Morning Meetings

Te Kakano always starts their day with a morning meeting.  This is a very important part of our day as it builds a feeling of 'community' in our classroom.  It is a way for our learners to know each other better, make connections, establish relationships and it supports them in becoming kind, caring and empathetic citizens.


We sit together in a circle.  This is very important as we need to all see each other and that everyone is included.  We can choose to sit mountain pose, criss cross or mermaid.  In this photo William is sitting criss cross, Aayla and Trish have chosen to sit mermaid and Lily is sitting mountain.



We start our morning meeting with a greeting which is chosen by the superhero of the day.  We are beginning to learn lots of different greeting songs.





After each learner has been greeted it is our sharing time.  Sharing is a time when each learner gets a chance to be heard.  This is the time when the learners truely get to know each other and practice careful listening.  So far this year we have usually asked getting to know you questions.  Such as "what is your favourite ice cream?" or "do you have a pet?"  The learners are reminded to listen and to look at the person that is sharing and to try not to interrupt.  This can be a little challenging when someone wants to share that their answer is the same.  So we have a special hand signal that shows they have the same response or idea.


Our morning meeting is concluded with our morning message.The morning message is written by one of the teachers and it reinforces skills we are learning such as letters, sight words, days of the week etc. 

 The teachers know if the children would like to share and contribute by putting their hand on their chest.

We love our morning meetings!

Boat Building

This week, we have been interested in the characters and the story of Moana. For Friday Surprise Day today, we had a special task to complete.





We watched a short clip from the movie and discussed everything we knew about boats. We highlighted key words and shared what we knew about these words. We then drew a plan of our individual boats and labelled the equipment we may need.  After we constructed them, using the loose parts in the class, we tested them in our water shell.  We then went back into the class and made changes if needed.

After lunch, we took our boats into the pool and tested them. We wanted to know if they would float or sink. Each child who made a boat will be sharing it on their blog. 

Potion Making

The learners in Te Kakano, have been out side enjoying the warm weather. We set up a potion station, where they could explore making mixtures and role playing cooking and sharing.  

One Friday, we read a book called Yuck Soup. This is a story about some aliens who decide to make soup, but they don't necessarily choose the best ingredients! After we read the book we all had a turn at making a brew. We set out lots of different materials our learners could use, such as water, leaves and flowers, seeds, spices and colourings, as well as a little glitter!  

We discovered what happens to some of the materials when they are placed in water. Some of our mixtures smelt good, others not so! But we had lots of fun experimenting and comparing. The teachers did a lot of modelling on how to pretend to taste - they were pretty full of soup at the end!        

          
                                   

Beach Day

What a wonderful day we had at Frankley School's annual Beach Day. We were so lucky with the weather, although the sun wasn't it's brightest, the expected rain also stayed away. It was a wonderful day to spend time building our relationships and exploring the beach together.

  





In the morning, we constructed sand castles, jumped on sand piles and some of us even turned Lawrie into a mermaid. We then had a wonderful lunch together under the pohutakawa trees. In the afternoon we were able to go for a swim. We paddled and splashed in the waves and even Mrs James got really wet!

Thank you to all the parents, grandparents and whanau that were able to support our day.

Here are what some of the students said about their special day: 

"I had fun in the big waves and I loved being a mermaid in the sand," by Lawrie.

"I liked going in the water and I went under," by Aayla.

"I was jumping in the big humongous waves. A wave pulled me into the water and I got a fright," by William.

"I liked rolling on the sand in the shallow waves," by Charley.

Learning in Te Kakano

In Te Kakano, we explore, discover and work together through our play; we learn as we play. 

We have been establishing our environment and relationships over the last few weeks. 

                         

We have also been exploring learning our letters and numbers through play. 

We were interested to know what our learners thought so far about play and learning. So we asked them and this is what they said: 

"I like making a marble run and making the marbles go fast," by Hamish.

"I like Reading to Self and Writing to Self because  I like learning," by Lawrie.

"I like drawing with the chalk. I am learning how to write my name," by Brayden.

"The marbles stop and go into the marble box and then we can make the marbles go down again," by Jeremiah.

"We build blocks like robots. We play them," by William.

"I like to Write to Self. It is fun because I am learning words," by Jesse.

"I like the play dough because I have lots of ideas," by Maryam.

"I like Read to Self because I see words I know," by Aayla.

"I like getting the rings. I dive under the water and get the rings," by Darcy.

"I like Write to Self because we are learning how to write," by Kairangi.

"I like reading the books on the bean bags," by Mitchell L.

"I like the marble run and the blocks. You get to know how to make things slow down and get faster," by Jared.

"I like playing with the blocks. We build houses and we play with them," by Mitchell S.

"I like drawing the numbers on the whiteboard. I am learning my numbers," by Alba.

"I like swimming because I want to learn how to go under water," by Charley