Term 2 Week 1

 Kia ora e te whānau

I hope the break was nice and you are all refreshed and ready to roll for term 2. We were straight into our school and class routines and I know we are only in week one but that holiday seems like a long time ago.

We have 2 new additions to our room 15 whānau, Tianna and Oceanaia, and they have fitted in seamlessly with everyone being very help and welcoming which is good because after all, it is a part of our class treaty.

We started looking into Matariki this week with our Play, Make Create book being Flit the Fantail and the Matariki Map. We completed some writing around directions from room 15 to another location in school. We read these out loud for students to visualise a map in their head and guess where they were being directed to. We also linked the piwakawaka to our poem of the week which had a focus on onomatopoeia. For our sketching we headed to the nature trail to sketch some trees and lo and behold, a piwakawaka came down and visited us. We finished off the week by making our own piwakawaka that the children have brought home.

         

Kapa haka was back on this week. We sung many waiata and began learning their actions with the help of Whaea Penny. 

                                       

 Check out Seesaw for our lovely messages that the children have written for you mums. Enjoy the weekend whānau mā, especially our mums on Sunday. I hope it is relaxing and you are spoilt from the whole whānau.

Mauri ora

Matua Taki

Week Eleven

Kia ora e te whānau

Finishing week 11 brings with it the end of term one. The term has been a bit disrupted with everything that has been happening. Even so, in room 15, we have manage to create some great connections and relationships, have a bunch of fun, and I think we even managed to learn a thing or two. 

With ANZAC falling in the holiday we had a bit of a focus on it this week. We learned The Ode, in English and Te Reo Māori. We also made some ANZAC silhouette art, which looks awesome in our room, and made some poppies to give to the students of Room 16.

The holidays are now here so enjoy your whānau time, be safe, have fun, and I will see you all refreshed and ready to go in term 2.

Mauri ora

Matua Taki

Week Ten

Kia ora e te whānau

This week rocked! We read and watched some pūrākau (legends) about Māui. From this we wrote character descriptions about him using adjectives and similes to help create a clear picture for the reader. During our Play, Make, Create this term we have covered a number fun things so this week we painted rocks to represent something that we have learned during this time. 

There are aniwaniwa (rainbows), butterflies, caterpillars, tuna (eels), te Marama (the moon), te Rā (the sun), volcanoes and more. And they are all tau ke (awesome).

This week we also began to increase our digital literacy. We have been practicing using Google Drive, making our own student folder, and creating new Google Doc where we type our work. We have even learned to change the font, the colour and size, and how to bold words. Most importantly though, we have learned to ctrl z, to undo our work when we accidentally delete it.

A reminder, we have our school photos on Tuesday 12th, April. If you would like your children to wear some nice clothes for the photos, please pack them some spare clothes for them to play in. This way they will not get their nice clothes dirty before the photos are taken.

One more week to go!

Mauri ora

Matua Taki

Week Nine

 Kia ora e te whānau.

This week we had a refocus on friendship and we read the Play, Make, Create book, We are Together. From this we did our writing about what makes a friend. We used adjectives and similes to describe the characteristics of friends. We also made a great list of things that we do with our friends that we enjoy. We finished the week by choosing a friend from our class and making a friendship card for them.  

                                 

We then secretly read our card to our friend on their Seesaw accounts. Have a look at Seesaw to see what your child's friend wrote about them. At the end of the week we revealed who had made the cards and gave them out for everyone to take home.

Kia pai te rā whakatā (have a good weekend)

Matua Taki

PS. We have school photos on Tuesday, April 12. We will send home information next week.

Week Eight

Kia ora e te whānau.

Week eight has been great! We have continued learning pūrākau (Māori legends) with our Play, Make Create book this week - Tuna and Hiriwa. From this we created some great reflection art (check out the children's work on Seesaw). 

We watched a small clip of Matua Taki's pet Tuna (eel), Eelvis, and learned about the life cycle of Tuna.

                   

Our poem this week was about the long journey Tuna make out into the pacific ocean to spawn, and how the young return all the way back to Aotearoa.

Kia pai te rā whakatā (have a good weekend).

Matua Taki

Week Seven

 Kia ora e te whānau

Another week down. This week we had a focus on āniwaniwa / uenuku (rainbows). We started with our Play, Make, Create book - Who Stole theRainbow? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y-UINrNkXc). When our book went missing from our classroom, we finished the week with a scavenger hunt around the school to find out Who stole 'Who Stole the Rainbow'? The children had a lot of fun finding the clues and figuring out the code to solve the crime.

We also practiced ngā tae (colours) in te reo Māori, wrote a rainbow poem using similes and adjectives, and we wrote and sung our own My Tae waiata (My Colour Song). Check out Seesaw for some of the work we created).

We also looked at a few pūrākau - Māori legends. Maybe your children can tell you about Māui, Paikea, Hatupatu and Tāne-māhuta. We even played a little game posing as each of those legends. We will investigate a few more legends next week and add them to our game.

This was the last week of our kauhoe (swimming) sessions. We had a lot of fun learning and improving our skills in, on and around the water. Though we will miss it, we will not miss those chilly 9am swims.

Kia pai te rā whakatā (have a good weekend)

Matua Taki

Week Six

 Kia ora e te whānau

Week six was Māra (garden) week in Room XV. We ventured out to observe the caterpillars on the swan plants and to check in on the progress of our school's kitchen māra. Our poem of the week was about butterflies, which you can read in your child's poem book, and our Play, Make, Create book was called The Scariest Thing in the Garden. We made some flowers for our friends and whānau, did writing about things we heard, saw, and smelt in the māra, and we did sketches of sunflowers. Don't forget, you can check out some of your children's work on Seesaw.

A big thank you to all of the parents for making time to chat with me this week. It was nice to kōrero (talk) and to get more insights into your children's lives, and of course for you to learn a little about me. Hopefully in the near future we can actually meet face (mask) to face (mask). In the mean time if you have any pātai (questions) fell free to contact me.

Ngā mihi ki a koutou.

Matua Taki