Matariki - Whānau groups

   

In our whānau groups, we explored stories of the Matariki star cluster from around the world. Ask us what we learnt at home...

Whānau groups are groups of children and teachers across the school. There is an added bonus- siblings and families work together. Teachers and students learn from each other! We have been thinking about Tuakana/ Teina. The older students teach the younger students. The roles can also be reversed. We saw this with great energy on Friday!

Matariki Kai - thank you for joining us for this special lunch!

Whanau day Term 4

This week we have had another Whanau day where we celebrated how we can use our strengths in different ways.

Whanau day is an opportunity for children to work in groups from all three areas of the school as well as working with their siblings. We work in different spaces around the school and often with different teachers. It is a great way to explore different parts of the school and make connections with new people.

In Carl and Nik's Whanau group we looked at the strength of Hope and how we might use it to help us when we are feeling nervous or scared about something. We made Hope jars to help remind ourselves of the things we are hopeful for next year and in the future.

These are things that we can keep with us as sometimes it becomes hard to remember. Check out some of our hopes for the future.

'How Maui Discovered Fire' -Matariki Whanau Groups Day

James and Nicola's Whānau group (with Neil stepping in!) retold the tale of how Maui discovered fire. We did this through the medium of puppets!

First we got into groups and retold the legend. Then we got back together to share, before planning and discussing what we needed to make. We asked, how did we want to do it? What characters will we need? How will we make the settings for the scenes and the backing music?

Everybody played their part in creating the artwork for the show, as well as telling the story. Some were on stage during the performance and some recorded their voices. We also made the background music using GarageBand.

         

Here's the audio by itself 

'The Great Waka of Tama Rēreti' - Matariki Whānau Day

Our 2019 Matariki Whānau Day was a huge success, with each whānau group coming together to celebrate Te Ao Māori through the Arts.

Carl and Nik's whānau group (with fantastic support from Cloe!) watched and listened to some different versions of The Great Waka of Tama Rēreti.

We then got in to groups to create backgrounds and moving figures for a paper theatre.

With the help of Carl's height, we filmed our movie in just a few takes.

Later, we used GarageBand to record some background noises, such as the Taniwha, water and fire.

A special mention must go to Matilda, who did an exceptional job of narrating the story.

Check out our finished product below!

Whanau Day: Nic and Shona's Group

Last Friday was Positive Education Whanau day. We were in groups with others from Autahi, Tautoru, Matariki and Mahutonga. It was fun to work with our brothers and sisters and to make new friends.

Each Whanau group had five character strengths to unpack. Ours were Judgement, Perseverance, Social Intelligence, Honesty and Love.

 

We talked about Judgement which is thinking things through and examining them from all sides, without jumping to conclusions and then we played "Would You Rather?" It was fun!

We talked about Perseverance and how we work hard to finish things that we start. We shared ideas of times we have persevered- Cross Country running, swimming, writing, maths, etc.

We discussed Love, and then we helped each other to weave a heart and create a mobile which is hanging in Tautoru.

We talked about Social Intelligence. It is when you are aware of the motives and feelings of other people. You know what to do to fit in to different social situations, and you know what to do to put others at ease. We read the story, Knuffle Bunny Three and discussed how the girl in the story used her character strength of Social Intelligence. 

Lastly, we discussed the character strength of Honesty. We played a fun game called "two truths and a lie."

Whanau Day--Character Strength Exploration

We had a hugely successful Whanau Day on Friday and a big part of that was the fantastic parent involvement on the day! Thanks so much to everyone who came, got involved and helped out! 

A core tenant of the Positive Education Model is learning about your character strengths.  On Friday, we spent the whole day in whanau groups working across the school unpacking 4 -5 strengths.

The VIA Institute explains the proven benefits of knowing your strengths:

Children worked in mixed groups with parents and teachers and senior students unpacking strengths through literacy, role play, art, music, PE, dance, science and more.

We explored fairness through playing some games where random people had certain advantages, while others had disadvantages.  This sparked some interesting conversations and ideas.

                                                  

During our whanau day we explored the character strength of curiosity. We are exploring different objects and thinking about what they could be used for.

During our whanau day we explored the character strength of leadership. We are discussing the qualities of a leader.....what a good leader is and what a good leader isn’t.

We explored Prudence and created a movie script and a film illustrating what it is to be prudent.  

We talked about what kinds of things are zest builders and busters.

We explored Love of Learning by doing science experiments and trying to make slime!

We explored Creativity by learning how to weave flax birds!


We explored Forgiveness by thinking of things that make us angry ....

  .... and then practising letting them go and physically throwing them away.  We then followed this up with some "Let it Go," meditation. 

This is just a snip-it of the many different activities and strengths that were explored on Friday.  But ultimately after the exploration each group created artworks to visually represent 1 of the strengths they had learned about all day.  These will be collated to create our own WBS Character Strength Poster similar to this:

Here are some of the works in progress:

Stay tuned for the final product!