brindas School (CM2), 

Thank you for making the video about the Eiffel Tower. We are interested in the Eiffel Tower in France because it is a different shape than a normal building. It is different from the many varieties of buildings in the world. Its structure and shape is interesting. We wanted to study this more. 

There are 4 arches holding it up and they are on an angle. It is interesting how the arches can hold all of the weight of the tower. 

The video was really cool because it showed us the building process. We knew that the Eiffel Tower was built a long time ago but we did not know it was built in the 1870s. We liked the shape part of the video. We liked the statistics too. There is a Paris restaurant in Las Vegas. It is built in the shape of the Eiffel Tower. 

Thank you again, 

Caspian and Sammy

Brindas School and some other schools also added to these slides about the Beautiful Ideas in Maths:

Our learner attribute focus for this term is "I am Connected!" We are really excited to be connecting locally, nationally and internationally... 

Here is our Learner Attribute:

Dave the Chicken: Travelling Tales

By Alastair

This is a Travelling Tale named "Dave the Chicken" created by 5 schools from around the world. This was made by students from schools in Bahrain, USA, Columbia and New Zealand.  

Students from the senior area at Worser Bay School created the beginning of the story. 

This was the beginning of the story written by Alastair: Once there was a chicken called Dave. Dave liked bread and silver beat. Dave lived in a farm with 700 other chickens. There owner was fat and liked staying in bed and eating chocolates. One day Percy the cow accidentally stood on Rosie the crow. And the farmer threw a news paper at her. 

  

By Parker

By Haare

Dave the Chicken by Lachlan

By Lucas

One of our learners attributes is "I am connected." We are aiming to connect globally so that we have a better understanding of the world around us: