Category: Hanga | Create

Papatūānuku were coached by the legends from Touch Canterbury on some beginning skills. Have a look at what we learned. Thanks to Courtney and Marcella for organising such a fun morning. This is Papatūānuku – Touch Magic

Today the whole school dressed up as their favourite dress-up character from classic novels, modern bestsellers, and everything in between. From Harry Potter’s Hogwarts robes to Super Mario, the creativity from everyone was great! Have a look and see if you can tell what book characters these students have dressed up as:

Each Friday in Papatūānuku we read a poem together. As our poetry day fell on the first day of spring we celebrated by reading a poem called ‘Spring Party’. We read the poem together and brainstormed all the amazing things that show us spring is here. What do you love about spring?

As part of the Cool Rise Team’s programme this term, Jude has been making bird masks with each kaiawhina group. It was Māwhero’s turn this week! Here are their birds in the forest masks. Thanks Jude!!!

Today the whole school celebrated their success of filling up the token box. Students get given tokens at school when they show the RISE school values or do amazing things such as picking up rubbish at break time. The students voted for a bouncy castle day.

Mitre 10 supported Rāwhiti by providing the bouncy castle. Here are some photos and videos of Papatūānuku enjoying their token box reward.

This term Whaea Emma’s Maths group have been working on Multiplication and Division. We have been looking at equal groupings and different ways of explaining our thinking. We were given the task to create an Explain Everything summarizing our learning this term. Here are the results!

Every fortnight Papatūānuku has the Cool Rise Team in for the morning block. They take the students for various activities such as art and crafts and ipads. Today Jude took kahurangi group and together they made bird masks.

Last week in Cybersmart, Sharon taught us how to use scratch to create day and night scenes. Sharon modelled it for us, and then we gave it a go. We were able to choose our setting and draw our own backgrounds then we input a sun and coded it to make it go down. Next, we had a go at creating our night scene and we coded our moon to come up and sit in the sky. When we put it in present mode the scenes would repeat over and over again.  Finally, we took turns to share our learning with each other. We got into two long lines and shared our work with a buddy and as we made our way down the line we would share with a new buddy!

In Papatūānuku a group of students participate in PMP sessions twice a week. Our PMP programme helps students develop fine and gross motor skills which helps to prepare the brain for learning.  The tamariki enjoy participating and enjoy developing their skills. Here are some photos of us at the various activities.

Matariki is a special time in Aotearoa and Papatūānuku wanted to celebrate the Māori New Year together. During the week leading up to our Matariki Celebration, the tamariki spend time learning the importance of this celebration. Our amazing whānau donated vegetables for our soup and the ākonga spent afternoons pealing and preparing them ready to go into the slow cookers. Some of the tamariki worked with Whaea Emma to make some cookie dough which was rolled out and cut into fun shapes.

When the morning of our Matariki Celebration arrived there was a buzz of excitement and a delicious smell of vegetable soup cooking away. Whānau started arriving at 11 am and the activities began. Courtney ran paper weaving, Amy got her creative on with Little Kiwi’s Matariki painting and Whaea Emma led some gratitude stars art and cookie decorating. We all joined together at lunchtime to eat our soup and then it was time to go out to play.

The Papatūānuku team would like to say a huge thank you to all whānau who donated vegetables, were able to come along and who supported this event! Ngā mihi nui and Mānawatia a Matariki!