Kotahi te whiore

 Our big book we have been reading this week was "Kotahi te whiore". One tail...two eyes...three claws...four legs...five spikes... what have you got??? A taniwha!!!!

Friday is a great day to do mahi toi (art). We used the pukapuka (book) "Kotahi te whiore" as inspiration for our taniwha.

Toast!

 What's the first sound in toast? What's the last sound? Such a great word for our focus sound of 't' this week! Learning to 'hear' the first and last sounds in words are the beginning strategy to learn to spell a word.

Making toast is also a great opportunity for whānaungatanga. Lots of lovely kōrero, as well as learning how to make toast safely. Then, of course, it's great to eat!

...a...a...apples!

😀 The focus sound for last week was 'a'. We had got a little busy last week - but we didn't want the opportunity to make language connections go by!

We are sooo fortunate at Ōtaki Kura to have a maara kai - a food garden. Whaea Karen spends countless hours maintaining gardens in her own time for us all to enjoy. Ngā mihi Whaea Karen! 

A number of apple trees are fruiting at the moment. Kei te whiti mai te rā - the sun was shining - so we went out on this gorgeous Monday to pick some apples and to return to class and make some fresh juice to drink.

First... we ran down to the maara kai!

Then we looked for some trees that had apples!

Not all of them did...

Then we picked some. We also looked for 'windfall' apples on the ground. There was some pretty intense dicussion about whether or not we could use an apple if it had a wee blemish. In the end they all went in the bag.

After lunch we were able to bring out the juicing machine and make some apple juice. Everyone had a turn. For some tamariki it was the first time. Ka nui te mihi ki a koutou, tamariki mā! It's good to try new things!

There was also a lot of discussion about the flavour  - it probably wasn't as sweet as some were used to. One thing we all agreed on though was... we will make some more āpōpō!

...s...s...s...

 While we have been learning new routines and settling into school, we have also been learning sounds (phonics). The focus sound for this week is 's'. 

One activitiy we did was to find a picture of something beginning with the sound 's'. Each tamaiti had a turn. Finding and then placing the picture card near the 's'.

Later in the week we made 'swirling snakes'. 

Beginning by drawing patterns on their snakes with crayon.

Then ngā tamariki used dye. There is so much learning going on here! Dye is a much more difficult medium to use than paint. We need to swipe our brushes on the edge of the jar to get the extra drips of the brush, while holding the jar with our other hand. Otherwise we would end up with huge puddles of dye on our mahi toi. Tino pai tō koutou mahi tamariki mā! Te uaua hoki o tēnei mahi!

The hard work was worth it! Titiro!

And so the year begins...

 We began our year with a beautiful pōwhiri welcoming all our new tamariki and whānau.

For us in Harakeke the first few days are about learning what to do when the bell rings and getting to know each other.

We have explored the school...

...and the classroom...