16 Feb
Kia ora whānau,
It has been great to have everyone back in Rātā class this year. Welcome to all the new ākonga and whānau!
Treaty work
The beginning of the school year brings with it Waitangi day. Before Waitangi day we, as a class, explored our understandings and history of this important time in New Zealand history. We were inspired by this learning to create our own class treaty. The tamariki got into groups and discussed the ways we could all work together to create the peace we as humanity are all craving (in our classroom). As Maria Montessori quoted, it is through the tamariki we will have peace in the future.
The ideas the akonga came up with were around respecting ourselves, each other and the environment. This was a great opportunity for the year 4’s to step up into their tuakana role by guiding the other tamariki in their group to share their ideas and record these.
Work
The classroom has been a hive of happy activity with new lessons being taught and ākonga busy with practical, hands on work.
Some year 4’s are working with the “test tubes” for division. They are sharing out hundreds of thousands and gaining a good understanding of the concept of division in a process where they are constantly cross checking the accuracy of their work.
Some tamariki have been learning about various rocks by closely looking at their properties and researching in books about where they are formed and their names.
There have been science experiments going on this week involving white board markers, water and plates. Due to the chemistry of the dry erase marker the drawings float to the surface of the water. Here is a link if you would like to try this at home!
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/make-your-drawings-float/
Some tamariki had a lesson about nouns this week. They collaboratively created a guessing game with pictures which opened up to reveal the written noun. Some ākonga were inspired to create their own versions of the game.
Some students have been interested in investigating the human skeleton this week. We have now moved on to starting a human body puzzle to extend this learning.
We all hope your 2025 has started well and you are enjoying some much needed sunshine in our region. We welcome you to come in with your ākonga before or after school so they can show you all of the awesome learning they have been exploring.
Tania, Robyn and Aimee.