Descriptive Writing

 

The firebird has truely become a source of inspiration for the learning in Autahi over the past few weeks.

Based on the ballet and orchestral piece created by Igor Stravinsky, we have been learning about the story and how the music adds to creating new aspects to the experience. 

We started by looking at picture of the Firebird to inspire us and then had a go at using our own imaginations to draw what we thought the Firebird might have looked like.

This in turn inspired our writing. We wrote descriptions of what we thought we would see when we looked at the Firebird. Some of our learner will even share them with the rest of the school in our Assembly item this week.

The connections between the visual arts and writing helps us learn to capture our creativity in different ways. We can paint a picture with paints and also with words.

Getting fired up for the Firebird!

Our trip to the NZSO schools' performance of Stravinsky's The Firebird is on the horizon. To help us get the most out of this experience, we are getting to know the fairytale and characters that inspired the music that we will hear.

The best place to start with The Firebird is with the four main characters. In The Firebird, each of these characters has its own musical motifs. Our students in Autahi know that characters are the people (and creatures) that do things in stories. We have invented actions for each of the four main characters in The Firebird.

Brave Prince Ivan 

 

Prince Ivan is the hero. Like all princes, he's brave, handsome and looking for adventure.

Evil King Kastchei

The villain in this story is King Kastchei. He has a sinister garden and magical powers.

Thirteen sad princesses

The sad princesses have been taken prisoner by King Kastchei (boo!). We particularly enjoy acting the part of a sad princess.

The Firebird

The Firebird is the mythical creature who holds the key to defeating the evil king.

The story of The Firebird

Here is a simple version of the storyline. Ask your child if they can help you to tell it, including actions for the characters.

Once upon a time, a brave prince called Ivan, found himself wandering through the gardens of the evil King Kastchei. The gardens were very beautiful, but very sad because all of the plants, trees, birds and animals had been turned into statues. The only living thing was the wonderful Firebird, flying around the garden on flaming wings. 

Prince Ivan cannot resist chasing the Firebird and captures her. Begging for her release, the Firebird promises to help Prince Ivan if he ever needs it. The prince agrees that he will free the Firebird once she has helped him.

Continuing his walk through the garden, Prince Ivan comes upon thirteen princesses who have been frozen like stone. All they can do is blink and cry. Prince Ivan falls in love with one of them.

Along comes King Kastchei. Prince Ivan battles the king. It is a terrible struggle until the Firebird comes to Ivan's rescue and uses magic to send King Kastchei to sleep. While the king is asleep, the Firebird tells Prince Ivan the secret of Kastchei's power. His soul is contained in a golden egg. If Ivan breaks it, Kastchei will die and all his prisoners will be free.

Quietly, Ivan sneaks up on the king and breaks the egg. King Kastchei dies. The trees, plants, creatures and princesses are released from their statues and set free. And they all live happily ever after.

The Firebird

The Firebird is an enchanting, magical creature and we are enjoying imagining what she might look like. Here are the beginnings of our Firebird drawings. 

We chose fiery colours to bring our Firebirds to life. Our finished creations will be on display in Autahi: please come and take a look.

Letters to Goldilocks

 

In Writing we explore different text types as a part of our learning. This week we looked into the world of letter writing after reading a book based on Goldilocks and the three bears.

We chose to write from the perspective of the bears and tell Goldilocks how we were feeling.

The children in Autahi showed a great amount of empathy for Goldilocks and many of them chose to apologise for scaring Goldilocks away. 

Check out some examples of our letters....

Kids love to write in all sorts of ways. Making cards or writing letters are great ways that you can practise some writing at home in a way that everyone can have fun.

Exercising our Gratitude Muscles

Gratitude is one of our Character Strengths. On our Character Strengths poster, it looks like this:

In our recent Positive Education lessons, Autahi has begun to explore what Gratitude means. We have begun by first noticing the things and people that we are thankful for. We will go on to find ways to turn our Gratitude into action.

Our classroom now has a Gratitude Jar.

This is a simple way to encourage us to notice and capture (in writing or a picture) the moments when we experience Gratitude. Here are some of the things we are thankful for.

Research has shown that noticing and cultivating feelings of Gratitude can improve our wellbeing and resilience.

In our Flourish model, Gratitude comes into the sphere of Positive Emotions. While we encourage our students to feel all of their feelings, it is important to learn the skill of cultivating Positive Emotions like Optimism, Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence and Gratitude. 

A daily practice of noticing the things in life that we are grateful for (they may be very small things!) helps to build our resilience and ability to cope with life's challenges. Positive emotions broaden our attention, leading to more open and flexible thinking (rather than shutting down or flight responses to problems). This is also known as Broaden and Build Theory.

Recalling and revisiting moments that we are thankful for allows us to re-experience the positive emotion. This is important because, as humans, our brains are wired towards a negativity bias. We need to experience a lot more positives to outweigh a few negatives.

By teaching our students how to exercise their 'Gratitude muscles', we hope to help them to develop a habit of noticing positives. Capturing things we are grateful for in a picture or a diary gives us the opportunity to revisit the experience - and reinforce the positive emotion. Doing this as a group makes this even more powerful.

You might like to try this at home, too. Start by asking each other on the way home, "What are you feeling thankful for today?"

And if you would like to know more about Broaden and Build Theory, our Flourish model, or any other aspect of our Positive Education programme, please chat with Beth or Carl.

Exploring patterns

 This week in Autahi, we have begun exploring patterns.

Some patterns are repeating patterns. Others are sequential (like counting, for example). Sequential patterns often contain some kind of growth. This week, we been exploring repeating patterns in shapes and colours, noticing what the pattern is and how it repeat.

We look for patterns in people as well as with numbers. We have been playing guess the pattern with our classmates and looking carefully to spot any repeating patterns. It could go long sleeves then short sleeves.

Pattern is part of our Maths curriculum, but an awareness of how patterns work helps in many areas of our learning. Patterns are not only visual, but also occur in numbers, words and sounds. We will be making plenty of connections between our learning about pattern in Maths and patterns that occur in Music and Art also.