Rūma Rua

Term 1

Term 3

Term 4
Christmas Carnival 
Thank you Jacqui (Annie's Mum) for sharing these beautiful photos.

Week 5 & 6

Mobilo creations and class performance

Psychologists recognize two major types of problem. Convergent problems have only one correct solution. Divergent problems can be solved in multiple ways.

When children play with mobilo they can put them together in a variety of ways, like blocks, this is divergent play. Divergent play prepares children to think creatively and better solve divergent problems that arise in their day to day activities.

This morning Miss Stella placed out some fabric, fabric scissors and staplers on the table. The children immediately started to wrap the fabric around the class dolls. The kept asking how to make a dress.


So Miss Stella called all those interested onto the mat. We discussed different ways we could make a dress and then recreate it again and again. Miss Stella asked the children if any of them knew what a patterns was, Ava said"something that goes red,blue, red, blue."

She was correct but Miss Stella asked how that could help us when we are sewing...We put the words 'sewing pattern' into google and we learnt that a pattern was a template that can be traced onto fabric to create a some clothes. Then we refined our search to 'dress pattern for dolls', we spent a long time deciding which one to pick and ended up with this one. 

Then we sat in a circle and Miss Stella showed us the process of cutting out the pattern, placing it on a piece of folded fabric, cutting out the fabric around the pattern, turning our fabric inside out and then stapling down the sides. Miss Stella wrote the steps on the board to helps us...then we got into our sewing!!!

We realised pretty quickly that it was difficult to cut out the fabric while keeping the pattern straight. So some of us asked friend to help hold it down.

Charlotte managed to hold down two patterns at a time to help both Crystal and Kiwipaarie.

The boys had also got involved in the sewing projects, while the girls were making dresses Fergus was getting creative with making a cape and Cooper and Sigmund were making a warm outfit for a Paw Patrol friend.

Malone was working with some black and white striped fabric to create pants for Sigmund's tigger.

Cooper decided to create something with black paper aswell.

Here are our steps 4, 5 and 6

Some of us needed to problem solve when it came to our first attempts at stapling. We turned it inside out and then realised that the dolls arms and bodies could not fit through. We had to unpick the staples and re think our arrangements.

Some final products...

Our dolls clothes lead into some of the children creating clothing to re life children....

The next day we got out the fabric again and look at some of our creations...

Kiwipaarie worked really hard on this beautiful picture that even involved writing about her best friends!

The girls had made so many pieces of clothing and accessories for their dolls they decided to set up a shop in the hallway for other classroom to buy their sewing...

We are fortunate enough to have received a new box of mobilo to add to our play equipment. It was hard because there was only one set of each part. Dylan, Mason and Zach had spent the morning quite upset because each time one of them left the others would take all of the blue parts. So Miss Stella encouraged the boys to work it out between each other. The first try didnt work out because Mason did not want to share, then Zach did not want to share because Mason didn't the first time and Dylan had enough that he was happy. Miss Stella left the boys at this point to work with some other children. The next minute the three boys ran up to Miss Stella with excitement in their voices they said that they had worked it out....

Check out the video below to see how they worked it out....

Week 4

Thank you Mrs D for helping us re-pot our little gardens :)

Cooper has turned 6! 

And his mum brought in some magic trick candles. It was so much fun watching Cooper try to blow out the candles that kept coming back alight

WOW! Check out Dylans 6th birthday cake...we all got very spoilt with this chocolate cake.

Dylan has patiently waited all year for his birthday to come around and he is the last of our boys to turn the big number 6!

Diwali is coming!!!! Today Kiwipaarie and her Mum brought in some special candles and sweets to help us celebrate Diwali. Diwali is like our New Zealand Christmas for people from India. It last for 3 nights and they have heaps of lights and share sweets with friends and family. The girls get to wear beautiful sparkly dresses and crowns that need to be new each year. 

Week 3
This morning Miss Stella tipped out one of our toy boxes and ngā tamariki found lots of new/old treasures to play with. We took this opportunity to sort and organise by categories.

Today the dramatic play that developed was a day at the hairdressers. Within minutes of this play starting I saw signs start to pop up all around the class.

The children had to negotiate roles and while pretending to cut and style each other's hair they were communicating their specific hairstyles and what they wanted done to their hair. Once the children became focused on the hair and haircutting, I saw activities developing that encouraged continued discussions and the sharing of different experiences.

Some children began to look through magazines for photos of hairstyles, Sigmund began a tally chart of who wanted to get their haircut and others created a waiting room with a stack of books.
Clara watched and listened to Sigmund creating his list of who wanted a haircut and when he moved onto another activity she took over this role...

This week we have been discussing fractions...

  

We spent some time to sort out these fractions and pictures into 'Yes' it is correct or "No way".

Some photos of our classroom environment!

We had two visitors in Rūma Rua today, Zion's Mum and baby sister. We did puppet shows for Nia-Rose, we sang her songs and read her some books. Thank you for coming in it was amazing having you both in our classroom for the morning :)

Sarah and Logan reading Nia-Rose a book

Clara's Dad made the class a special sweet treat. We got to choose jam or chocolate as the dipping sauce. YUM! it was delicious, thank you for the sweet treat.

Week 2
Today we learnt about germs and how to wash our hand properly through 'glitter germs'.
1. Sprinkle some glitter onto your hands. The glitter represents germs on our hand because germs are invisible.
2. Try to SHAKE the germs off. Children noticed that only a few of the glitter flakes fell off.
3. Try to RUB the germs away!
4. Try to RINSE the germs away with only water.
5. This time use soap and SCRUB your hands for the duration of the 'Happy Birthday Song'. The children could still see some glitter flakes stuck to their hands.
6. Finally dry your hands with a hand towel until all flakes have come off.

Washing our hands with soap for the duration of the 'happy birthday song'

Thank you Mr Byrnes for making us a frame for our puppet show!!!

Our first lesson with Miles! We learnt about having a strong basket ball stance, jump stops and some fun new games.

Today with Mrs D, Rūma Rua created some Palmy Rocks...Olivia and Charlotte had some really lovely detail in their pictures. Fergus had an Aboriginal theme as he was born in Australia! Zach had a neat little playground on his. Everyone picked a word describing friendship eg smile, laugh, hug, kind, share to write on their stone. They were inspired by the story 'Sharing a Shell.'

Rūma Rua also got a chance to show Mr Bradnock all their amazing learning! Mrs D couldn't pick the best so sent half the class :) 

We have been learning about sun safety. Here is a a beautiful mural we made after we learnt about having to 'slip, slop, slap and wrap' during summer.

The children spent the morning outside painting. The only direction they had was that we were creating a beach scene.The children then created this beautiful abstract piece of art.
Fleur, Olivia, Annie and Lasela were pretending to be artists until Miss Stella told them not to pretend because they were artist. 
We spent one afternoon creating out suns and then writing about what our favourite thing to do in the sun is.
We also spent another afternoon designing our very important hats. 

Today we got to celebrate Olivia's school day birthday with her. Happy 6th birthday Olivia. Thank you Mrs Guerin for the yummy rainbow cake!

 

Week 1

Term 3

Week 9

Last day of term treats with Rūma Tahi. We watched a movie, had popcorn and M&M's :)

Although Annie was sick on her actual birthday, we were able to celebrate with her the day after. Annie and her Mum brought in some little goodie bags for each of us. Thank you so much for our treats!

Today the children created their own ice cream shop!

The boys had a great time outside this morning while the sun was shining. They took out the big diggers and the plastic army men into the dirt.

If children are not choosing to draw or write take the drawing and writing outdoors where they are playing and watch the magic happen.

Malone and Zach set the timer on the ipad to countdown the time we had left until morning tea. This was a self chosen and directed activity that ended up involving the whole class.

Our classroom environment is set up with many different nocks and grannies for children escape into. This allows children to having time by themselves and also share spaces with their peers. 

I love it when children bring things in from home to show and share with their friends. As children bring in special things they can form relationship with different children through shared interests that they did not know they both had. 

If you get stuck for ideas in the holidays, Rūma Rua have written a list of 5 things they wish they could do these holidays. This is an independent piece of writing from all of our children.

Happy Birthday Annie, we are sad that we couldn't celebrate this day with you. Get well soon!!

On Monday we celebrated Logan's 6th birthday with a yummy chocolate cake. Thank you so much Logan's Mum for bring this in for us :)

Week 8
Check out our symmetry portraits.

 Look who came for another visit this morning. Zion was kind enough to let us all have a cuddle with his gorgeous baby sister Nia-Rose. Thank you so much Erena for bringing her in and letting us all have a cuddle, it was a new experience for many of our children. Nia-Rose inspired lots of exciting stories and she was so comfortable in Rūma Rua that she feel asleep. Stories to come....

During Snack and Milk time the children are encouraged to eat a healthy snack such as fruit or veggies. Today Logan said "I should be able to eat this because it says snack". Miss Stella was very impressed with your reading Logan and then relating it to what we were doing. 

Sight word hopscotch! Ngā tamariki used their spelling word note books to fill in our hopscotch templates.Then we played games yelling out the words. This activity lead onto many outdoor missions involving sight words, running, chalk and yelling!

After sight word hopscotch Fergus has organised a medal ceremony for Rūma Rua. He had created medals and a podium out of different sized chairs with 1st, 2nd and 3rd labels on them. He stood up in front of the class to perform the ceremony. This was a completely child initiated activity, fill with lots of rich, math, literacy and oral language experience for all children involved. Tino pai tō mahi Fergus! 

Week 7
Clara sharing her marble track to the class with Mrs D :)

 Sigmund and Zion chilling out after morning tea with a book each.

 I have been doing a bit of reading lately and something that has stuck in my head is the thought that classroom equipment should not be put away at morning tea and lunch time but allow the children to continue their play experience into the outdoors. Today I tried this and let Cooper, Dylan and Zach take Te Wakahuia diggers out into the sandpit at lunch time. The boys were engaged in this play for all of lunch, they shared with each other, collaborated to build and dig and ran their little legs off through the puddles.

Lasela and Ava designed handbags with paper, feathers and string at the arts table today. These bags created great dramatic play in the classroom around going to the shops with your girlfriends.

Dylan has enjoyed bringing toys in from home each day to help him settle and share at news time. Today his big digger helped with tidying up time, the dump truck helped these two collect the most rubbish out of everyone and take it straight to the rubbish bin in one go.

Logan spending some quiet time in our Waka!

 

Another new learning space in Rūma Rua

Miss Stella put out a whole goodies to use with our playdough. Something that she learnt from Declan's daycare :)

 Our class environment has changed again!

Our very own Olivia stared in the newspaper this week. Look how big that truck tyre is! congratulations you little super star.

The new addition to Rūma Rua environment is our Waka from production. Ian (Hokowhitu School's X Caretaker) spent a lot of time constructing this prop for us that we didn't want it to be dismantled or left in the back of a shed. Welcome to our new comfy area for quiet time learning.

For part of geometry we have been looking at transformation. We have learnt about flip (for reflection), slide (for translation) and turn (for rotation). Check out our hands we did, we all got to chose one transformation to represent with our hand print. 

It was very exciting to help Clara celebrate her first New Zealand birthday. Today Clara turned 6! We sang her happy birthday in English, Maori and then Clara's family sung it in Korean for us. We were very lucky to hear the birthday song in 3 different languages. What language can you sing Happy Birthday? Miss Stella can also sing it in Italian :) 

A follow up activity from our reflection learning last week was to created a reflection self portrait out of a photo and pencil sketch. 

Today we celebrated Hiru's 6th birthday with his Mum and big brother who lives in Wellington. What a special thing to have our family/whānau come into our special whare to celebrate our birthday with our friends. Thank Mum for the delicious, gigantic chocolate cake :)

Zion chose to do his story writing on Miss Stella's whiteboard today 'I like my Dad because he is funny'. Tino pai tō mahi Zion you worked really hard on this piece of writing today.

Interviews with some of Te Wakahuia Tamariki after production!

Te Wakahuia assembly slide show!

Week 6
Rūma Tahi and Rua Te Waka!

 Our new butterfly display. We have been learning about symmetry. We have learnt how to find the line of symmetry in the natural things around us. We made these butterflies with paint and folder the butterfly in half to reflect our pattern on each side. Symmetry butterfly-visualizing and creating symmetrical reproductions.

Fleur chose to write her story on the whiteboard today instead of writing in her book. Look at those full stops and capital letters :) 

Zach, Malone and Logan's Zoo.

Rūma Rua's chalk world!

Logan's map and story recorded by Zion.

Production: Dare to Dream 

Waiting backstage for our turn to perform...

Happy 6th Birthday Sarah! You looked like a beautiful princess in our class korowai :) you waited so patiently for your turn. Thank Mum and Gracie for bringing in yummy cupcakes to share with us all.

Week 5
Go the Turbos! #Turbonation

We had a treasure hunt for 3D shapes in our classroom. Look at  how we categorised our groups and the things that we found :)

Tuakana Teina Mini Olympics with Te Kete Tangaroa and Te Kete Waka Huia :)

Look who helped us with our writing this week! Puppets have become a favourite toy in Rūma Rua. Ngā tamariki have been using the puppets to come up with stories, scenarios and creative ways to solve problems.  We are learning how to plan a story and assign characters to each puppet and child so that we can create a good show for our audience. Since using puppets I have seen increased communication and social skills throughout the classroom as this has provided structured opportunities for ngā tamariki to interact. 

We have have done so many workshops around using capital letters and full stops that capital letters are now popping up everywhere including replacing the spelling of 'ful' in the word beautiful=beauti.

Zach's first tooth fell out during morning news time!

After having an amazing weekend celebrating Fergus's Birthday with him at Kids Republic we were able to sing him happy birthday at school as well on his real birthday. Happy 6th Birthday Fergus!! 

Today Cooper made a rain stick instrument in the craft corner.

Dylan, Mason and Cooper were very quiet this morning, check out their constructions!

Annie made a long bead rope during reading with Mrs Guerin.

Ava used the box of random pieces of wood to make herself a cellphone during writing :)

Miss Stella had to create a bigger space for assembly today. We invited all of the classes into a whare with beautiful waiata this morning.

Today Miss Stella set up the outside environment with tables, chairs, pillows, books and lots of curtain samples? Look at what ngā tamariki decided to do with this new equipment...

Miss Stella also put out cardboard boxes, recycling, plant pots and eeg cartoons. Some of the girls created a walking challenge with the eeg cartoons.

Cooper challenged himself to create a tall tower using egg cartons and plant pots.

This castle that was donated by a senior child has become a favorite toy in Rūma Rua.

Miss Stella was on lunch duty and looked over to our class and I saw Clara, Kiwipaarie, Crystal and Emma trying to construct something out of these large pieces of cardboard. The problem solving skills they were learning were real life problems-the wind, uneven surface and no cellotape. I walked over and watch the girls come up with many different idea to create a shelter.

Until they decided that it was too difficult so they left the cardboard for the next group of creators to use.

Final dance with session with Ezra, awesome moves!

Week 4

TOP SECRET, ONLY FOR RŪMA RUA/TAHI CHILDREN AND FAMILIES!!!!!

Here is a video of our production dance so that you can practice at home with your whānau!!!!

Check out Payton and Crystals fairy castle that they created during play today using our coloured shapes.

Tessa and Ellie used the drawing cards to create pictures during play.

Tessa followed the instructions to draw a builder for her Dad.

Ellie used the instructions to draw 2 beautiful princesses.

 Payton and Crystal's fairy castle inspired Lachie to create a rocket ship with the coloured shapes.

This week we had the World of Maths Roadshow come and visit the school. Thank you to all of the parents and grandparents that came in to help, we couldn't have done this without you! Check out the maths activities that got our brains thinking!

The girls playing school teachers while marking off the roll.

Here are some photos of our progress in our olympic art!

On the 16th we were lucky enough to celebrate Ava's birthday with her. Ava's family brought in cupcakes to share, thank you for the yummy home baking :)

This week Declan came in for a visit with Miss Stella's Mum and her nephew Amos. Declan loved playing with te Rūma Rua tamariki.

For reading we have started buddy reading with a child in a different group. We are enjoying this time to share our stories and also help each other develop our reading skills.

Week 3
Look Miss Stella finally got her new glasses, and ngā tamariki found these matching glasses in our dress up box!

This afternoon we started our Olympic art, watch this space to see our finished product...

Today during play, Olivia, Ellie and Brenna were at the investigation table. They explored the rocks, shells and pumas. Through their exploration they found out that when you rub two pieces of pumas together it turns into a fine powder. Then their imagination kicked in and they decided that they wanted to make pixie dust. They asked me for some glitter and containers for their dust. Tino pai tō mahi girls for your exploration and creative play.

Rūma Rua are counting the medals from the Olympics and comparing them to each other. COME ON NEW ZEALAND! 
We are using our knowledge of tally charts to help us keep count.

Check out our Geometry work today! What does the SHAPE say?

Week 2
Look who came to visit us today and give Mason a special surprise!

Rūma Rua also made it onto the Mike West in the Morning facebook page for MoreFM
https://www.facebook.com/mikewestinthemorning/?pnref=story

Our Korowai has had 3 days off the wall this month already! Today we were lucky enough to celebrate Mason's 6th birthday with him and his Mum. They brought us a pirate, vanilla, sponge cake to share. Thank you Mason and Mason's Mum :) 

 

In Rūma Rua we are at the age of losing our first tooth. Myself being a parent I know how big of a milestone this can be not only for the child but also Mum and Dad. Check out some of our teeth pictures from today.

We have a big celebration when one falls out.

Crystal turned 6 yesterday and lost her first tooth today at the age of 6 years and 1 day old :)

Crystal wrote about her birthday party at school.

Wow! August is a busy month for Birthdays in Rūma Rua. 
Today we celebrated Crystals 6th birthday with a yummy pink cake. Thank you to Crystal and her family for bringing in a cake to share. Crystal was very proud to hand out a slice to all of her classmates.

Some of the boys were very excited waiting for their piece of cake today!

During play, Charlotte and Crystal figured out that if you draw on top of one of our chairs it leaves a beautiful pattern on you work.

On Tuesday, we had a special visit from Mr Bradnock. He helped us with our Ninja basic facts and read us a book, then put us all to sleep.

Today Miss Stella spent the morning setting up some new resources in the classroom. This included an investigator's table, craft table, construction pool, bumble bee sight words and a magnetics container. 

This morning Rūma Rua had the opportunity to communicate with each other, share materials, practise patience, negotiate, investigate, explore, create a masterpiece and have fun!
These pictures are of the children before the morning bell had even gone. Parents were still around, getting involved in our learning. 

Hiru and Fleur wrote about the shells in the classroom.

Annie and Cooper took their investigation into the outdoors, they found bugs, sticks and special rocks to put under the magnifying glass.

For reading, Payton, Ava, Elizabeth and Thomas are investigating who broke Mr Andrews window. They each have a top secret file with 4 clues and a recording sheet. These files go home each day so that our family/whānau can help us solve the mystery. 

Our first Mini Olympic game was Cotton Ball Shot Put. Well done to Lasela for being the 1st girl and Malone being the 1st boy.

Some of our play during writing time today!
The greatest help you can give your children is freedom to go about their work in their own way, for this matter your child knows better than you- Dr Maria Montessori

Today Ava wrote about her play!

Today Cooper wrote about the speedy car that went past his house last night.

Today we celebrated Zion 6th birthday. Zion's Mum brought in a yummy cake to share with the class. Thank you for letting us celebrate this special day with you :)

Week 1
For writing today Dylan asked if he could talk about his aeroplane and video it. What a great idea! Listen to this beautiful oral language experience that was all child initiated...

Today Olivia and Zach chose to write about the school fire drill

Crystal's story about playing cats and dogs at school.

Week 10

Kia Ora Whānau

Check out our class Haka... 

Week 8
I am 5
I'm a risk taker and mess maker.
I'm a confident doer of exciting things. I'm not built for desk sitting. My busy brain craves action and novelty.
I'm not as grownup as some people think- I still need to play, move, and explore.
Let me play!
This morning Rūma Rua consisted of lots and lots of play.

While some played in the mud others decided to have a little show and tell time on the mat. The children self directed who spoke, how long for and how many questions the audience could ask.

We played during writing time and naturally all children wrote! We may not have written at our desks or all written about the same things but have a look at what we achieved...

Sign making...

Fleur wrote about a photo that she brought to school for show and tell. It was a photo of Fleur at Kindergarten playing with her friends.
Lasela wrote about making her mum some snowflakes that Sarah just taught her to make.

Ava wrote a letter to Rūma Toru, congratulating them on their amazing assembly.

We had vehicles to colour and then write about. The lines on the sheets naturally encouraged children to write a few words or sentences about their vehicle. 

Olivia wrote a tinnie tiny letter to the tooth fairy who will be visiting tonight to collect two of her bottom teeth.

I took one workshop during our morning to work with some of the boys. With their rich play experiences they were extremely motivated to write down a few sentences about their play. Even with this being a workshop the children all had free choice as to their topic while I targeted some of our focus skills.

Check out Logan's sounding out and finger spaces

This afternoon we had a specialist come to visit and talk to us/answer some of our questions about the solar system (Rachel, Sarah's Mum). Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and love for the solar system with us. We LOVED spacing out the planets down the hallway :)

We now have our own guided reading books to record our learning in when we are having a workshop. Check out Dylan, George, Kaitlyn and Cooper retelling the story in the correct sequence...

Week 7
Some mornings, making breakfast is the last thing you want to do. If your child knows their way around the kitchen, let them make their own morning food. If we start our children off early in the kitchen, they'll learn the basic kitchen and safety skills they need to move on to making things on their own. 

On Friday, each child had the opportunity to make their own toast, from putting the bread in the toaster to spreading the butter and finally eating it. Thank you so much to Jacqui (Annie's Mum) for helping us out.

Some children timed how long their toast took to cook by counting. Some children cut their toast into halves and others into quarters. They all learnt that you need to hold the knife on a certain angle for the spread to go on the toast evenly and lastly we all had lots of rich conversations about making toast.

We had a sensory table filled with rice. In addition to the obvious sensory and science skills learnt from the experience, this sensory table built language, social and dramatic play skills as the children negotiated with one another to share the containers, create stories and build dialogues. Both small and large motor skills got a boost as well, as the children manipulated the rice and the tools. Creative divergent thinking was displayed as the children were exploring and coming up with new ways to use the rice and the thing that excites Miss Stella the most about sensory play is that it provides an opportunity for every child to succeed.

We also had water play and Miss Stella added in 1000 water beads. The children loved playing with the water and they learnt that some objects floats and others sink, that different containers carry different amounts of water and that water can leak from containers with holes.

Our play become to big and excited for the quiet Whare inside so the children helped Miss Stella move it outside into bigger containers so more of us could join in without getting the carpet wet inside :/

Olivia, Fleur and Sarah wanted to create a house area for our dollies. They asked if they could have a look in our resource room for any materials and they found big pieces of cardboard that was perfect for their construction. The 3 girls then worked together to stabilise the construction and also make the area accessible with an opening door.

Their play then transformed from dolls house into a bracelet shop, where they set up a front desk, display of bracelets and signs for the shop. 

Kai Pai girls for exploring a fantasy world of your own creation :)

We had bead threading...

Hiru created a laptop at the crafts table. Hiru came head on into problem solving while designing his very own laptop. He wanted the paper to stand up by itself when he opened it, however, every time he opened the laptop the lid would fall back down. He first used cellotape to try and pull it up. He used cellotape in 3 different ways before asking Miss Stella for help. Miss Stella provided Hiru with a popsicle stick and suggested a few ways that might work (they did not work). 10 mins later Hiru had worked through his problem and had stuck the stick to the back of the screen and he had a success. Tino Pai to Mahi Hiru, you are a real life problem solver. 

The Dress up box appeared in our Whare...Look at this beautiful family picture that ngā tamariki organised and took.

Dont forget the silly photo...

Rūma Rua and the Autumn Leaves
When you step outdoors the opportunities for exploration are endless. The water is your medium and a freshly fallen leaf is your tool for creative expression...

Congratulations to our Rūma Rua winners who placed in the top three of the cross country...Malone, Fleur and Annie :)

Week 6
On Friday, we spent the afternoon taking turns to perform. Have a look at the amazing singing and playing ngā tamariki have.
Welcome to te whare tapere....

This week we are learning how to celebrate Matariki (Māori new year). Miss Stella spent Monday morning setting up te whare tapere for our classroom. This is an area to help us celebrate matariki through ngā waiata, ngā haka, ngā taonga puoro, ngā tākaro, ngā kōrero and ngā taonga o wharawhara (song, dance, music, games, storytelling and dressing up). Here are some photo's and video's of ngā tamariki celebrating matariki in te whare tapere.

We had a special guest today...

First we learnt that we need to take off our shoes before entering te whare tapere and that we are not allowed to eat in this area (treating our new area with respect). We learnt how to clean it with a broom and brush and shovel (we all must look after our special area).

Te whare tapere is a place to perform , however, you can not perform without an audience. We are learning how to sit and be a good audience as well as perform on the stage.

Cooper and Ava playing the guitars for us.

Zyrah, Dante and Grace signing Oma Rapiti.

A video of some of our celebration singing today...

Fleur and Annie writing a friendly note to friends to add to our book.

For Maths today we started to look at number lines 0-20. We talked about what number comes before and after any given number and also greater numbers.

Week 5

Miss Stella thought we were all winners of the cross country because we all tried our best and tried to go faster than we had during our training. Also, a big congratulations and well done to the boys and girls that came in the first 10 places! 

Happy Birthday Sigmund! You looked so handsome in our class korowai and you wore it with great pride.

Discovery time

The children were welcomed into Cafe Play today. This included blank order forms, menus, place mats, signs and lots of food and utensils. This dramatic play is so important for the age of our tamariki.

Research by developmental psychologists such as Piaget has shown that play supports the development of divergent, or creative thinking. Encouraging divergent thinking through dramatic play will help prepare our tamariki for a rapidly changing future.

The boys spent a lot of time at our 'Cafe Play' thinking creatively, asking and answering questions, problem solving between themselves, writing, reading, adding numbers and having a whole lot of fun. It was great to see how they all slipped into different roles within their play :)

Dramatic play also helps children develop self-regulation skills. Self regulation is the ability for a child to control his or her behaviour, or impulses. When children can control their impulses more time can be spent learning and less time on redirection. 

Skeleton building
Miss Stella brought the skeleton out of the closet today and placed him in a pile on the whāriki. As a group we spent a good 15 mins trying to work out this real life puzzle. Even though we didn't have much luck in building him up we managed a lot of problem solving and had great conversations between us. We compared the bones of the skeleton to our own and decided that this was a skeleton of a child's bones not an adults.

Sigmund turned the skull into a moving puppet that moved its mouth every time Sigmund spoke.

Ava placed the muscles and skin on her good arm and compared it to her broken one. 

Even though we couldn't sort out the bones, Fergus had all of the organs sussed and told us the names of these strange looking parts.

Thank you Miss Cousin's for coming in and sharing your knowledge of bones with us. It was much easier to put together when we asked someone for help. We learnt lots about the names of each bone and which bone belongs where. You showed us how our arms bend and move and how important it is to have all our bones or we won't be able to move properly.

Creative paper art 
Some children asked for white paper and crayons to get creative with. Crystal decided to finish her star from yesterday.

While Olivia shared her knowledge of how to make butterflies with the other girls. Great teaching Olivia.

Cross Country
Yay! You all did it, Miss Stella is so proud of all your hard work Rūma Rua. You are a group of Super Stars.

For maths, Miss Stella introduced a new game called leap frog. Each player must jump on one of the dots, read the equation aloud and answer it. They then pick up the dot and flip it over to see if they are right. If correct they get to keep the dot and if wrong they must put it down and move to another dot. Ngā tamariki loved this physical maths game that got their body and minds working fast.

Here is a video of Luai, Fergus, Zach and Ava playing ur new game.

Creating our solar system pictures. It took us three afternoons to paint, colour, cut, order and glue our art together. Everyone did such a great job with this big task.

Week 4
Discovery time Friday 
What a great way to end the week! On Friday Mrs D came in for discovery, Miss Stella had set up a new family corner and Mrs D had prepared lots of exciting space activities. 

Three of the Senior children came and showed us what they had been working on for their Inquiry on the Solar System. What great and amazing learning that you have done up in our senior school. Our tamariki loved having a look.

Logan and his Mum set the toy clock for the day to match the real clock in our class.

Today we were artist and traced a template of our Planet Earth including the water and the land. We learnt that there is more water than land on our Earth. Check out our finished art on our walls!

This week we have been working on creating our own individual stories. Miss Stella gave everyone the same two sheets of paper with a school, bus, alien, fish tank and 6 characters.

Look what Olivia found after school. Maybe it was one of our caterpillars :)

One of our maths groups were looking at addition to 10, we were exploring with 10 animals on the bus. A friend placed a random number of animals on our bus and we had to work out (by counting) how many more to equal 10 on the bus. Next, we will be looking at taking our animals off the bus!

Measuring our crazy legs with unifix cubes!

Writing with Mrs D and our big buddies.

Measurement metre aliens.

Ruma Rua taking the big assembly on Monday morning. Miss Stella is so proud of you, you all did so well :)

Enthusiastically live by our virtues- with our big buddies 

Week 3

Discovery time

"Childhood is about playing, discovery and believing in dreams. The imagination and possibilities are endless"-Anon

The Tararua 1 team teachers meet up down at the plaza and filled a trolley of new equipment, toys and resources for discovery time. Two of those things were a bucket of Army men and a puppet show theatre and puppets. 

The boys spent a long time setting up their table to represent dirt, hills and volcanoes. They assigned each other with specific jobs within the Army e.g. leader/boss, helicopter pilot, tank driver and hide out men who sat up in the hills

Measurement with our shoes as a non-standard unit. Today we enjoyed measuring the length, width and height of our classroom objects, friends, Miss Stella and Mr Bradnock with our shoes.

Week 2

Discovery Friday

Today we experimented with conditioner and corn flour to see what we could make. The first batch that we mixed came out all running and sticky and we couldn't play with it because it stuck to our hands. Ngā tamariki decided for the second time to add more cornflour into the mix, this made the dough stick together better and we were able to roll it like playdough. Here is a video and some pictures of what some of ngā tamariki thought of our cloud dough....

Ngā tamariki got creative by exploring different ways to cut and attach cardboard boxes and tubes together. We also added marbles into our creations and made some amazing marbles tracks that shot marbles all across our classroom.

Thank you to Pam and Owen (Sarah's Grandparents) for coming in and spending time with our tamariki teaching them how to hand sew their own finger puppet.

Give someone a compliment!

Miss Stella's Graduation

Week 1 

Term 2 Newsletter

First look at length

Early math skills start with lots of playful opportunities. I aimed to encourage investigation with mathematical concepts with a simple measurement activity. Measuring materials take place everyday with different types of tools and a lot of the time this includes non-standard units. We chose to use our unified cubes to measure these bugs. This was a simple set up and the whole class got involved by comparing the length of their bug to their friends.

 

A sneak peak into our Space Day (first day back at school for term 2)

 

Our process art from Term 2

Week 11

Anzac Day Celebration

Today was a exciting but sad day as it was the last day of term 1 and we would begin our 2 week holiday but we also had to say see you later to one of our whānau members. Today was Paige's last day at Hokowhitu School and in Rūma Rua, we will miss her so much but also know that she is going to love her new school and make lots of amazing friends. 

Thank you to Paige and her family for bringing in a cake to share with us to say goodbye and thank you :)

We will miss you Paige! P.s Miss Stella stopped crying shortly after you left :) 

In Rūma Rua we always have time for a silly photo but remember ALWAYS a nice one first!

Re-homing our caterpillars

With the holiday's coming up and our caterpillars multiplying we decided as a class to rehome our caterpillars to the swan plant outside TKT.  Our little caterpillars had eaten so much that they had all turned into big hungry caterpillars and we were running out of leaves for them. By rehoming them it meant that during the holiday's we could keep an eye on our caterpillar's if we visited the school and when they turn into butterflies they could fly free rather than being trapped in our classroom. 

Finding our shadow's

Today we found our shadows out on the turf. We lined up next to each other and by looking at our shadows we talked about if the person next to us taller and shorter than ourselves. We realised that Miss Stella is the tallest in the class :) 

Week 10

Disco 

What an awesome turn out for the school disco. It was great seeing all of your happy faces having a kanikani. 

Who can you spot in the photos?

Citizenship

Showing Mr Byrnes our video!

Rūma Rua never forget the crazy photo!
Thank you Mr Byrnes

The Big Acorn Pick up to help Mr Byrnes and also the cards we made to say thank you for all of his hard work. 

Today we made a brainstorm about what we can do for Hokowhitu School.

Ngā tamariki decided together that the best thing we could do for Hokowhitu School is pick up all of the acorns that have landed outside our classroom. Watch our video to find out why and how we plan to do it....

What an exciting day we had in Rūma Rua today. One of our pet caterpillars turned himself into a chrysalis right in front of our eyes. More photos to come as our caterpillar turns into a beautiful butterfly. 

Today we learnt about doubles during Maths

Double 1 is 2
Double 2 is 4
Double 3 is 6
Double 4 is 8
Double 5 is 10
Double 6 is 12
Double 7 is 14
Double 8 is 16
Double 9 is 18
Double 10 is 20

Have a look at ngā tamariki using the beans to help work out their doubles.

Week 9

Word Work

Malone's word work.

 

Fergus's word work.

Fleur's word work.

Olivia's word work.

Free Play in Rūma Rua 

I was going through the photos and videos on our class ipads and found this video created by Zach. This video is during our free play and like Zach say's look at all of the "awesome learning". 

My Graph Book

Ngā tamariki have been working hard on their individual graph books. The book is made of 4 graphs; birthdays in our class, pets at home, eye colours and how we get to school. Each child collected their own data using a tally chart and questioning. Then they recorded their data onto each graph. I hope you have had a chance to look through their books over the weekend and enjoyed seeing some of the amazing learning that Rūma Rua tamariki have been doing :) 

It has been a short but BUSY week in Rūma Rua.

Some of the girls from Rūma Tahi and Rūma Rua had been practising a show at lunch time to perform in front of the class. This show sparked an interest in many other tamariki which lead to us having an 'on the spot' talent show. Check out some of the talent's from Rūma Tahi and Rūma Rua tamariki. 

Thank you to Paige and her family for gifting Rūma Rua a piece of Swan Plant and 4 hungry caterpillars.

Zach's play dough model of New Zealand.

Cooper's word work on the white board.

Sarah's word work using playdough.

Tararua Team Duathlon

Friday 18th of March 

9.30am-10.30am

Family/Whānau are invited to come and watch and cheer on our tamariki.

Week 7

The circus came to visit Hokowhitu School

16.3.16

Today Rūma Rua had a great discussion about what class pet they would like. Rūma Rua tamariki have made it to 1000 monster points collectively as a class and their prize was that Miss Stella would get us a class pet.
Here are our choices...

Please have a discussion with your child around "what makes a good class pet?" This is going to be our focus for the next few weeks. Please do not tell your child but ask them questions and challenge their answers, so that we get them thinking about pro's and con's of each animal. It will be a great help for the conversations we have in the class.

14.3.16

On Friday we looked at The Kissing Hand with Mrs D. The story is about Chester the Racoon who was feeling worried about going to school. He Mother showed him the kissing hand so that he wasn't afraid to try new things, make new friends or be brave when he was away from her. Afterwards we talked about our feelings when we try something new and wrote about our favourite part in The Kissing Hand. This is a lovely story to watch again as a family. We hope your Whānau enjoys it as much as we did!

Week 6

Assembly week 6

Sorry the sound isn't very great on this video but the beautiful smiling faces are there :)

11.3.16

This morning ngā tamariki turned up to school to a surprise. Tararua 1 were going on CAMP! This week the senior children went away on school camp and this sparked some questions from our tamariki around when will it be their turn. Mrs D had the great idea of turning our outside environment into a camp site and along with the support and help from the other teachers of the Tararua 1 team this is what the children did for discovery.

From Sarah: "I pulled my tooth out. I love you Mum and Dad"

How to get the attention of Ruma Rua tamariki!

Turn on the video and airplay to the TV!

10.3.16

Today for maths we collected data on "how many of each colour M&M is in my bag?". Ngā tamariki did an amazing job of wrestling the wait to eat their M&M's. The deal was that if they could resist eating their M&M's until the end of the maths lesson then I would give them an extra marshmallow or extra M&M. Have a look at how Ruma Rua went with their pictograph, telly chart and bar graph.

....and YES! at the end of the lesson the children got the choice to either eat their maths resources or put them in their bag for later :)

9.3.16

Kia ora whānau, it is Ruma Rua's turn again to host the Tararua 1 assembly. This Friday 11.3.16, at 9am, all tamariki will be involved in speaking on the micro phone, showing off some amazing singing and dancing and show casing some beautiful writing through a video made with Mrs D. All whānau are invited to come and watch but I ask that you drop off your child and then head to the hall to get a seat so that Mrs D can get our tamariki ready for their big morning.

8.3.16

Today for maths we sorted objects into categories for display by using a pictograph on the wall. Today's question for our pictograph was "how many of each colour m&m is in the bag?" We used our imagination and pretended that the colour ball were M&M's. 

Look at how we displayed our data

7.3.16

This morning our big buddies came to visit us in Ruma Rua. The focus of todays buddy class was the 'T' in 'STRIVE'. We learnt that the T stands for 'try new things and persevere'. After we had a discussion about not giving up when we try something new we took to the turf and made a GIANT 't' with our bodies.

Week 5

3.3.16

Today was a very special day, Ruma Rua spent the morning celebrating Lasela's 6th birthday. This first started with a korowai ceremony where we sung Lasela happy birthday and Miss Stella placed our cloak on Lasela's back. 

Later on in the morning, Lasela's parents arrived with ice cream to share, cake and candles for Lasela to blow out. 

Thank you aiga (family) for the yummy treats!

The song that Ruma Rua are learning this week!

Week 4

24.2.16

Today we learnt about tally marks and we used tī rākau to help physical practise on the mat. We then  took our new knowledge and recorded some numerals and tally marks in our maths books using a pen. 

After we had finished our learning about tally marks, Miss Stella introduced tī rākau and we all had some time to experiment this traditional Maori stick game. These games consist of the rhythmic throwing and catching of sticks from person to person.

Watch this space!!! Ngā tamariki want to perform tī rākau for their next assembly....we have some practising to do :)

23.2.16

A part of being a good writer is being able to read what we have written. Today we had some practise in reading our stories to our classmates. This started by reading our stories, that we wrote yesterday, to ourselves, then a buddy and then the whole class. Even if you can not hear what each child is reading on the video every child stood up and gave it their best effort. Speaking in front of the classroom is also an area that we are going to be focusing on in Ruma Rua to help build our confidence and oral language.

22.2.16

Week 3

Ruma Rua on stage in assembly 

Blog today from Ruma Rua tamariki

Miss Stella: What did you like from today's assembly?

Sarah: I like the gummy bears

Zach: I liked talking on the microphone

Fergus: going on the stage

Paige: I liked going on the stage

Ava: I liked handing out the certificates

Olivia: I liked standing up on the stage

Annie: the stage

Hiru: Gummy bears

Crystal: Singing gummy bears

Sigmund: Going on the stage

Copper: watching the bird

Dylan: I dont know

Logan: the gummy bear dance

Malone: gummy bear dance

Zion: gummer bear

Mason: gummy bear

Fleur: I liked the gummy bear dance

Miss Stella: I loved that our tamariki had lots of confidence

Ruma Rua video clip

18.02.16

Yesterday we spent some time discussing the word 'belonging'. Mr Logan informed us that 'belonging means that someone loves you'. I thought this was a beautiful description of what it means to belong and it also helped us understand what it means to 'not belong'. 

Miss Stella then typed up our groups and today we spent some time signing the A3 pieces of paper that we feel we belong too.

This activity gave us a great sense of belonging as we could physically see our names written on not only one but many different groups.

Our final words were "lots of people love us".

We also had a final practice for our team assembly and we are all looking forward to performing to our pairs and any parents that would like to come and watch. 

Team Assembly (Tararua 1) 19.02.16 9.00am

Also keep an eye out under our clock to see star workers each day! I will try to remember to label the books with names on the side.

Reminder!!!!

Just a little reminder that this Friday 20.2.16 is House Day. This means that tamariki can come to school in their house t-shirts, uniform bottoms still need to be worn. If you do not have a house t-shirt, they can be purchased from the office. I will give out house points to each child that wears their house t-shirt on Friday :)

17.02.16

Kia ora whānau, please take some time out in the afternoons to help your children sign into the reading eggs online interactive website http://readingeggs.co.nz/

This is a website built to assist our tamariki learn to read. 

Each child at Hokowhitu School have had their subscription/membership paid for by the school and we really want to make the most of this amazing resource. 

Tamariki will be working through the levels at school and it would be great if this learning can continue at home :)

16.02.16

A little bit of an insight into what Room 2's reading rotation involves and looks like.

15.02.16

Todays pictograph! 

This week Ruma Rua are on team assembly, which means it is our turn to get up in front of our school mates and show them what we have been learning and have a bit of fun on the stage. This week we are practicing the Gummy Bear song to have a dance and sing with the Tararua Team.

We are also working on putting together a video clip about not giving up in our first few weeks of school.

Phonics in Ruma Rua!

If you have access to the internet here is a great youtube clip where our tamariki can practise and learn their letter sounds in a fun and interactive way :)

Week two in Ruma Rua!

9/2/16

For maths this week we learnt about pictograph's and then created a giant pictograph of our own on the floor. Our pictograph was called 'What colour is your hair.' Each child had a picture that they coloured in according to their hair colour, then one at a time we placed our picture in the correct place. We then had a discussion about how many children had brown hair? blonde hair? and black hair? We worked out the answers to these question by reading our pictograph. 

We thought the end result was pretty cool! We learnt that pictographs use pictures to show information.

Next we talked about a bar graph. One at a time we took our pictures off the pictograph and replaced it with a coloured piece of paper. Within seconds our pictograph changed into a bar-graph with coloured bars that represented our pictures.

We learnt that a bar graph uses bars to compare information.

10/2/16

Today we had our first tooth fall out for the year and this triggered a lot of interest and question's around why teeth fall out. A* was kind enough to let everyone have a close look at her tooth before we put it in a special tooth bag and into her bag to take home.

11.2.16

Lunch time on our favourite picnic bench. Thank you to all the parents for making sure each of your children have a pōtae/hat at school, hats are so important during this time of year.

A* showing her friends her amazing word work for the day. Word work is apart of our daily reading rotation and it involves writing words with different materials/tools.

This afternoon, we were all feeling very tired so we tried some children relaxation videos from YouTube. We really enjoyed the challenges and breathing techniques that this video taught us.

Week 1

Two of our songs we like to listen to and sing along with during milk and snack time.