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. 

Getting to Know Ourselves Better

On Wednesday Koru 1 enjoyed another project based learning day. Mr K took half of the class for a statistical investigation, involving the physical world and Mrs Harris took the other half on a journey to stronger self awareness in regards to our surroundings and our preferred learning environments.

First the children with Mrs Harris took part in a kōrero by participating in a human continuum. Mrs Harris said some statements to get us thinking. Here are some of them:

I would rather read instructions than listen to the teacher explain them. I like to get up and move around throughout the day. I like drawing lots of pictures whenever I get the chance. I remember things better if I write them down. I like a peaceful learning environment. I prefer to set up a work space on the floor.

If we agreed with the statement we would walk down towards the end of the room with the yes sign pinned on the wall and if we disagreed we would walk down the other end. Some of us ended up somewhere in between for certain statements. We shared our opinions and listened to what other people had to say.



After we got our brains thinking during the human continuum we wrote a list of all the things we need to shine as learners. We took this list and used the ipads to make our own google slide titled "I Learn Best When..." This made us to think about what we need as a learner, so that school is a positive, successful experience. Some of us like sitting at tables, while others enjoy setting up on the floor. Some of us need to write things down while others need to take pictures or draw more. We are all unique and it's important that we respect each others' differences.

For the second half of the day we explored our favourite places. We drew sketches of our favourite place at school and outside of school. We shared with the group why we like these places and how they make us feel. We talked about spending time in these places to improve our hauora (wellbeing). We also learned that when we feel like we need a positivity boost we can close our eyes and picture these places in our mind. This gave us many positive emotions such as excitement, happiness, peace, love, connection, bravery, warmth and gratitude. We wrote these fantastic words on a piece of paper because it felt wonderful! We discussed our favourite spaces in the classroom and how spending our learning time in these spaces make us feel safe and focused.



The key ideas we need to take away from today are;

- To be successful learners we need to know what's right for us.
- Thinking about our favourite places can evoke positive emotions.
- Everyone's needs are different and we respect that.
- Getting to know our learning needs better will help us make wiser choices in the classroom.