The Right to Write!

In Autahi we have been dialling up our Strengths of Creativity, Love of Learning and Humour in writing. Based on Rod Campbell’s Dear Zoo, we wrote about our own pets.

To begin our writing, we check what important ingredients are needed to write a good sentence:

• Finger spaces.
• A capital letter at the start of the sentence.
• A full stop at the end of the sentence.

Sharing ideas is an important part of our process, as well as saying our sentence out loud. Before getting started, we often also draw a picture plan. This helps us remember what it was that we wanted to write about in our sentence.

A big part of writing is being able to hear the sound that each letter makes so that we can spell words properly. If we are not sure of a sound, our teacher can help.

Some of us dialled up our Perseverance to write more sentences! After describing our pet, we wrote whether we would keep them or not - just like in Dear Zoo.

Writing can be really tricky because there is so much to remember! But with our Creativity, our Love of Learning, our Humour and our Perseverance we can become the finest of wordsmiths!

Exploring literacy

 

This week we have been enjoying some different ways of exploring literacy. From writing super sentences (with capital letters and fullstops) to reading with a friend we are up to the challenge of trying new things. Check out some examples of our learning.

Everyone has their own writing goals and next steps. Some children were working on writing a super sentence. We love to make writing about experiences or something fun to get the ideas flowing. This story is about something strange happening. 

"One day a super hero bat came to school"

I wonder what could happen next?

We are using a listening post to hear stories that we have been reading. Being read to models fluency and making our reading sound like talking.

We have been creating art to go with our stories. Sometimes the art inspires the writing and sometimes the writing inspires the art.

Beth showed us through the Library and we got to explore and take some books home to share with our families.

Here we are reading and sharing stories we have read with our friends. Sharing books is a great way to practice and grow our reading mileage.

What ways do you explore literacy at home? Share them with us so we can grow our love of literacy.

Making books

 

In Autahi, we love sharing books of all kinds. Reading great books inspires us to tell and write our own stories. For a little while now, our writers have been asking to make books. So, this week, the Autahi is exploring how books are made so that we can make some beautiful books of our own.

We have been looking closely at some different kinds of books and noticing the some have hard covers and some have soft, paperback covers. Some have wire staples, and some are stitched together with thread. We have been learning about what goes on the front and back covers of books to help readers to know that might be inside. And we have been finding out that books have spines, just like us!

We have been working on writing and illustrating some books of our own. Some of us are writing stories. There is some non-fiction, and also a graphic novel on the go.

We are beginning to share some of our books with our friends in class. Because we know that other people will want to read our stories, we are taking extra care to reread them and add some cool illustrations. 

We are also working on creating some hardback books. We learnt that the hard cover of a book is called the 'case' and we talked about how precious things are sometimes kept in cases to keep them safe. Stories are treasures, too, so we want to make our books as beautiful as we can.

Here we are printing and painting a special piece of paper to wrap around our book's case.

Exercising our Character Strengths

 In Autahi, we talk about our Character Strengths all the time. But what do we mean?

You have probably seen this poster around school. You can also find it on the school website.

As part of our Positive Education Model, we learn about the Character Strengths that we have as individuals. Each of us has Strengths that are more highly developed - and that we probably use more - as well as Strengths that we are working on. We are all building our characters because recognising and tapping into our Strengths helps us in our work, relationships and wellbeing, too. 

Here's an example from Autahi this week.

We have been revisiting our writing goals. In Autahi, when we talk about learning new things, we often use the image of climbing a maunga, small step by small step. We each have particular skills that we are focusing on, such as stretching out words and recording the sounds we can hear or remembering capital letters for our sentences. Some of us are also building our stamina to write more, or trying to use different, exciting words. We remind ourselves of our goals each time we write together, and it is a challenge. But this is where our Character Strengths can help us.

We did an experiment to help us think about which Strengths we can can draw on when we're climbing a maunga and learning new skills. 

Skipping is perfect for this because it can be tricky and takes a bit of practice. Some of us were a bit put off at the beginning. But thinking about using Bravery to try something new helped us to have a go. Some of us found skipping very frustrating. But we drew on our Perseverance to keep going. Some of us used our Strength of Humour: having a laugh when we got tangled up helped a lot. Other Strengths we found helpful were Hope, Love of Learning, Teamwork and Judgement.

Exploring some of our Strengths like this helped us to understand which Strengths would support us with our writing goals. We each chose the top two skills that we found most helpful. 

As we think about our goals and climbing the learning maunga, we will also think and talk about the Character Strengths that make us powerful and ready for the challenge.

Celebrating our writing in Autahi

 Celebrating our writing

In my Blog on 4th August ('Writing for pleasure, purpose and play'), I reflected on the many reasons to write that our Autahi children are discovering. As teachers, we are always keen to find ways to enthuse and inspire children to write. Feeling that one's writing is purposeful is an important part of this. While some of us are happy to write just for our own enjoyment, knowing that you are writing to communicate with another person adds an extra spark. That thought is motivating me right now to write this Blog!

Last week, some of us teamed up with Scott's writing group in Tautoru. We chose the topic of 'A Disgusting Meal'. Over two days we planned and wrote our pieces. We started by sharing ideas and collecting a word bank. We made picture plans and chose particular words we would like to use. After writing, we spent time re-reading and adding to our stories. 

On day three, it was time to share with our Tautoru buddies. We read our stories in small sharing circles. 

It was really fun hearing other people's ideas about what makes a disgusting meal. 

Having an audience hanging off your words is pretty exciting.

Thanks Scott and Tautoru for making us laugh and squirm with your writing. We'll definitely be doing this again. It's great to share! 

Writing for purpose, pleasure and play

What makes children keen to write? This question is often in our minds as we work with our beginning writers in Autahi. In our phonics and writing sessions, we focus on practising the technical and mechanical skills that our children need in their writing toolkits: letter formation, phonics, identifying and recording sounds, and using high-frequency (Rocket) words are high on the list right now. But, while a well-stocked writing toolkit makes it possible for children to write, they also need a reason to put their toolkits to work.

Here are some recent examples from Autahi.

Here, we are writing invitations for our families to the Autahi Stay and Play. Writing for a purpose is very motivating, especially as the children know that they will take their writing home to share. In this case, the writing has to be as clear and accurate as possible so as to communicate some important information.

Here is a short piece of writing about that took on a life of its own! The idea of a magic donut captured this writer's imagination. Before we knew it, he was writing through Morning Tea time and at home, too. The story grew to seventeen pages of sweet, donut-y fun. A Principal's Award from Jude was the icing on the cake (and motivation to write even more!).

Writing with a buddy can be great for sharing ideas and building confidence. On Whānau day, siblings had the chance to collaborate on some poetry together.

Not all writing happens during our timetabled writing sessions. A lot of writing goes on during Discovery Time, and it is always exciting to see how children make writing part of their games, inventing their own purposes for putting pen to paper.  This imaginative writer needs a label for the secret computer he is making. 

This writer also has an important purpose for writing: making an invitation for a friend to a playdate. Children are often keen to write letters and cards to friends and family in Discovery Time, including little notes and greetings for friends in class. This writing is fun, but is also a low-pressure way of experimenting with newly-acquired skills. Successfully communicating a message by writing is very satisfying and encouraging further writing.

Here is another kind of experimental, playful writing in Discovery Time. This writer has found a form to fill out on the back of a piece of scrap paper. He knows, probably from watching adults at home, what this activity looks like and is roleplaying being a form-filler himself. For this, he uses a mixture of words and letters he knows, and wavy play 'writing' to fill in all the spaces on the grid. Job done!

These writers are engaged in collaborative roleplay. They have set up a cafe and created a menu. They have been asking different class members what they would like to order and writing it down. They are practising their writing skills and also emulating ways they have seen writing used in the real world. And it's lots of fun, too.

It is fascinating to see how our children are influenced by the adult writers they see in their lives. As Jude reflected in last week's Newsletter (31st July 2020), understanding why our children choose to write is just as important as equipping them with the skills to do so: pleasure and purpose alongside technical know-how. It's an on-going exploration for us all.

Growth Mindsets and Goal Setting

In Autahi this week we have been talking about what it means to have a growth mindset. A growth mindset is about opening ourselves up to mistakes and embracing them as opportunities to learn. 

Instead of saying we can't do something we could say that we will give it another try.

Learning to write is tricky for lots of us (including the teachers). We have broken down the things that we need in order to be good writers and placed them on these steps. By breaking down these steps we can work on small chunks that over time will help us achieve our goal of being able to write.

Soon we will be each setting our writing goal to help us focus on the next skill that will help us write awesome stories. Once we have mastered a skill we will move ourselves up the steps and see us getting a little closer to the top. Each writing session we will talk about our goal so that it is front of mind for us when we sit down to write.

We invite you to pop in and have a look for yourself (when we are able to) and see what goal your child is working towards. 

Dear Zoo...what am I?

We have been reading the book "Dear Zoo" by Rod Campbell. 

In this special book, the animals are hidden behind different things and we have to guess what they are.

We made our own 'pop up' animal cards and wrote some clues about them....can you guess which animal we chose??

Come into class to read and see some more....

What do plants need to grow?

What do plants need to grow?

The latest news from our inquiry.

In Autahi, we have continuing to explore our inquiry question: what do plants need to grow?

We have created mind maps to show how seeds grow into plants.

On Tuesday, we each planted some cress seeds.



We sprinkled the tiny seeds on damp paper towel. We wonder how well they will grow without any soil.



A few pinches of seeds should give us lots of lovely cress.



We made sure to add just a splash of water.



We really hope our seeds germinate!



On Wednesday, we were all anxious to check on the progress of our seeds.



We added an extra splash of water to keep them moist.



Some of us thought we could see our seeds swelling up.



Hopefully, we will have more cress news to report very soon - watch this space!

Meanwhile, we have also been growing our brains, with help from our Big Buddies from Tautoru.



They've been coming into class to help us practice our reading and our Rocket Words.



Learning our Rocket Words helps us to read confidently and fluently - so we're very grateful to our friends in Tautoru spending time practising them with us.



It's always fun hanging out together. Thank you Big Buddies!