Te Whānau

Whānau Learning
August

Tū mai e moko. Te whakaata o ō mātua. Te moko o ō tīpuna.

Stand strong, O moko. The reflection of your parents.

The blueprint of your ancestors.

This whakataukī guides the principles, the Kaupapa whakahaere, 

of our guiding curriculum Te Whāriki.

The principles are 

Whakamana- Empowerment

Kotahitanga-Holistic development

Whānau tangata- Family and community

Ngā hononga- Relationships

In this time of learning together at home, thank you for nurturing these principles with your tamariki. 

Thank you for sharing- here is a snapshot of whānau learning.

So good to see you all!

Ollie is ready to go. He's called the Roll!

Birds, birds everywhere!    

Bird making

Nest making

and 

Bird Feeders! 

  

Can you find a Rimu tree?

We went on a Rimu tree hunt. The first tree we found had the wrong type of leaves - they were round not spiky - and the berries weren't red… Dad thought he'd found one, but I told him the tree wasn't right… We are pretty sure there is a Rimu tree just down the road from my Nana's house.

Play is your work- so busy and creative!

Exploring Groups of Ten

or groups of six because Isla is 6!

Term 3 in Whānau Koru

Ngā mihi o Matariki,te tau hou Māori

Happy Matariki everyone 

and a warm welcome to Term 3 with 

Whānau Koru.

Our new homes are Kāinga Rimu and Kāinga Kōwhai.
Tamariki are settled in, teachers are settled in, and noticing, wondering, exploring and learning never stops. We are really looking forward to sharing experiences and learning with you this term.
Here is just a little taste of life in our kāinga.

Kāinga Rimu

Play-dough

We loved playing with rimu leaves and play-dough. It had such a fresh smell and made really beautiful patterns when we pressed it into the play-dough.

Maths teddy bears and chairs

For maths, we explored sizes and numbers with the unifix cubes. We tried to get as many teddies as we could on a chair. The smallest chair had one teddy and the largest chair had twenty-three. Here is Felix’s chair with seven teddies.

Rimu Tree

Here are Kāinga Rimu tamariki carefully observing the Rimu tree. Taj noticed how prickly its leaves were and how they “hung down like an elephant’s trunk”. They are being respectful kaitiaki to our precious Rimu.

Camping in the forest.
We are really enjoying the trees in our new space. Omo started the ”campfire” game in our pretend forest. He invited many children to come and play and now it gets set up most days. Lots of lovely meals get prepared on the campfire.


We asked some of the learners in Kāinga Rimu what they thought of their new learning space.

Sophie: "There are more toys and it's easier to run and more space to run and play ball and hoop"

Maisie: "I like it because it is a big class joined with two teachers and it gives me more friends"

Zach: "The new class is beautiful because it has lots outside. I like playing outside"

Zoe K: "It is fun because we have double the teachers to play with!"


Kāinga Kōwhai

It is lovely to have the learners back in Kāinga Kōwhai. They are settling in well with new friends and new teachers. We are currently inquiring about eggs. This inquiry has grown from questions about a bird's nest that one of the children brought to class.

We have lots of wonderings about eggs - size, colour, shape, what is inside an egg? What animals lay eggs? Do ants have eggs? Why don’t frogs sit on their eggs like birds? Why is it that some nests don’t look like nests? There is so much to discover!

Chester and Tom working hard on making their shark eggs.

They noticed that in the picture there were small openings at each end and long tentacle like parts dangling down. We are investigating what these are for.

We record our conversations and wonderings in our Classroom Learning Journal.You will find this on our class Inquiry table. Come in and have a look!