Safe At Home

Covid-19.  Global.  Pandemic. Lockdown. 

We are not stuck and home, we are SAFE at home.

We are three days into the lockdown. 

Since we have been at home we had a few 'hangouts' to keep in touch and see how everyone was doing. Kakapo Kids completed the work that was set for them from this week before we knew schools would be shutting.  Mrs Cutler gave the kids a challenge on Thursday and then gave us task about Anne Frank yesterday.  

We learned about Anne Frank, this put a few things into perspective for us.  We compared Anne's situation with our own, read, answered comprehension questions, took a virtual tour through the annex reflected on our own questions. We talked about what we are grateful for and what changes will happen environmentally because of this.  We talked about this being a reset... what changes will we make after this?  What little things do we really appreciate now? How lucky are we that we are home with our family and safe. During the holidays Mrs Cutler has made  a task board for us if we get bored.

The Kakapo Kids are writing in a diary like Anne did, recording their thoughts, feelings and activities during this time.  They are also making a time capsule.  Because this is a huge event in history and they are a part of it.  

Our learning has always been accessible online but these challenges gave us a chance to practice some remote learning skills.  Skills like being a problem solver, an active learner and how to be proactive and manage our time, ourselves and our learning. We will need these after Easter when Term 2 starts back remotely!

Check out the individual blogs to see what the Kakapo Kids are up to during this Rahui. 

Float, Float, Float Your Boat ... ⛵

For Mahi Tahi last week Mrs Cutler gave out this challenge...

This task required all of the 4 Cs but especially Critical Thinking and Communication.

The time limit was a challenge but the boats that were created were amazing.

We looked at the successful designs and discussed why and how they were successful.  We did the same for the unsuccessful boats. Photos to come!

Mahi Tahi 2020

For those of you who are new to our blog, Mahi Tahi is where the three senior classes come together and work on a range of tasks. We chose the name Mahi Tahi because it means 'working as one'.  We used to meet twice a week, but this year we have two new teachers in the senior syndicate.  So while Mrs Cutler is the "Original", this year she is making sure we ease into the learning for everyone who is new to Mahi Tahi ... the teachers, new students and the year 5s.

Search our blog with 'mahi tahi' to see some of the awesome activities and learning we did in 2019.

During Mahi Tahi we learn about the four C's.  Collaboration, Communication, Critical Thinking and Creativity. The activities range from STEM to baking to art to school beautification to maths challenges.  Children are grouped randomly - we do aim to have one person from each year level in a group.

The aim is to instill 21st century skills in a way that every person gets to shine, take leadership, share ideas, follow leadership and practice the 4C's.  Now that you know what Mahi Tahi is - keep an eye out for some 2020 Mahi Tahi posts!

Kakapo Confessions

We read William Carlos Williams poem "This is Just to Say" about him admitting, and apologising for eating plums without asking. We discussed what it means to admit or confess something.

Kakapo kids brainstormed their confessions and ideas.

Using a similar format to Williams poem, children wrote their own poems.  We spent a lot of time re-working our writing to ensure we had interesting words that created a picture for the reader.  For example - rather than using 'yummy' to describe a chocolate, 'gooey' was used.

When it came to publishing our poems the criteria was to use a background image that related to their confession. The font had to be readable - so we had to think about the background picture.  Can the words be seen with a different colour, or was a bolder font or highlighting needed?

Children worked on a shared document to publish their poems.  There was a few challenges around this (such as accidental deletion of slides) but these were ironed out quickly luckily.

We really enjoyed reading each others poems.  We have given each other feedback and have reflected on things we may change if we did this task again.

You can read the poems by checking out the individual blogs.  We'd love to hear what you think so please leave a comment!