Wheels Day

Just a quick reminder that we have wheels day this week.

Students can bring their ride (scooter/skateboard/bike/skates) to school to use at morning tea and afternoon break only, on the tracks.

All students must wear a helmet to ride, skate or scoot, no exceptions. We also encourage students to bring other safety gear that you deem necessary. 

Meet the teacher - reminder

Just a quick reminder that meet the teacher afternoon is on Monday at either 3:15 or 3:50 for about 30 min. 

This is is great chance for you to hear about our classroom program and expectations.

Learning through play - learning to be a scientist

During Learning Through Play time this week we tried a scientific experiment.

We learnt that to act like a scientist we needed to observe, ask questions, make a hypothesis (what we think will happen), do an experiment and report our results.

This week we looked at some baking soda and smelt the coloured vinegar. As we observed we noticed that the baking soda was white and dry and the vinegar looked like juice but smelt really bad. 

We asked what will happen if we put some vinegar on the baking soda and we hypothesized that it might change colour, get wet or explode. 

Next we each had a go at trying the experiment before we reported our results by drawing what happened. 

You can see some of the photos of our experiments and read some of Team Awa's quotes.

"Its exploding!"

"It sounds like fizzy drink"

"It look like coca-cola"

"Eww! It's stinky"

"It's changing colour"

"Eww! It smells even stinkier now"

"The blue and the red made purple fizz"

"It made fizzing"

"Wow!"

"It's mixing, it's making Aqua."

"They are making fizz, yukky fizz"

"Mine is making dark brown"

"It stinks"

Pasifika Group

Talofa lava, kia orana, bula, malo e lelei! Pasifika group started up today. Pasifika Students please practice the sāsā in your own time, so we can be māfaufau (fantastic) for Vira when she returns next Wednesday.

Learning Through Play - Week One

In Team Awa we have Learning Through Play time most afternoons after afternoon play. 

Learning through play is particularly powerful as the children will not only learn our focus skill or knowledge for the week but are continually developing their creative thinking, oral language, social skills and fine and gross motor skills as well as being exposed to authentic literacy and numeracy contexts as they play.

We will have a different focus each week, this week for the first week of school we were focused on learning to use the equipment and beginning to develop the social skills the students need. 

We have particularly been focused on "Stop, think, act" to remind us to stop and think about what might happen before we do something so we can make a smart choice. 

In the photos below you can see the children practicing these skills as they played together, shared the toys and took turns (I even overheard the phrase "stop and think" being used a few times by the children)

Week One 2017

We have had a very busy first week at school in Team Awa. 
You can see a couple of small snapshots from our week below.

Practicing our letter of the week and our names during reading time

A quick brain break with GoNoodle

Writing lots of different numbers 

(or practicing one until it is perfect)

Holiday Greetings

We hope you are all enjoying the festive season and are able to have a break and spend some time relaxing and with your families. 
We wish you all the best for your holiday break and look forward to seeing you all refreshed from the break next year.



For those of you looking for holiday reading inspiration please remember to check to your local library. Reading does not have to be targeted exactly at your child's reading level over the holidays and you will be able to find a range of books to suit all interests and abilities.

If you were looking for something digital over the holidays the Ministry of Education has released some of the Ready to Read books as apps that your child can read independently or listen to on the go.

Enjoy your holidays where you can and have fun having a break from the school schedule for a few weeks.