February 23rd

Te Kakano learners have been enjoying learning to read and write more letter-sounds. They have started blending their known letter-sounds and can read and write. Super-duper little learners!

Meet Cooper the caterpillar and Ally Alligator.

 

We made apple spirals to help us remember the letter sounds for 'a' and 's'. It was fun!

Scrumptious apple spirals!

 Learning about being a team.

We had a lot of discussions about being part of a team. Here are some of ideas:

Being a good team member means working well with others to get things done together. Here’s how you can be a good team member:

1. Share: Share your toys, ideas, and turn. When everyone shares, everyone has fun!
2. Listen: When your friends are talking, listen carefully. It helps you understand what they want to do.
3. Help Out: If someone needs help, like tying their shoes or finding something, you can offer to help them.
4. Take Turns: Everyone should get a chance to play or talk. Waiting for your turn is important.
5. Be Kind: Use kind words and be gentle with your friends. This makes everyone feel happy and safe.
6. Say “Thank You”: When someone helps you or shares with you, saying "thank you" shows you appreciate them.

When you do these things, your team can have fun and get lots of things done together!

Our class waka. We talked about how a waka team has to work together otherwise they won't reach their destination and accidents might happen.

This is how we created ourselves to sit in the waka. We sat and pretended we were paddling. Mrs Dane took a photo and used a special app to change the photo. We added colour very carefully and love how we look. We are a great team!

 

Phonics and Handwriting

 In Te Kakano Class the students all put a lot of effort into learning the sounds letters make. This week we were learning about the letter Dd and the sound it makes in words. The Letterland character Dippy Duck helped us to remember this sound. We also practised writing this letter on our mini whiteboards and in our handwriting books.

On Fun Fridays we always find the rhyming words in our weekly poem and then illustrate the poem. This week our poem was called 'Friends'.

Term 1 Week 4

In Te Kakano both the big and small blocks are favourites. We have a number of budding civil  engineers, architects and builders. Week by week the designs are becoming more thoughtful, purposeful and creative.

  So . . . we made block towers in maths. We are learning that the next number in the range 1-10 is 1 more [5 + 1 = 6]. This is also the number that comes after. We kept adding 1 more block, discussed what we had done and counted how many. When our towers were 10 blocks high, we made them smaller by taking away one block at a time, counting back as we went and predicting what the before number would be.

 



The clever Te Kakano students have been thinking and sharing ideas about who and what can help us to be better learners. Did you know that we all have BRILLIANT BRAINS? We know that if we love to learn new things this will help. We have rockets in our  pockets and every day we are developing a positive 'growth mindset' to help us in our learning.                         We say:

💜 "I can't do it ...YET!" 
💚"I'm going to train my brain.!"
💗"I can do hard things!"
💙"Challenges help me grow!"
💛"I can always try again!"
💜"I love learning!"
Recognising letters and knowing the sound/sounds each letter makes in words is very important. Letters make sounds, letter sounds make words and words are how we share our ideas and thoughts with others when we talk and write. We would like to share some of the ways we learnt about the letter Bb today.

In the words of Dr. Seuss . . .

Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You're off to Great Places!

You're off and away!

You have brains in your head

You have feet in your shoes

You can steer yourself

Any direction you choose!

Term 1 Week 2

It's been HOT! We are so lucky to have a swimming pool at school. We have been learning the correct way to enter and exit, to put our heads under and to float on our tummies and backs. We do this with the help of flutter boards but some of us can do this on our own.

We are developing our water confidence and water safety skills.

On Fridays we have a fun swimming session with Te Pihi. As you can see, we love learning to swim.

We have to be very good listeners and follow instructions in the pool. We need to be aware of those around us  and keep ourselves and others safe.





Te Kakano's shared book this week was 'Cowboys can be Kind' by Timothy Knapman. It is about a playground troublemaker who learns to be kind and make friends. Some Te Kakano students got spotted being kind and got to dress up as cowboys. They got to wear the costumes outside as well.

Kind cowboys Mason and Emma.

Kind cowboys Tia and Miley.








We have started learning letter sounds that will help us read and write. This week's letter was 'Aa' and on Friday for the letter craft activity we each made an apple that looks like an 'a'. Great scissor skills Te Kakano. Tu meke!
                                           

Ka kite ano! See you soon.