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Friday 18 August 2017

Loose Parts

Loose Parts are an important part of our Play Based Learning.  The term loose parts refers to the 'stuff' we play with:

"As long as materials can be moved, redesigned, put together, and taken apart in a variety of ways, they are classified as loose parts"
Simon Nicholson (Founder of the idea of loose parts). 

"Loose parts were made for intelligence building.  Say you need to make a motorway-overpass in the clay bank.  To start with, you don't know what you are going to do, nor how you are going to do it.  All you have to go on is an idea in your mind and the materials available.  As soon as you look at the loose parts, intelligence gets to come out and play.  You plan, trial, construct and engineer with the loose parts, and before long you have the overpass in operation" from The Sacred Urge to Play by Pennie Brownlee and Kimberley Crisp.


In Te Kakano we are trying to build up our resources of loose parts especially for outdoor use.  As you can see from the photos below we have some tyres and rope but need more loose parts to create with.


Large Loose parts such as:

saw horses, pipes, guttering, planks, tree trunk rounds, wooden pallets, wood offcuts, crates etc...

We are also keen to get some more small loose parts for our inside environment. These would include materials such as:
paper rolls, mens ties, milk bottle tops, pipe cleaners, coloured stones, natural materials such as pine cones.

Please see one of the teachers in Te Kakano if you have something to donate and we will see if it is still needed.




Here is a link if you are interested in finding out more about loose parts: Loose Parts: Who is doing the thinking?

At the end of this post is a free ebook that has lots of great examples of loose parts. There is a copy of this book in Te Kakano. Please feel free to ask to have a look.





Thursday 10 August 2017

Maths Agents

We are Maths Agents!!!

Every day we check in to our special maths boardroom.  In the boardroom we have special maths missions that we need to complete.



















 We have our own agent number that we need to pin on our clothes when we check into the boardroom.





We have a maths challenge that we have to try and work out each time we come to the boardroom.  

This week we have been looking at the ways we can add one and take away one from a number.  This concept also helps to consolidate our before and after knowledge.

We work in a range of different groups to help challenge our maths learning.




When we have finished our mission,  we check back out of the maths boardroom and come back to our Te Kakano classroom.

Our Whakangahau Presentation

Here is our Whakangahau presentation on cooperation and collaboration. 

Please click on the blue headings to take you to any links such as videos and slide show.


 Below is the King's Speech play.

Friday 4 August 2017

Whakangahau

Come and see Te Kakano's Whakangahau (assembly). It is on Monday the 7th of August in the hall at 12.30 pm. We would love you to come.
We will be sharing our learning on the meaning of collaboration and co operation.

Tuesday 1 August 2017

Using Drama in the Classroom


Using drama in the classroom is a wonderful way to use our imaginations.  Today we played a game called 'Set the Scene'.  After listening to the story the Three Little Pigs we each had to pretend to be a character or object in one scene of the story then freeze into that position.  We used our faces and our bodies to show what we were were without talking.