Kopa Wha students sign in daily by practicing writing their names. They either write their name with a pen or use an ABC chart to assist them. The childs name is firstly modelled by a Learning Assistant or teacher. The student is then given the opportunity to point to the letters inside their name. The letters are recorded on our sign in sheet and a lot of celebration occurs with all the letters they attempt to point to.
Great mahi Kopa Wha!
Whare Manaaki is so very fortunate to begin attending Fulton Swim School again every Wednesday morning.
Swimming has many benefits for our tamariki from improving motor skills to creating a variety of opportunities for our students to interact socially, reduce anxiety as well as provide sensory regulation.
This week, as part of our Speech Session with Helen Griffiths, we hunted to find Matariki stars around the school.
We also completed some stars to add to our mural in Kopa Wha as well as practising our Matariki Dance.
I have also included Kopa Rima’s beautiful Matariki display outside their room.
Have a wonderful Matariki Day tomorrow and we look forward to seeing you all next Tuesday morning for our early morning Puanga Breakfast beginning at 6.45am.
This week Kopa Wha has been working on the Letter Ff.
We have been looking at the emotion of frustration and what that may look like. This emotion appears often throughout our day at school in numerous settings. Our tamariki have been looking at a variety of short clips of others feeling frustrated when playing with a variety of toys. An example of this is when we build a tower and it repeatedly falls down.
We have extended this emotion to relate to the environment as well. I shared how I become frustrated seeing rubbish when out in our beautiful environment. We incorporated our Community Outing to visit Ngamotu Beach where we put on gloves and collected rubbish from the beach. We collected a bin full of rubbish and also while we were there collected seaweed, driftwood and sand. Once we returned to school we created some artworks with our seaside findings. These are displayed outside Kopa Wha.
Our tamariki have also enjoyed reading about the ‘Rainbow Fish’. They created some beautiful collaged rainbow fishes which you can see displayed in Kopa Wha.
This week we have been looking at when we feel excited. Kopa Four thought going on a bug hunt as well as creating ladybirds was exciting. All our tamariki found the snails of particular interest and using the magnifying glass to look even closer at the snails was even more exciting. Great mahi Kopa 4. I loved watching you all being so curious in our garden.
In Kopa Wha we have been focusing on the letter Ss. We have been integrating this letter with different emotions.
An important part of our daily teaching is recognising how we are feeling. We have been introducing ‘The Zones of Regulation’ to help all our tamariki recognise the different ways we feel. These are represented by colours. We will be continuing to work on this next term.
This week we have been learning about the emotion of surprise. Our tamariki have practiced showing the emotion on their faces throughout the week. We concluded the week by creating a surprised emoji face.
We hope you enjoy the photos.
Have a fabulous holiday everyone and I look forward to seeing you all again next term.
Ruma Wha have been completing some Marvellous Math activities this week.
We incorporated sensory and fine motor activities into our Math sessions and look what we created!
Everyone had a lot of fun and the classroom was a hive of activity.
Ka pai everyone!
Fine motor activities are a huge part of our day to day programme in Ruma Wha. The benefits of working on a variety of fine motor activities is extensive from strengthening their muscles in their hands and fingers to the development of hand-eye co ordination.
Our wonderful Occupational Therapist, Paula Matheson visits Whare Manaaki on a weekly basis to work alongside our tamariki and kaiako (teachers). We hope you enjoy the montage of photos showing a variety of fine motor activities.
If you would like to find out more about fine motor skills please look at the Specialist Site below. It has some tips and tricks and different ideas for you try at home with your tamariki.
We are so fortunate to have Fiona Waugh rejoin us in Ruma Wha this year.
On a weekly basis Fiona works on various applications and skills for our students to practise.
This year we have been looking more closely at how to take a video and photos to include them into an iMovie. We have incorporated our Letter of the Week into this week’s iMovie. We looked around the classroom to see what words began with the Letter Nn.
We hope you enjoy our iMovie. All of the photos and videos were taken by our tamariki.
Thank you so much, Fiona, for your support with our iMoi. I look forward to next Wednesday.
Every second week, Ruma Wha visits Moveables, a gymnastics club where our tamariki participate in an exciting obstacle course featuring a range of fun and engaging gross motor activities.
The activities range from swinging on ropes, jumping on a variety of different trampolines and balancing on beams.
These gross motor activities are such an integral part of our tamarikis lives as it allows them to navigate their environment, participate in physical activities, develop social interactions, and contribute to their overall confidence and well-being.
Ka pai Whare Manaaki!
