Rāhina - 04.04.22

 Kia ora koutou

I have tested positive for COVID this afternoon so sadly this will be my last post until I am back at school. I will be off until Tuesday next week at the earliest. The school have organised a relief teacher for the days I am away. I am sure the tamariki will be fine while I am at home getting better, I have had nothing but positive, glowing feedback from every relief teacher they have ever had. 

Today we started as we do every Monday, drawing what we did on the weekend and then sharing to the class. Afterwards Class One came to us for an assembly to welcome ngā tamariki and kaiako back to school and share a bit about Harvest Festival and our play area rules. It was so lovely to have our neighbours back and they loved hearing the story about the dragon and St Michael slaying him. 

As the assembly took a large portion of main lesson time we decided that instead of writing the middle of the story we would design the sword we would use to defeat the dragon. The class will be writing the middle and end of the story over the rest of the week with their reliever. 

This week for kid writing we wrote about having a magical object. There were so many great ideas, magic carpets that could take them anywhere, soccer balls that would never miss a goal to name a couple. Here is the writing we wrote together and I modeled on the board. 

Our ideas were so great, I couldn't even fit the whole story on the board. 

Afterwards we played guess my three digit number a few times before lunch.

This afternoon was free play and lyre. There was a great fortress built in the middle with a king, prince and many other characters.

Take care,

Arohanui

Stacey

Rāmere - 01/04/22

 Kia ora koutou

We started our day with April Fools tricks. First I asked someone else to unlock the door while I hid behind a curtain. The children came in saying that I was late and they were going to tell me off and saying things like "I am going to tell Stacey she needs a new alarm clock". Very funny to overhear. 

I had also put a question mark on the board instead of painting and handwork. Once we had all arrived, completed the obstacle course and the roll had been taken I told ngā tamariki a story....That I had organised a helicopter to come and pick us up and take us to an ice cream factory where we could eat as much as we liked. Exciting enough to be a wish come true but not quite believable so nobody got their dreams crushed.

We then shared funny stories of what had happened in households that morning. Someone even had a toothpaste sandwich for morning tea! Very funny tricksters indeed. 

For Main Lesson we retold the story of Saint Michael and the dragon. We then got into pairs and though of what we would say to write the beginning of the story. I reminded them that the beginning of a story should grab the attention of the reader so that want to keep reading. After hearing ideas and combining parts of different sentences, this is what we came up with...

This took longer than anticipated and was well worth continuing to after morning tea. 

As it was raining our recorder lesson was postponed. Instead we had a maths challenge. I put the group into three teams. Then I gave them some place value block, hundreds, tens and ones. The challenge was to create the tallest tower with structural integrity. They could exchange the blocks for other blocks of the same value eg: one hundreds block for 10 tens blocks. It was very fun!

After lunch we had painting and handwork. We painted St Michael and the dragon, here is some of the finished products hanging in the corridor. 

I hope you all have a lovely weekend, I am off with my whānau to stay with friends at their family bach in Te Oka. 

Arohanui

Stacey