Little T on photopeach

Little T on PhotoPeach

Sharing our Mihimihi

Every day two students are chosen to practice sharing their mihimihi with the class.

Here is Jade sharing hers.

 



Olympic Excellence

 The concept for our Term 3 inquiry is EXCELLENCE.

 In Te Whanau Whakaakonga we are looking at this through the Olympic Games.

One of our first practical activities has been to measure out 21.24m on the field. That distance is the New Zealand and Commonwealth Games record for shot put, which is held by the reigning Olympic Champion New Zealander Valerie Adams.

The metal shot put Valerie throws weighs 8lb 13oz.

We tried throwing bean bags that far, it took us about 5 throws to reach the 21.24m mark.

Move and Improve Term 3

For 6 Monday mornings in term 3 the year 2 students are following the Go4It Move and Improve gymnastics programme. We arelearning lots of new skills and also having a lot of fun. Watch our photostory and video clips to see what we have been up to. 

Reporoa Cluster Cultural Festival

On Friday it was the Reporoa Cluster Cultural Festival, all the Broadlands School students were there.

We performed our Kapa Haka items and at lunchtime some of us had hangi, mmmm!

During the lunch break Te Whanau Whakaakonga performed their Wearable Arts Show.

Remember this?

Do you remember when the 'Baby Blacks' Carl Axtens and Sam Cane, both ex-Broadlands School pupils, came to visit Te Whanau Whakaakonga last year? They had just returned to NZ as World Champions. They brought their medals and AllBlacks shirts to show us. They signed autographs and played rugby with us on our school field.

On Saturday Sam achieved his goal of becoming an AllBlack when he played in the second test against Ireland.
We are very proud of him.

These are his publicity photos on the AllBlacks website.
1 test cap so far, many more to come.
Go the AllBlacks.

Reading Positions

  In Te Whanau Whakaakonga we all love reading.

Every day we have Buddy Reading and USSR, that's the time when we get to choose our favourite places to read: on the bean bags, sofa, cushions or at tables.

For Buddy Reading we have to sit side by side so we can both follow the text. We don't have to sit at tables though!

For USSR we can lie anywhere or anyway as long as we are reading quietly.

Watch our photostory to see just how comfy we can get.



We love our furniture!

Last year the BOT very generously funded new furniture for Te Whanau Whakaakonga.

We love it!

The different shapes and the way the tables are so easy to move around make it perfect for our cooperative learning groups to work together effectively.

Thank-you BOT, you rock!

Buddy Reading Term 2

We are still enjoying our Buddy Reading sessions.

We do it every day, if we can, even when half the class is out and about at events such as todays cluster sports. 

We are quite good at giving positive feedback and are now learning to ask our buddies good questions about what they have read.

In our photostory spot us being good buddies.

Are we sitting side by side?

Are we both following the text with our eyes?



Piko Piko Puppet Show

On Friday the whole school went over to the hall to be entertained by the Piko Piko Puppet Company.

The story was really good and we were able to practice our te reo maori.

Some children were asked to hold planets and stars which they had to raise when it was night time and lower when it was day time.

Others were invited on to the stage to be the Rainbow Fairies, but only if they knew the colour words in maori!!

Wairakei Power Station, Aratiatia Dam and Ohaaki Power Station Visit

On Wednesday we went on our class trip to Wairakei and Ohaaki Power Stations and Aratiatia Dam.

We had wonderful weather for most of the day, a foggy start for the first group at the dam, and really enjoyed our day out.

Our photostories show some of the things we did.

Aratiatia Dam

 

Brendan's group

Group A

Delta's group

Jemma's group

Mrs Ranger's  photos

Lydia's group

An ASB Superhero

On Friday we had a visitor from the ASB bank come to talk to us about being smart with our money.
It was great fun and we learned a lot.

He did some magic, sang funny songs and rhymes and taught us about New Zealand currency - the coins and notes.

He also taught us the difference between 'needs' and 'wants' so that we could be wise savers.

Kapa Haka Practice

We have selected our programme of Waiata for the cultural festival and are busy practicing.

We think we are improving each week.

What do you think?

Preparing for Cultural Festival

At Kapa Haka each Thursday we are busy rehearsing our Cultural Festival performance pieces.

Our video clips show how we are getting on each week.

We love to watch them and see how much we are improving.

 

TE WHANAU WHAKAAKONGA WINS AGAIN

For the second year running a student in

 Te Whanau Whakaakonga has won the Bikewise cycling helmet design competition.

We were so excited today when we found out that we had a competition winner in our class. It was very hard to keep it secret until the afternoon school assembly.
This is the moment when Michael was told he had won.

This is how he explained what happened to the school at assembly. His Mum and Dad came to watch and his Dad brought the big truck too!!

Here's Michael with the truck and his new personalised helmet

Busy Little T

We have been busy using the virtue of CREATIVITY this week taking lots of interesting photos of Little T and the things he gets up to each day.

He has lots of new friends to play with, look out for them in the photostory, and he has some new shades and a swing to play on!!

This weekend he has gone to stay at Troy's house. He may be going duck shooting! We hope he keeps safe.

Making our Kete bags

In Te Whanau Whakaakonga we have been talking about our Blessings, our Achievements, our Goals and our Strategies to achieve our goals.

The first letter of each word spells out BAGS.

We have worked with our buddies, practicing Kotahitanga to create our own Kete bags to keep our Blessings, Achievements, Goals and Strategies in.

A Day in the Life of Little T

Little T is te Whanau Whakaakonga's friendly taniwha.

We have created a photostory to show some of the things he gets up to each day.

Jump Jam

Helping out in the PE shed

Testing the sports equiment

Presenting on the school radio station

Hanging out with his friends

Buddy reading

Visiting the dental clinic

Having morning tea

Climbing trees

and

Helping us with our learning

Watch our photostory and see if you can spot what he has been up to.

Our trip to Ohaaki Marae

On Wednesday we went to Ohaaki Marae. We had a wonderful day and did lots of cool things.

First we took part in a Powhiri (welcome) followed by a delicious Morning Tea.

After that we shared our Mihimihi in the Wharenui.

Then we did kapa Haka with Matua Grant.

After lunch we had different Maori activities to try.

Thanks to all our whanau who supported us with them, it was such great fun.

We took our taniwha and protector, Little T with us, you may spot him in some of our photos and fotobabbles.





Swimming Sports

Friday was the day of our School Swimming Sports.

The weather was not great but we all still tried to do our very best.

Because it got so cold we left out the House Relay Race, we will do that next week, so at the moment we don't know which House won the event.

 

School Triathlon

On Friday we had our school triathlon.

A swim in the pool, followed by cycling round the field and finally running round the field.

After a week of rain and worries that it might be cancelled Friday arrived and it was cool but sunny!

We were all very excited and couldn't wait to get started.

Lots of parents came to watch and cheer us on.

Thank you to all our parents who brought our bikes and other gear to school for us.

Thank you to Whaea Donna and the teachers for organising the event.

Well done everybody who took part!

Buddy Reading

Buddy reading every day is an important part of our reading programme.

Usually we read in Tuakana/Teina pairs (with a buddy who is older or younger than us), but sometimes we have to read with a buddy who is the same age as us.

Which ever way, we love to buddy read.

In this photostory the year 2 students are buddy reading together.

Signing Our Treaty

We have worked cooperatively to write our Class Treaty.

We wrote the promises together and agreed on the words we would use.

It includes all the things that are important to us to ensure that our class works well for every body involved in it.

Everyone was asked to sign it if they felt that they would be able to keep to all the promises.

If we manage to keep them, then our class will be an amazing place to be part of.

Our First Buddy Reading Session

Today we had our first Buddy Reading Session of the year.

We all enjoyed it, watch our photostory.

Working with partners in Numeracy

We had fun learning about New Zealand coins and their values.

Then we worked together to write our own money sums.



Buddy Swimming

On Friday's we have Buddy Swimming all together.

first we practiced our rockets ready for the swimming sports.

Then we walked along the pool practising our arm movements and our breathing.

Finally we had some time to play together.

Working together.

Te Whanau Whakaakonga is all about learning together and cooperating with others.

For our language activity this week we had a go at group storytelling.

Each group had a set of prompt words, these gave each person the word that their part of the story had to begin with.

Our stories were entertaining and imaginative and we were able to share some in assembly.

 

A New Beginning

This year our classrooms have been kitted out with some beautiful new furniture, Thank you BOT.

Not only does it look wonderful but it allows us to work cooperatively together more easily than before.

The new furniture also allows us to find learning positions that suit our different learning styles.

Our first cooperative learning activity gave us the opportunity to move around and try out the different areas.