Junior Athletics 2023

 

This week Autahi and Tautoru got outdoors to get into some Athletics. Alongside some supportive seniors, we raced over hurdles, balanced items on spoons, threw bean bags into buckets and leaped in the long jump. 

The positivity was flowing as cheers of 'You can do it' rang out as the competitors gave it their all. The goals for the day were to try your best and have fun.

The New Zealand Curriculum outlines some key learning experiences

• Develop a wide range of movement skills, using a variety of equipment and play environments.
• Participate in a range of games and activities and identify the factors that make participation safe and enjoyable.

We take part in regular P.E. sessions and learn about ways to move your body as wells as learning new games that encourage participation. We also learn to give things a go and support each other to try our best.

Check out the different activities here:

The bean bag toss had different levels of challenge to stretch everyones skills.

Leaping through the air on the long jump!

A careful balancing act.

These sprints were neck and neck!

Finally we finished it all with an obstacle course around Big Kids Playground. It is so nice to get out and about in our space and move and play.

Autahi and Tautoru visit to Taputeranga Marine Reserve

In both Autahi and Tautoru, we have recently been using Atua as the foundation for our Inquiry. Exploring the realms of different atua has given us rich opportunities to learn about the natural world around us and perhaps view that world in a different way. 

This week, our visit to Taputeranga Marine Reserve was full of great learning about Tangaroa and the children of Tangaroa, the creatures that inhabit our ocean habitats. The Marine Education Centre at Taputeranga is devoted to the sea life of our local coastline so we were learning about creatures that we can find around Worser Bay, too.

Here is a selection of photos from our trip to give a flavour of what we saw. Doctor Victor encouraged us to be explorers, find out new things, and ask lots of questions - and we did!

Visiting the Bait House

Here, we had the chance to get hands-on with some sea stars, anemones, kina, crabs and other creatures.

Doctor Victor showed us how to use our hands like scoops to very gently pick up the animals so that we could take a closer look at them without harming them.

A cushion star and a big sea star.

This beauty is a snake star. We had to be extra-careful when picking it up to make sure we were supporting its body and legs from underneath.

Rockpooling

We also had to chance to explore the rock pools beside the Bait House. Look what we found!

How cute is this little crab?

And how lucky are we to get to spend time learning together and having fun in this beautiful spot?

We have questions!

 

Check out our Character Strengths poster, and you'll see that Curiosity is one of our key strengths. It lives in the 'Wisdom' category, alongside Love of Learning, Judgement, Creativity and Perspective.

Curiosity is one of the Strengths that drives learning by Inquiry. Our students need no encouragement to ask questions. We can help them to refine and shape their questions. Broad, open questions can be particularly useful as we begin an Inquiry, helping us to find out what we know already and what our lines of inquiry might be. As our Inquiry progresses, we might choose questions that pinpoint specific information that we want to know.

This term, our inquiry into Atua is taking us into the realms of Tangaroa and Tāne Mahuta. Autahi students are keen to know more about the children of Tangaroa and also of Tāne Mahuta. Our visit to Taputeranga Marine Reserve gives us an opportunity to find out more about the children of Tangaroa that live in our local coastal areas.

In preparation for our trip, we have been generating and collecting questions about the crabs, anemones, sea stars and other creatures that we will encounter there.

We are excited to ask take our questions to Island Bay with us. There will be plenty to discover. We should find some answers - and we will probably come back with a whole lot of new questions, too!