We are all Spelling Specialists in Te Mahuri!

This week we have been finding fun ways to learn about sounds and practise our spelling. 

Mrs Taylor's group have been using the Readiwriter programme which has made a fun change. Cooper told Ms Lange 'I have to learn the word 'questionnaire' this week!!'. 

Some of Ms Lange's group have been making Kahoot quizzes to test their spelling.  Look out families you are the next targets for these quiz-masters! Ms L was impressed they thought of a way to do this using Kahoot. It also means they get to practise the editing skills they have been honing in writing.

Here are some pictures of Zoe, Emma and Jhyral learning how to play 'Switch It'. This helps with listening to and identifying sounds needed and sound order in words.  At the end of the session Jhryal worked out 'champion' - isn't he though!

 Lovely Literacy Learning happening here!         (and some alliteration too!)

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Some ways families can help at home: 

- getting your TM learner to write their spelling words in sentences. 

- asking them to explain this week's spelling rule.

- notice words in their books, on TV that have that spelling rule.

Te Mahuri Students learn everywhere, all the time, anytime!

1st Time Bloggers

 It's official!! Our Year 4's have published their very first blog post. 

They are on an awesome digital journey and this blog post is just another part of that journey. There was a lot of excitement when they were able to embed their poster (google drawing) into the blog. We are very proud of them. Please take the time to go and check out their blog posts and maybe even leave them a comment.

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We love to read!

 Mrs Taylor's Readers found out what their new theme for reading over the next three weeks will be today.  We spent our Reading session "getting hooked" on our new themes. We loved getting to share our new knowledge combined with our old knowledge with others in different groups. 

Panem is looking at lizards and they were interested to find out that the Komodo Dragon is the world's biggest and most vicious lizard. The members of Panem got out the metre rulers to find out exactly how big they could grow too. Did you know a Komodo Dragon can grow up to 2.5m? This is the length of Emily and Oliver together!

Did you know that the Corona Virus is not the only health pandemic in history? In 1918 the Spanish Flu caused an international pandemic too. Treasure Island are looking into this. This is what they had to say after checking out the 'get hooked' section.

Other groups are looking at the Otago Gold Rush, Antarctica and Giant Prickly Stick Insects.

Don't forget to check out the students individual blogs to find out about their learning on these themes.

Cross Country

 On a very cool, windy day our superstars took part in the school cross country event. With all the works going on at school, we had to use the Yaldhurst domain as our starting and end point. 

Our Year 4's had to run  1500m.   

Our Year 5's had to run 2.1km.

There were a lot of red faces by the end but everyone was super proud of themselves for finishing. 

Way to go Te Mahuri, way to go!!!!

Welcome back to Term 2!

It's great to be back at school. We are all back and rearing to go for another fabulous term. We started the term with our mihi whakatau to welcome our new students and their whanau to our school. Mr Robertson reminded us that we are all one family and that we are all important in making our school a great place to be. Our school is a really awesome place!

Over the holidays, work started on our new playground, specifically a new scooter track. We are really looking forward to seeing that develop over the coming weeks. Exciting times ahead!

What's coming up in term 2 in Te Mahuri? Well we are continuing with our inquiry about where we live and the places important to us. Then our next inquiry will be about being detectives. I know that Ms Lange and Mrs Taylor have got some pretty cool experiments for us to do. It's also cross country time at the end of next week so I hope everyone has been taking Ms Lange's advice and doing some training at home.

With sooo much happening this term, don't forget to keep checking our blog for regular updates about our learning and other activities.

Past, Present, Future ... Tense that is!

 Our writing genre that we are learning about is Diary Entries also known as 1st Person Recounts.  So that we can be successful, we have learnt about verbs and verb tenses. 

We have identified verbs in the different tenses and we have sorted stories told in the different tense.

  

Today we wrote our own events in the past, present and the future. We found the present tense the hardest to write.

"Having Such a Good Time, We're Having a Ball!!" (Camp Day 2)

 What a view to wake up to! We all had a great night. There were some strange noises from some of the rooms though :) 

Not only was it a great morning, it was also Cooper's birthday today.  

First up this morning was breakfast followed by some outside time. It was very peaceful apart from the happy calls from one friend to another. We played mini golf, went on the playground, rope swing, trampolines and we discovered a slide. By 9am we were ready with our backpacks in our private study to meet Joseph. He led us on a walk to our first set of activities. It was time to try Archery, Air Rifles and Low Ropes.

So we could have more turns, we split into two groups. We all loved having a go with the bows and arrows and air rifles. We really got better and better. There was a target goat at archery that could not escape our sharp shooting. Having said that, there were also some trees and bushes that could have done without the arrows that landed on and in them :)

Low Ropes was a chance to test our team skills. We worked in teams of 3 to support each other through the different challenges. If we passed the challenge there were 'super' challenges we had to try. 

After lunch we headed off to initiatives. This was a true test of our terrific teamwork. We worked in groups of nine in order to solve a number of problems. We had to communicate effectively, listen to all ideas, support each other and ensure we all succeeded. It wasn't always easy but we felt really proud of ourselves once we achieved our goal. Some problems were easier than others but we showed determination and resilience.

After initiatives we headed back to camp for some afternoon tea and some recreation. Yup you guessed it we got to go on the monorail, trampolines, gaga dodgeball, mini golf and rope swing again. The monorail is definitely a big hit with our children.

Next was dinner and there were a lot of happy faces as they devoured their dinner of burgers and chips. After dinner we were introduced to the game colours. Simply it is a game of three teams (blue, red, yellow)whose objective is to capture other members of the team and turn them into their colour. At the end of the round you return to your homebase and count up how many team members you now have. Easy huh?! Check out the end results ... but don't worry Mums and Dads all children have had showers so will not be coming back to you multi-coloured.

There is a lot of mixed feelings within camp tonight. All the children have had a great time and talk about all the fun things they have done. For this reason they don't want to come home but they also admit they are ready to come home as they miss you all. 

Tomorrow will be all about packing up, cleaning our accommodation, going for a swim in the pool we all love and then some more recreation activities. It should be a great way to end what has been a truly fantastic camp.

Loving Camp Life (Day 1)

 Well, what a day we have had. Excitedly we all arrived at school with our gear ready for a great three days.

The bus ride was great and Ms Lange and Mrs Taylor were happy that no-one was sick on the journey. 

The bus dropped us off at Governors Bay and we got to eat our morning tea and run round a little. Then the fabulous instructors from Living Springs met us and we started our walk. We had to walk up a hill to get to camp. Some of us complained but we all made it! We were happy to see the top. What a super cool view from our camp!

After we collected our luggage, we went off to find our rooms. Then it was straight onto orienteering. Joseph explained how we could read a map to go and locate different points. We had to work as a team. No man or woman was left behind! Two teams got six points correct. We were hungry again now so lucky for us it was afternoon tea time. After eating some delicious chocolate cake and watermelon, pineapple, apple and oranges,  it was our recreation time. Recreation means we could try ziplining, monorail, mini golf, rope swing, trampolines and gaga dodgeball. So much fun!

After a delicious dinner we got to go swimming in the pool. We loved the fact that the pool was inside and heated! We thought that was such a treat. We tried to convince Mr Robertson to upgrade our school pool.

To finish the day we completed our camp diaries with what we have done, what we found challenging and what we are looking forward to tomorrow. What a great first day of camp we have all had. We are all looking forward to our next adventure tomorrow.  

Night all.

Will we or Won't we ...?

 After seven stressful days of elevated Covid levels, we finally have the final go ahead to go on our class camp to Living Springs on Monday 8th March. 

We all breathed a sigh of relief as we listened to the joint press conference with our Honourable Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and the Director General of Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield on Friday. 

With Christchurch now at Level 1, we are able to be part of a gathering with more than 100 people. That means that if we had stayed at Covid Level 2 we would have been unable to go. We understand that we are extremely fortunate. Many students around the country have had class camps cancelled or postponed because of the change in Covid alert levels. We really feel for them because we know how excited we were in the lead up to our camp. Hopefully they will be able to go on a different date. 

On Monday morning we will all be at school before 9am with our camp gear. We are looking forward to going away together but also to trying new things. At Yaldhurst, one of our values is being an open-minded explorer. We will definitely need to keep this with us this week as we attempt new activities and tasks that we have never tried before. A big one for many of us is that fact that we are going away overnight without our parents. Because of events over the last two years, for many this will be their first school camp. We are ready and we are excited!!

Keep an eye on our blog over the next few days to see what we get up to. 

Swimming Heroes

 Here at YMS we are lucky to have an awesome school pool on site. We love being able to swim during the warmer months. 

We are extremely lucky to welcome back our fabulous swimming instructors to help us with our floating, kicking and strokes. Jess, Eden and Sarah work at Jellie Park and some of us have seen them around when we go for our after school lessons. They started with us last week and will be helping us till Friday. Ms Lange and Mrs Taylor are really impressed with all the TM students and how hard they are working during the lessons. 

Not only do we have lessons with them but at the start they help us to understand some of the key water safety messages for whether we are at the pool, at a river/lake or at the beach. Thanks Jess, Eden and Sarah for helping to support us to keep ourselves safe around water.

Hellooooo 2021!!

 Hellooo 2021! We are super excited to welcome you all back to the awesomeness that is Te Mahuri 2021. We are an excited group of Year 4 and 5 students. 

Our teachers this year are Ms Lange and Mrs Taylor. 

For our Year 4 students, this is their first time in a digital classroom and they are very keen to start using their chromebooks. Our Year 5 students are excellent role models and are helping them to get started. We have a lot of fantastic things that we will be doing this year and of course we will be learning lots. Keep checking our blog for the latest happenings.

We say goodbye ...

 Wow! It is hard to believe that we have reached the end of the school year. We have done a lot and achieved much more. Ms Dods and I are really proud of our fabulous children. They are kind, caring, funny and all round superstars! 

As one of our final tasks, we created a yearbook. We wanted to reflect on the year, our successes and the memorable moments.

Well there we have it. Now it is time to say goodbye for 2020 and to wish everyone safe and happy holidays.  We look forward to welcoming you all back to school in 2021!

Sticky Question (Week 8 - Term 4)

 It was really interesting to read how you interpreted our last question. There were some fabulous ideas that made us think. Great work!

Here is this week's sticky question ...

I wonder what your thoughts on this are?

Pet Day in Te Mahuri

We had such a fun Pet Day in Te Mahuri, on Friday.  We started the day by making habitats for fictional animals.  The children came up with some awesome creations.  The children then decorated their own cakes based on the animal theme.  Everyone had a great time and created some wonderful work.  Mrs taylor and I were very proud of team Te Mahuri.

Ms Dods

Sticky Question (Week 7 - Term 4)

Wow! You had some awesome ideas around the ways children are better than adults.

This week I wonder ...

What do you think? Leave us a comment to let us know your thoughts.

Sticky Question (Week 6 - Term 4)

Many of you had similar thoughts about what makes the strongest reason. It was great to see how you responded to others ideas so positively, well done!

This weeks sticky question is ....

I am sure you will all have lots to discuss with this sticky question. We look forward to reading your responses.

Sticky Question (Week 5 - Term 4)

 Last week was tricky and we noticed how deeply you were thinking about life if someone was never afraid. You all provided some great reflections around this, well done!

This week you need to really read the question carefully in order to understand it.

So what are the strongest reasons based on?

Sticky Question (Week 4 - Term 4)

 Last week there were some very interesting thoughts regarding the laws you would make. What was fantastic was the explanations that told us why you would make these laws.

This week we want you to reflect on how lives would be different if you were never afraid.

As always, we look forward to reading your thoughts.

Sticky Question (Week 3 - Term 4)

We hope everyone has had a lovely long weekend. Our sticky question for this week asks you to think about the world we live in now and what you think could be done to make it even better. Remember to explain why this law is important to you.

Don't forget to check back to see what others decide is the new law they would make. What are your thoughts about these?

Week 2 Term 4

 Well....yet another busy week has rushed upon us. Honestly it feels as if no sooner has Monday ended when Friday is upon us.  This week the children have all been working really hard at perfecting the art of "Moment In Time' writing.  This is no easy feat...they need to use Adjectives, Similes and Personification whilst writing in the first person and the present tense!!! Soo, much to think about for developing wee authors, but boy are they having a decent crack at it.  Both Ange and I are really proud of them.

Ange has been in Auckland Wed, Thurs and Fri this week at the Manaiakalani Wananga, so we have been very fortunate to have the wonderful Margaret White in our class with us.  Margaret has a delightful way of working with the children in a gentle, encouraging and supportive way. The children have all enjoyed having Mrs White in Te Mahuri.  An enormous thank you to Margaret for gracing us with her company.

Next week we have a frantic timetable.  Tuesday and Wednesday it is business as usual in Te Mahuri.  Thursday we are heading to Ngatapa Farm, in Coutts Island to look at the way climate changes can impact living things.  We will have a DOC Ranger there sharing his experience with us, alongside a member of Water and WIldlife New Zealand.  The children will need a hat, gumboots or old shoes, plenty of food and water as it's a hungry business being out in the fresh air all day.  An enormous thank you to all of the parents for returning the children's permission slips and a huge thank you to those that are able to join us on the day.  Hopefully, it will be a fun relaxed day in the sun.

Friday is our Yaldhurst Model School Athletics Day.  The children have been practicing hard for this.  We look forward to seeing you all at school, if you can make it.

Until then, have a fantastic, safe long weekend.  Enjoy the gorgeous weather that has been predicted.  Keep reading daily with your children as every bit helps.

Nga Mihi

Sarah Dods and Angela Taylor

Sticky Question (Week 2 - Term 4)

 We are continuing with our Sticky Questions this term. Our first one for term 4 is ...

So, what do you think? Remember to justify your answer. What do your friends and family think?

Welcome to Term 4

Welcome back to Term 4. This week we have had the children thinking about the year so far, what their challenges have been and how they are feeling now. We have also asked them to think about what their goals are for this term. Finally they were encouraged to try out new tools/programmes to share their work on. 

For me, I have had a chance to try out easel.ly.com which is a simple web tool that empowers anyone to create and share powerful visuals. This was my reflection on the year so far and my goals for this term.

What are your goals for this term?

 

Shared Writing

 For the past two weeks, we have been learning about personal recounts. Firstly we read and analysed them. During this time we spent time pulling apart a variety of 1st person recounts in order to work out what the features were. We spent some time looking at the idea of past tense and those irregular past tense verbs. We also looked at different time connectives as we want to be using a variety of these in our own recounts and not just 'then.' 

Our next step was to work together to write a recount. Together we came up with the idea of a 'magical' trip to Orana 'Super' Zoo and in small groups of 3 or 4, we planned our parts. We then wrote the paragraph we were responsible for and illustrated it. In the editing phase, we read each others paragraph and analysed it against the success criteria. From this we were able to give the different groups an improvement point.

Finally we put all the parts together and here is the finished product. 

Sticky Question (T3 - Week 10)

Well we have really challenged ourselves this term with our reflections, explanations and justifications. we really have become amazing thinkers.

Our last sticky question for this term is ...



I think this is a really interesting idea. This will need some very careful reflection as to what it is asking of us. Remember to talk with your friends and whanau about this too. Gathering the thoughts of others helps us to consider our own ideas. What are your thoughts? Post them in the comments.

Buddies

 Each week, Te Mahuri and Te Kakano get together to talk, share work, play games, complete tasks or to work as a team. This is a great opportunity for our tamariki to get to know each other and to help each other be great YMS heroes. For Te Mahuri they are learning how to share knowledge with those younger than them, to be patient and showing all just what great role models they are.

One of the latest activities was for them to create a gif of themselves. First they had to use screencastify to shoot a 10 second video of themselves. Next they had to download that video and upload it to unscreen.com. Unscreen removes the video background leaving just the students as the stars. At this stage the buddies chose a new background. Lastly they downloaded the gif and placed it on the slide for their classmates to see. Everyone loved seeing the different gif's of themselves and their classmates. Lots of fun!

Sticky Question (T3 - Week 9)

Well it's the start of another week so it's time for another sticky question. Remember to talk about it with your friends and family so that you can consider all the differing points of view

This week's sticky question is ...




Well? Can they? If they can, is it for the better or for the worst? I'm looking forward to reading your justifications around your answer to this question. 

Sticky Question (T3 - Week 8)

We loved reading all your comments last week around kindness.

This week our sticky question is ...



This is an interesting one huh? As always, we look forward to reading your thoughts.

Book Creator and Te Mahuri's Incredible Speeches

 Today the children of Te Mahuri started to present their Speeches to their classmates.  It was fascinating to listen to these children speaking confidently to their classmates.  It takes a lot of confidence to stand in front of a group of people and talk to them about a subject you have chosen and poured your heart and soul into creating.

What was equally as impressive was the respect shown to the speakers by their audience.  These children truly have mastered the art of supporting their peers to give of their best, of respecting others right to be heard and offering encouragement when it was needed. Tino Pai to mahi Te Mahuri.

You can see what the Te Mahuri children have been learning about in writing by going to this page.

In Cybersmart the class have been working on using Book Creator.  They copied and pasted their text from their Workbook into the book creator project.  Then they had to record their voices reading their speeches and they videoed themselves saying their speeches.

They have linked their speeches onto their blogs...Check them out!!!

Please leave positive and helpful feedback for the children to read and enjoy.  They have worked really hard.

Nga Mihi

Sarah Dods