Sausage dogs in Maths?

We have had a funny visitor in Autahi that visits us on Toy Tuesday. You may have seen him hiding around the room in some funny places

This funny sausage dog has been a really fun friend during discovery time as we practise looking after him. He often gets sick and needs some TLC from the Autahi vets...



He has also been helping us with our learning in Maths. The good thing about a sausage dog is that they are just long enough to fit a number line on its belly. We told a story about how much food a sausage dog would eat each day and kept track of the number getting bigger on the number line. Check us out...


It's great when we can take an interest in our space and use it to explore learning in lots of different ways. Keep your eyes posted for more sausage dogs appearing in different parts of the classroom.

Learning about Respect

On the back wall of our classroom we have a space for our inquiry to grow. We started this inquiry because we wanted to learn more about respect and how we can show it to others.

We brainstormed ideas about what respect looks like and then thought about what respect might sound like. These are all examples of things we might hear around our class or in the playground.

Our next step was to create a super hero avatar, whose super power was the way the show respect. Everyone in our space has their own super hero that when they use some of these ideas they can move their avatar to that statement.
Here are some examples:

Research tells us that words help to create worlds. By making deliberate choices about the way we talk about respect we are hoping to make respectful language part of our everyday classroom environment. We are trying to notice each other when we use these statements and hopefully you will notice us using them as well.

Working on our class treaty together.

Respect: working on our class treaty together

In week one, we took part in Global School Play Day. We explored what kinds of games we like to play. It was also a great opportunity to talk about  how to take care of each other when we are playing: how do we make sure that the game is fun for everyone. 

So what about when we work and play together during the rest of the school year? Recently, we have been exploring what kind of treaty we could have for our class. 

With help from some friends from the seniors, we thought about what things we can do to look after the people and things in our space.

We realised that we are talking about respect - but what does this mean in Autahi?

We came up with some great ideas and drew some pictures to show our ideas in action.

'My water monster tidies up our things.'

'I am being kind to the sausage dog by patting him.'

'We look after each other when we feel sad.'

'I am picking up rubbish and toys outside.'

'Me and Marco are sharing my Beyblade.'

What does respect mean to you and your family?

We have more thinking and talking to do. We will keep on working on our treaty over the next week or so: watch this space!

Toy Tuesday

Toy Tuesday

In Autahi, Tuesday is toy day. We can bring a toy to school to play with and share with our friends. 

Here are the toys we brought to school today.

They are watching and listening carefully while we do our maths.

Carl also brought his toy to school today, Naughty Dog. Naughty Dog liked playing with the other toys, especially the dogs ...



... but sometimes he lived up to his name.

Look where we found him when we got back from our run this morning. What are you up to, Naughty Dog?

Some of us thought that perhaps he had been nibbling our snacks!

Naughty Dog didn't feel very well after snack time. Luckily, there where two vets on hand to help. After surgery, Naughty Dog felt much better.

He helped at Buddy Reading time by pointing at the words with his nose. 

And he helped all of us to do our resting after lunch.

What an eventful day. Thanks Naughty Dog, you're the best!

Why play?

In Autahi we have lots of fun learning and playing together. With international play day last Friday we did lots of talking about how we like to play and have started learning about how we can make our play awesome for everyone.

We thought about things we like to play and what makes play really fun for us. Then this week we took our play out onto the back court where we had lots of fun playing football. 

Play is a really important part of learning and we will continue to explore different aspects of play and how it helps us develop through this blog over the year. So stay tuned for more info and lots of examples of play.

Welcome to Autahi 2020

It has been such a fabulous first two weeks of school. We have spent lots of time getting to know our new space and we hope you have all had a chance to come in and have a look around.
Let's have a look at some of the important spots around the class that you might need to know:

This is where we hang our school bags out in the corridor 

This is where we put our book bags every morning

This is where we put our snack box

The green mat has lots of things for us to use at discovery time

We love the playdough table where we make new things 

Here is the art table where we can practice our creativity

And our awesome outdoor areas where we play and have fun.

We are so excited to share our new space with all of you and welcome you in anytime for a visit.