Positive Purpose Days

On Thursday and Friday we enjoyed Positive Purpose days. A big thank you to the Scots College students who came to help out!

Within the model of positive education, positive purpose is defined as understanding, believing in and serving something greater than yourself and deliberately engaging in activities for the benefits of others.

This will help us: 

- initiate contributing to others in the school community 

- develop a sense of responsibility to the world and a commitment to helping others develop leadership

- organise and implement activities for other students 

- develop agency with an increasing amount of self-direction 

- develop communication skills

Some of us ran workshops across the school 

Thank you for the movie, Tui

Some of us moved bark and sand to make the playground a better place

Thank you for making the movie, Tui!

Working Hard Movie 

Thank you, Lexi

Tommy: We had positive purpose days and the first day we had to move bark and more bark but luckily we had some year 10s to help us move the lots and lots and lots of bark and now the playgrounds looks amazing. We also did very fun computer ICT jobs I would like more positive purpose days and I would like to have more time doing the computer ICT.

Marcia: This week was really fun because on Thursday and Friday we got to do gardening with John and the other year 5s. We went over the fence to pull the things off so the plants that we were growing had good sunlight.

Chloe: This week my plus was working with Beth for the zine committee on the Positive Purpose days. I liked lifting sand in to the sand pit also working on the whare at lunch and working with the Autahi kids. Positive Purpose days was really interesting. 

Ethan Q: I enjoyed doing the workshop with the juniors and teaching them how to make the algebra puzzles. I enjoyed moving the bark chips and pulling stuff out in the garden. I enjoyed being in the ICT group it was fun posting different things on Seesaw.

Zen: This week I like doing paper airplanes for the little kids because they seemed to fly like one hundred meters in the sky and the little kids liked it. I liked doing Positive Education.

Soma: My weekly goal was using positive purpose by helping little kids with learning, participating in groups, challenging myself and focusing on my report to try to get it done. My favourite part of the week was when my brother came to school and helped us move the bark chips to the playground and sand to the sandpit.

Scarlett: I showed positive purpose by helping moving bark and I helped in the garden and I did work shops with people that I have never worked with before. When we were moving the bark chips it was very heavy but I got it done.

Locky: I was involved in positive purpose this week like building the whare. We picked up bark all the way for big kids. We finished it off in 2 days. We helped in the garden for a long time. We got really dirty but that makes it good. We’re putting in hard work I love putting hard work.

Workshop: Perspective Drawing- The Never Ending Pathway

Today students planned their own learning and chose to attend workshops linked with our Inquiry- Beauty in Maths!

Nicola did a workshop on perspective drawing and vanishing points. Steph called her picture "The Never Ending Pathway." Below are some of the sketches that we did. What Maths can you see in these pictures?

By Nuala

By Stephanie

By Livvy

By Avery

By Jan

By Molly J

By Jasmine

By Octavia

By Dylan

By Charlotte Bl

Grow your mind day - Gabrielle and Susie's base groups

 We had a wonderful Grow Your Mind Day yesterday with many of our parents and students running workshops to teach others some different skills. Gabrielle and Susie's base groups worked together with some students from Autahi as part of our continuing emphasis on all children in the school having the opportunity to work together from time to time.

We were very fortunate to have parents come in to run workshops on:
 - poi making
 - playing ukeleles
 - sewing monsters and hearts
 - African dance (with a drumming ensemble)
 - crocheting
 - learning about pingao grass. Gabrielle also ran a workshop on sketching in a grow your mind way, including sketching with the hand you don't normally write with, and with your eyes closed.

Many students ran workshops, including workshops on Dutch language, coding, using google drawings, playing football, gymnastics and playing the violin.

Everyone really appreciated the opportunity to try new things. Thanks so much to those parents who came in and helped and to the senior students who showed leadership by running workshops. Senior students will all be running workshops for each other on Thursday as this was such a success.

 -

Music workshops

We've had some music workshops this week to complement the work everyone has been doing for their musical performances.

Rob came in and performed on the bagpipes for us in the courtyard. Everyone got into the spirit of this and joined in a jig, then marched. We also listened to a 'quieter' piece (Amazing Grace), then Rob spoke to us about how the bagpipes work and the different sounds the drones and other parts make. Thanks Rob, we all really enjoyed learning about the bagpipes and listening to you play!

WBS marching to bagpipes from Matariki on Vimeo.

In the afternoon, Ray came in and talked to us about his experiences listening to the guitar as a child then learning to play, joining bands, performing, and then learning to make guitars and building this skill into a career. He showed us a beautiful guitar he had made, with paua inlaid around the edges and penguins inlaid, and showed us the pieces he uses to make a guitar. He also talked to us about the different types of wood he uses, and why he chooses them. It was really interesting and we were treated to Ray playing a piece at the end. Thanks again Ray.

Parent workshop on reading with your child

Thanks to all those who came along to our workshop on reading today. We shared some decoding and comprehension strategies, and some popular books. Remember to show your child that you enjoy reading, and that you do it often. 

Have a look at the Worser Bay library website for some more ideas for books to read with or to your child. We're going to put together a list of books with the students that they enjoy and will share it on the blog shortly.

Student Run Workshops: Writing a book review

We ran a workshop about how to write a book review. We gave the people in the workshop templates to help them. By Asha

We had to write a book review. We had to call the workshop leaders by their surnames. We wrote about our favorite books and whether we would recommend the books to other people. I learnt that you have to talk about the action and the main characters. By Lucie

I liked this workshop because you learnt how to write a book review and the template helped us with the layout. By Anna


Writing A Book Review from Matariki on Vimeo.

Antarctica Workshop

Thank you to Neill who came in to talk to us about his work in Antarctica.

Student Run Workshops

Here is another workshop. This one is looking at rounding and compensating.

Student comments:
"It was good teaching other people my strongest strategy".
"It was fun learning different peoples ways of problem solving".
"It was good to be taught not by a teacher, but a student".
"It gives other people a chance to share what they know about maths".

How do you think our programme is working?

Funky Friday: Children Running Workshops on the Beach!

Today we went to the beach. Children ran their own skills workshops. The workshops were things like cricket, karate, music, football, drawing and sand castle making. What a great day!


Funky Friday! from Matariki on Vimeo.

Fitness: otherwise known as PUNISHMENT!

Punishment from Matariki on Vimeo.

BP Technology Challenge

As one of our activities this week, we need to complete the BP Challenge. 

We have to choose an activity and work on it with our learning group. 

Go here to look at the activities: http://www.starters.co.nz/bpchallenge-index.html