Friday 31 March 2017

Mau Rakau

Our second session with Matua Sonny and Tuahine Tui.
We watched a video where Matua Puata introduces us to the Rakau.















We were reminded that the Arero never touches the ground. 

Tuhakanoa is our beginning stance.

Toru paepae - it's a karakia position, so your head is bowed.
We are only learning defensive movements in the style of Te Arawa.
Hawaiiki tu - we raise it high. It speaks of the journey to New Zealand.


No (on guard) - we push our rakau forward and step back with our right foot.




We all know that Maui is a mischief boy, so "Maui is never right!"
Maui = Left 
Matau = right

Thursday 23 March 2017

Having Fun with learning

Our Math warm up today was a Kahoot. It was a refresher on the Fractions that we have been learning about.
It's great to see new people on our podium!
We like making learning fun, by making a game out of it, to see how much of our learning is sinking in. It also reminds us of where we are making the mistakes so we can improve.

Monday 20 March 2017

Creating Pathways to Grow Heroes

Today Mr M brought in a board with 4 versions of the Mascot Concept for our new School.
"Wonder Weka" is the character. The Weka is a bird which used to be found in our Hornby area, long before buildings were here. It features on our Kapa Haka uniforms already.

We got to vote for the one we liked. We then had to explain to Mr M what we liked about it.


Wonder Weka 1:
"He looks like an adventurer."
 "He has a hat on, and we have to have a hat on so we don't get burnt in the sun."

Wonder Weka 2:
"I like the fact that he is taller."
"I like the kite and the name."
"He looks prouder."
"I like that the belt is a bit smaller."

Wonder Weka 3:
"The kite's bigger on it's own."
"I like the fact that he looks bigger."
"He looks stronger."
"It looks like he can persist."
"His thumbs are bigger."
"I like the mask. He looks like an actual super hero."

Wonder Weka 4:
"I like the big belt."

Tuesday 14 March 2017

Respectful Communication

Holy Moly... Guacamole!

Beginning with a bit of role play... We got into four groups, each stationed by a chair. Nicky told us an object, and we had t work as a team to make that object. We had a chair in case we needed to get higher (instead of using a body to stand on.
Make a tree
A Spring flower opening 
An erupting volcano
A bus stop
Kiwican says "Its not just what you say, it's how you say it."

What were some nice things that you heard last week?

What are some of the ways that we communicate?
- We talk to each other.
- Blog posts and comments.
- Email and text message.
-

What are the rules about what we put online?
- Not putting full names on there.
- If you're putting a comment, it needs to be thoughtful, helpful and positive.

We need to remember that if it's written online, then it's there for a lot longer than if it were spoken. Theres no body language or tone of voice to give people extra clues about the message it's sending.

We got back into our groups to do our next activity.

In Slow motion:
"One person in your group gets an award that you wanted. How do you react?"

Can't stop dancing:
Your group of friends are playing together and you see a student playing alone. What do you do?

We had to Mime:
A group of students are being rude to the teacher... What do you do?
As animals:
You see this student being picked on by two other students. What do you do?




Friday 10 March 2017

Tuakana Teina with milk in schools

Te Mauru-e-Taki-nei had a problem! Many of them were having trouble folding their milk cartons after drinking.
 
Today, we drank it all together. 
We then taught our Yr2/3's how to fold them.


Thursday 9 March 2017

Last day of swimming

With trepidation we entered the cool sun glistened water, knowing it was the last time in this pool. 
Our school pool on our Shands Road site
When Summer returns, we will be in our new school site... just around the corner. Many of our akonga have been swimming in this pool, during the summer months, since they started school. Some of their parents have probably swum here as children too.
It was a bit chilly to begin with
The girls stuck it out until the end!

Making Math Starters Fun!

Today to start off Math, we had a game of Kahoot.
We learned about Fractions. To break up the tricky questions, there were some questions about songs  too. 
Our Podium winners today.

Aliyah: "I thought it was really fun because it made learning fun at the same time."
Oscar: "It was cool because I liked some of the songs."
Hollie: "I liked it because there was new songs."
Haylee: "I thought it was a miracle because not everyone knew the fractions."

Would we like to play it again? YES!

Tuesday 7 March 2017

Kiwican - Respectful communication

We are learning about respect for ourselves. We are all different... in the way we look, think and act.

Respectful communication is about how we talk to each other, even when we might be a bit grumpy.
"It's not just what you say, it's how you say it."

One... two... three... look...

We had our eyes closed... then on the count of three we would point our elbow in a direction across the circle. If we opened our eyes and were pointing at each other, then we had to sit down.
We made the circle smaller as we weaned people out.
There might have been a few integrity issues with peoples elbows twitching into a different direction as they opened their eyes. When we were honest and showed integrity, the game went faster and we had more fun.

Nice thing we can say

We had to think of five examples of positives things to say to people. It might be something said to us; something we'd like people to say to us; something you've heard someone say.
  • You make me smile everyday.
  • You look nice today.
  • You're good at singing.
  • Are you okay?
  • Your shoes look nice.
  • You're good at League.
When someone gives us a compliment, we say thank you.
When we see someone in the morning, we say hello or good morning.

Role Play

We got into groups and then Nicky gave us a scenario to put together a role play showing: 
  • how you might say hello to your friend down the street.
  • Greeting your teacher in the morning.

Greeting our teacher
  • You are playing a game, but you are not the winner... how do you show sportsmanship after the game?
  • Running the cross country, someone from behind pushes you and they win the race.
We found this one really hard because it's hard to talk about the tricky situation

We need to keep coming back to this...
Freeze: How can we communicate that in a positive way?

Wednesday 1 March 2017

Choosing a great attitude has its rewards!

We were rewarded this afternoon, for choosing a great attitude so far this year. 
Sometimes when others don't make good choices, it can be really easy to get yourself involved too...
Not in Whakarua!

We got to have hot chips at school!
They were so delicious that we ate every last crumb!