Setting The Scene For Learning

We've had a really positive start to the year in Koru 1. It has been wonderful seeing our friends from last year, meeting some new people and being in a new classroom space.

During the first few days of school, we explored what we value most in a classroom. This came in the form of a group activity that had us rank different aspects and behaviours in a classroom by displaying them in a diamond formation. It was interesting seeing and hearing about how we all have different experiences, which have shaped our beliefs.

We also had other activities including circle times and a forum through our Koru 1 Google Classroom to help bring out many of our ideas for our classroom vision. The participation and contribution form everyone was important. Just some of the things they wanted in our vision were:

Jaxon - "We look for learning opportunity’s is one of the things I would like to see on our classroom vision"

Taya - "To feel happy and safe in class"

Jarome - "I would like for everyone to be kind to each other"

Chelsea - "I would like to have an organised class or it will be too messy to learn"

Kate - "We should admit when we are wrong"

Archie - "We should be flexible"

Coby - "I would like us to be peaceful, because in our class it would be nice to have a cool calm and collected class well we are working. It would make a difference to people’s learning"

A few photos of the journey are shown below, along with our completed vision, which we are excited about and will refer to often throughout the year.

Statistical Investigation - Taking Action

Recently some of us carried out a statistical investigation with Mrs Harris. We went through the process of formulating questions, collecting data using a tally chart, presenting data on a bar graph and making some statements about our results. Here are some of our graphs:



Livy's question was “What emotion do you use most?” The results caught Mrs Harris' attention so we analysed the data as a class and we came up with these statements:

- Most children in our maths group feel happy, most of the time
- No one in our maths group feels scared most of the time
- Some people in our maths group feel sad, angry or lonely most of the time

This concerned us so we decided to take some action.
In small groups we created a brain storm of "Cheer Up Ideas".  After the brain storm we had a meaningful discussion about how treating others can have a huge impact on their day. Many of us talked about our school value caring and how we can use this value to support and encourage one another.

Our statistical investigations allowed us to learn a lot about the class including favourite fruits, movies and subjects at school.

Top Team Event

Today we had Top Team visit our school. This is a series of teamwork activities that involve us all working together and cooperating to solve problems and complete various tasks.

Check out our video of Koru 1 at Top Team:



We set a class goal to all participate and contribute to our team's success as well as we could.

Afterwards, we reflected on how well we did. We celebrated individuals who were superstars in our teams and said nice things about them. 

Here are quotes from four of us:

Hunter - "I think that we did really good. I think that we did the goal participating and contributing because we didn't really give up and there was times when we kept falling over in the sack race. We didn't get mad at each other really."

Zoe - "Our team did really good. We did well. Mostly our team work paid off in the burst pipe thing, because everyone was encouraging each other and laughing when they got sprayed in the face."

Arona - "My team worked really well together. We always helped each other when we fell over. Sometimes we would get mad at each other and just use a stern voice. We had some great leaders in our group like Zach during the sack race; he would "yell 3,2, 1 jump."

Zeke - "I thought my group worked really well, they would always do their part. They always contributed. I think the main part was that everyone enjoyed themselves. They really loved it."

Thanks to Ms Baker for organising the event and to all of our wonderful parent helpers running each station. 

The New Koru 1

Over the past week we have been enjoying getting to know the new Koru 1. When we say that, we mean both the people and the redeveloped classroom block we are now in. About half of our class were in Koru 1 last year, with our new Year 5s coming from a mixture of all of the 2018 Pītau team classes.

Something that we value a lot in Koru 1 is having a strong vision for the year. This is an essential agreement that sets out what we want our people and our learning environment to be like.

We spent time this week sharing our learning experiences at school and discussing our opinions about what should be in our vision. This was done through a group activity where we contributed ideas on what our ideal class should look like and sound like, as well as what we believe the role of the teachers should be.



Once collecting and sharing all of our ideas, we summarised them into the following vision.

We are really proud of our vision and we will be referring to it throughout the year.

A traditional whakatauki we have been thinking about this week is...
Whiria te tangata
Meaning: 'Weave the people together' - which we feel captures the essence of Koru 1 constructing our essential agreement.

Woodend Camp - A Shared Story

A SHARED CAMP STORY

This is a story of our Koru camp at Woodend last week. It has been created by taking excerpts from individual camp stories that students wrote for their personal blogs. We hope this gives a number of perspectives and reactions from a few of our points of view. See our individual blogs for more from specific children.



DAY ONE

Grace: 

Last week on the 24th of October Koru 1 and Koru 2 went to Woodend Camp. We went there to have fun and for new experiences we did lots of activities. First we went on the bus to Pegasus park for lunch. Then after lunch we walked throw Pegasus Pines. When I was walking I felt like I’ve been walking for years. When we were walking I saw a snail and Rylie wanted to keep it! Finally when we got to Woodend park we had a snack and played on the playground for a while. After, we walked all the way to Woodend Camp. When we got arrived Cody told us the camp rules. We then we got into are groups. I was with Jaycee, Rylie, Alizay, Savannah, Angel, Paige, Willow b, Kiara, Mia, Ana and are parent was Vikki.

How Can We Improve Our Outdoor Spaces?

This term we have been wondering how we could improve the spaces outside our classroom. Since moving to this block, we have noticed that we could probably do some things to beautify our outdoor spaces, as well as create some spaces that could be useful for our learning. This project links well with all 3 of our schoolwide themes this year - Imagine it create it, My place our world, and My body and me (Hauora).

An aerial view of the areas we are working with

Part of the reason why we went into the city earlier in the term was to find some inspiration and to help generate ideas. See that blog post for more details.

Since then we have spent time outside our classroom, trying to reimagine what it could look like if we were to design some new areas. We decided that if we were going to do this, the areas would fit into 3 categories - Learning, playing or relaxing.

We have begun deciding on specific designs we would like to work on. For each design, we have decided that they must...

• Have a purpose - for learning, playing or relaxing
• Be safe
• Beautify our outdoor areas

Soon we will be completing some final designs, which we will be locating the materials for and prototyping. We will be looking for feedback from others in our school community on what they think of our designs and how we could improve them. 

Good Luck To The Bromley Brains!

We are really excited to have our Year 5 team, the Bromley Brains, taking part in the Canterbury ePro8 semi finals this coming Thursday. This is an engineering competition, in which the team qualified by coming 4th out of 12 teams in the regional heats a couple of weeks ago. We also had another team, the Year 6 Bromley Coders, who performed admirably but unfortunately missed out on qualifying for the next round.

The Bromley Brains worked so well together and no doubt will have a fun, but intensely challenging time again this week.

We look forward to seeing how you go!

Manaaki

On Wednesday some of us explored the idea of manaaki.

Manaaki is the māori word for support. It means to take care of, look out for and show respect to someone.

So what type of people can we reach out to when we need it? Here's a list we made of the qualities these people might have:

Caring
Supportive
Understanding
Loyal
Connected
Kind
Loving
Trustworthy
Empathetic
Someone with great listening skills
Sincere

We thought of 5 people each that we could look to for support. We traced around our hand and wrote the person on each finger. It feels great knowing we have so much support in our lives. These people were whanau members, friends and teachers.

How Important Is It For Us To Understand Our Habits?

Olivier Fahrni


How much do you know about the effects of your daily habits?

Do you have a lot of good habits that lead to positive outcomes for yourself and others, both in the short and in the long term? On the other hand, do you have bad habits that might be doing the opposite?

In Koru 1 we have been exploring how creating positive habits can put us in control of shaping the lives we want to live. This has required a lot of self-reflection and the ability to actively notice the habits we have, while exploring all of the outcomes of these.

We have looked into areas like:
- How habits can help us reduce stress
- How habits can help us to be healthy
- How habits can help us to be productive

Exploring The Effects Of Music

Yesterday we had an interesting day where all of the children in Koru 1 were involved in an integrated project day. Those with Mrs Harris were exploring geometry through dance, while Mr K's group were exploring the effects of music.

At the beginning of the day with Mr K, he explained the following values and key competency focus areas for us to think about, as we would be reflecting on these later on.

The Four Dimensions of Hauora

Today we started learning about hauora (well-being). We learned that hauora is made up of four dimensions. These are;

• Taha tinana (physical well-being)
• Taha wairua (spiritual well-being)
• Taha hinengaro (emotional well-being)
• Taha whānau (social well-being)

Just like a whare (house) needs four strong walls to stand tall, we need to keep all four dimensions of hauora in balance to feel happy, healthy and positive.

We discussed how we can improve each dimension in our lives and wrote our ideas on strips of paper.

Finally we weaved the strips of paper together. If all four dimensions are in balance we feel good. We feel like the happiest and healthiest version of ourselves. We are looking forward to exploring hauora further. How do you take care of your hauora (well-being)?

Showing We Care

On Tuesday afternoon we were looking forward to going to Duffy Theatre at the Bromley Community Centre. Unfortunately, due to rain this was cancelled. Prior to this we discussed and planned how we will show we care during our walk to the community centre and throughout the performance. On Wednesday we would be given time to blog and show evidence of what we did. Here's what we came up with:

Mrs Harris, Mr K and Mrs Nooapii needed to come up with a plan b. So on Wednesday morning we had a paper plane flying competition instead. We needed to come up with a new criteria to show we care so that we could give clear evidence in our writing. This is what we came up with:

It was a fun experience and we were all able to reflect on how we showed the school value, caring. Check out our personal learning blogs to read more.

 

 

Caring At The Beach

Last Friday was our trip to the South New Brighton Surf Club for Beach Education. It was a great day full of lots of new learning and experiences for many of us.

We decided in Koru 1 that our school value of caring would be an important focus for this trip. On Thursday, the day before we went, we identified with Mrs Harris the key things that we will need to do to show evidence of us displaying our value of caring, which were...

How will we show we care at Beach Education?

• Listen to the lifeguards, teachers and parent helpers.
• Use our manners.
• Respect the environment, equipment, public and each other.
• Have a positive attitude.

We wonder if you can notice any of these things happening in this video with some highlights from the day. You might also be able to get a peek at what the lifeguards were teaching us about beach safety...



This week we will be working in our literacy groups to reflect and write about specifically what we did to care at Beach Education, as well as identify some of the many other things we learned about being safe at the beach.

Thank you so much to all of the wonderful parents and support staff who came along, as well as our lifeguards - Jake, Jackson, Elsa and Georgia, who did a fantastic job.

Our Vision For 2018

We have recently been putting the final touches on our vision for the year. This is our essential agreement, which is the result of a lot of exploration and discussion over the past two weeks.

We began by sharing some of our experiences at school, and identifying what we know works and what doesn't for us to learn well at school. Things like noise level, classroom layout, and the role of the teacher were discussed, and it was fantastic to see most of us having strong opinions and ideas to confidently share.

How Well Do We Work In Teams?

On Monday we participated in a team building activity. We were in groups of four and the challenge was to build the tallest, free standing tower, using a set of specific materials.

The main aim of this activity was to work well in a team. Some of the ideas we generated around good team work include; strong communication, showing we care, sharing our creativity and contributing.

Everyone took on a specific role within the group. It was fantastic seeing all the different towers being constructed.

We ended with a discussion about what went well and what we could have done differently to be more successful at working in a team.

 

Flipping Out This Morning

We had a great trip to Flip Out this morning.

Flip Out is a trampolining centre that opened last year on Maces Road. It is a wonderful place for learning to take responsible risks while getting fit at the same time!

Daniel says the foam fit is the best part because he loves jumping and flipping into it. Also he really enjoyed that everyone was having a lot of fun.

Mackenzie says her best part was jumping off the big boxes because you bounce really high when you land on the trampolines. This was also Jaycee's favourite part.

Spencer found the whole trip enjoyable because he had fun with his friends.

Shavanah learned some new tricks, like a front walk-over, on the gynmastics mat. Micaiah made a connection and said his best part was "learning new stuff" as well.

Thanks to Lynnley and Shellon for coming along too.

The General Election - Having Our Say

Last Friday was the day for us to vote in the General Election. As we were taking part in the Electoral Commision's Kids Voting Programme, we cast a vote that let us see what it would be like to take part in the election. We used special ballot papers that looked nearly identical to the ones used for the General Election in our electorate, Christchurch East.

Our Goals Are Moving!

At the beginning of this term we each identified one skill goal and one attitude goals that we thought would help us in our learning. These big goals have helped us to create some smaller goals for our individual planners and to give us ideas for our weekly reflections.

We placed them along a continuum and have been moving them along when we have been showing progress.

Check out some of the photos over time. Can you see a change in the grouping of the goals?

Week 1

Student-Led Workshops - The Beginning

Today was the first time we have introduced structured student-led workshops in Koru 1, outside of our ICT workshops. We are hoping that the middle block on Thursdays (11.30am-12.40pm) will be a time where Koru 1 students can take the lead, using their personal skills and knowledge in certain areas to teach others.

We can propose ideas for workshops to Mr K or Mrs Harris and write up a plan. This plan will include what the learning focus for the workshop will be, how many children can attend, and what resources will be required. Our peers will be able to opt into our workshops.

Today's workshops included:

Scratch Jnr (coding) - Run by Zavier
Basic division - Run by Korban
Book Creator app - Run by Lilly and Helena
Basic basketball skills - Run by Blaine

After the session, many of us started thinking of ideas we have for other workshops, and we are really looking forward to seeing where this goes.

Exploring The Decisions We Make

So far this term we have been doing a lot of thinking about decision making, specifically how the choices we make daily can impact our lives and the lives of others. We have been exploring many decisions we often make and how sometimes we make them because we are looking for an immediate benefit, or some kind of benefit in the future. 

For example, we discussed brushing our teeth. Recently in the news, researchers have said that many people don't brush their teeth. The children in Koru 1 said that this might be because either they can't be bothered, don't care, or don't have time. It was interesting hearing everyone's thoughts. Especially about the reasons why some people don't brush their teeth and whether it was a good decision to make. 

From there, we had a task where we were put into groups of 4, given 2 dice and 6 counters, and asked to come up with a simple maths game in 15 minutes. 

The reflection questions we discussed afterwards gave us plenty to talk about in our groups. Some of the questions were, "Was everyone involved in making the decisions?" and "Did you want to make decisions, but didn't feel able to?". Considering that a couple of groups faced some real challenges with this task, largely due to the decisions they made, this was a valuable learning activity. 

Soon we will be exploring more about how we make decisions in groups, like in our class, community, and as a country.