This week we have all been busy drying out our gumboots after a very wet weekend. The wet weather although proving troublesome with closing our wonderful school for the day, has provided a great discussion point and the hook for some awesome oral language and writing.

In Rurutu we have been busy with our arts and science taster lessons, check out the different teaching and learning each teacher has been providing in their space to deliver a well rounded curriculum!

"I learnt that there are dwarf planets which means they are small." - Lena Chan.

"We learnt what a plant needs to have to stay alive, they need sun, soil, and water." - Fletcher Paintin.

"Some planets have rocks and one is quite funny because it's shaped like an egg." - Eli Adams.

"We have been acting out the 3 little pigs, we each had a part and we had to say our words, Rosie was the mum." - Tilly Harrison.

The Arts

Miss Doig is doing Dance for The Arts. We are looking into cool popular moves and dance including the macarena and developing some of our own new moves.. We also get glammed up with some accessories to feel as though we are in a show.

Miss Willocks is teaching drama through using facial expressions and body movements to tell a story, focusing on showing the story, rather than telling the story through words.

When we visit Miss Peacock for visual art we are creating a painting. We are using Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night" as our inspiration. We are learning a little bit about Van Gogh's life and his style of painting. We are making connections between "Starry Night" and the upcoming Matariki celebration.

In art with Mrs Corkindale we are learning about rhythm and making our own beats. We are listening to the beat of the song and practicing it, and then we are making our own musical performance. 

Ms O’Loughlin is learning to express ourselves using our imagination, thoughts, and feelings. We are learning to use spoken and written language with increasing control and confidence and to communicate effectively using body language, movement, and space. We are enjoying acting out little drama scenes.

Miss McRobert is exploring music through the trial and error of different and interesting musical instruments. We are working on making and holding a beat with our peers and the whole class.

Science and Technology

Miss Doig is taking Ocean for Integrated Topic. We are learning about the different animals that we find in the ocean and facts about the ocean such as 71% of the Earth is water.

In science we are learning about Animals and Habitats! In our taster lessons we have learned about what living things need, the difference between living things and inanimate objects, and we have gone on a hunt around the school for minibeasts and microhabitats!

Miss Blockley has been focusing on planet earth and beyond in her science lessons. The children have been learning about the different planets and dwarf planets in the solar system and their attributes such as how many moons each planet has, its land description and temperature. The children have enjoyed modelling planets out of clay and writing interesting facts about their favourite planet.

Miss Willocks is teaching digital technology. We are doing this on Scratch Jnr, where tamariki are learning to create mini animations through coding.

Miss Peacock's science learning experiences are centred around experiments. We are learning to be scientists by making hypotheses. We are carrying out experiments, observing closely and then drawing conclusions. We are then comparing our hypotheses to what we actually see.

Miss McRobert is teaching living world and life processes through looking at plants, what they do for our world and the specific conditions they need to stay alive. We have been looking at how we can help our earth through planting trees and picking up rubbish.

Ms O’Loughlin is looking at the location of countries in the world with a particular focus on countries that our families are associated with. We will talk about what certain countries are well known for and will also look at the flags of those countries.