Another fabulous week of learning through reading, writing, discussion and making things. We have made Stick Insects from natural materials, and learned all about their enemies and how they stay safe through camouflage. Da Hui has seen a real stick insect in the bush and was a little bit frightened. Rafael wrote a gorgeous story about his whole family of stick insects who eat leaves. There has also been lots of fun reading and learning through games where we have made up the rules. The children are really fitting in so well at school and making excellent progress it is fabulous to see.
Over the last few weeks, we have worked on alphabet sounds and blends for our younger students and played games of "name that sound" We have also looked at a few basic words to learn and use them in our reading. We have read the book "I like reading" which looks at all the exciting learning opportunities we have at school. Following on from this, we read about "Off to school" and learning about the things we need to bring to school. In conjunction, we have also been repeating greetings and basic questions.
The older children have been concentrating on reading to the end of the sentence to for meaning and comprehension, ie can I work out what the difficult words are by understanding the rest of the sentence. They have learned the past tense of the more difficult English words and using them in a cloze activity. The third group of children were very interested in the bees we see around the school. One of our books showed us how to feed the bees with sugar syrup when there are not many flowers out on bloom. We discussed nectar as their food and we tasted the honey that they make in their hive. We also learnt that bees will only sting you if they are being hurt.
International day was held on Tuesday. Each class was a different country and did many related activities. The children made flags, hats, masks, practiced dances and tasted different foods. They then presented their country to the rest of the school. It was an amazing day. A great big thank you to our international parents who helped their children with costumes, food and assisted in the classroom.
The last couple of weeks have been very busy. The older children have been preparing speeches to present in front of their classes. This is a huge step for all of them. We wish them all the best for next week.
We read a book called 'Making a Bird' and we spent a lot of time looking at different birds. Lots of discussion around what different New Zealand birds look like and sound like. Mrs Campbell has a Kea and a Kiwi that make the real sounds! We had a great time making birds from different coloured paper, feathers and sparkles. Children also used punches to make heart and feather shapes. We had a lot of discussion while we were making the birds. We then wrote stories about our birds. The stories written about their birds are lovely. It has been a fun week where we have learned lots of English and how to ask for help.
What a fun time we all had getting to know one other while making pom pom Kiwi's! Paul managed to get really tangled up in his wool which made everyone laugh!
Our ESOL students met some baby chickens today! Mrs Billington let the students have a hold - they were so tiny! These chicks have been sold to students and their families for them to raise. This was part of 'Ag Day'.
We welcome three new families to Tauriko School this term. We are so thrilled to have you join us here at Tauriko. We hope that your time here with us is a positive experience. We are here to look after you. Welcome to Soobin, Woobin, Dahui, Paul, Michael and Raphael. Welcome back to Gloria and Ha nee. We hope that you had a lovely holiday! We have some exciting things happening in the ESOL room this term.
Orientation and induction - welcome!
Raphael seeing a photo of his class and teacher for the first time!
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