Juliette told us that she gets ideas of her stories from a word. At the start of this video, you will see how the story 'That's not a Hippotamus.' came about. She then shows us how to do the hippopotamus dance to find the hippopotamus, before reading the book to us. We had great fun and it was awesome!

We were super lucky to have a visit from Juliette MacIver this week. We have lots of her books at school to read. I wonder which book will be the favourite...

We had a great start to our week during Play Based Learning this week. We used our new air fryer and made chips. We made a restaurant and took orders. There were a lot of different roles required to run our restaurant. We needed chefs, wait staff,  someone to take the orders, and someone to wash the dishes. The hardest part was waiting for the chips to cook. The hub smelled wonderful!

We have been learning about what makes us special and unique.  In writing we have focussed on the I can sentence structures.  Check out our awesome slides of what Kura Pounamu students can do. We are awesome!                    

Last week we were celebrating our amazing support staff in our school. In Te Ara Whakatau we decided to celebrate those that help up every single day. So we had a celebration for our wonderful support staff on Friday. Check out the video we made below!

As we are unable to have assemblies at the moment. We held our class awards within our hub. Check out all of these awesome new students and class award winners for the month of May. We have such an incredible bunch of students we work with each day. Keep up the amazing work Te Ara Whakatau! A big warm welcome to all of our new students in Kura Pounamu Oliva McKenzie, Josias Waugh & Christopher Chang                             A big warm welcome to all of our new students in Auaha Ra-ryu (Ra) Rewha-Braxton  & Kino Coleman Kura Pounamu Class awards: Fish Awards: Leyla Haines & Carter Riordan Duffy Awards: Jake Vivek & Jack Baker Teacher Awards: Mei Salele & Christopher Chang Wawata Class awards: Fish Awards: Dylan Sansom & Harley Allen Duffy Awards: Isabellah Mahoney & Sopich Lim Teacher Awards: Thomas Batt & Sana Amiri Auaha Class awards: Fish Aawards: Adara Loper & Ian Bedford Duffy Awards: James Munsey & Ra 

Last week at Kapa Haka Matua Anton brought Azariah up to the front to give it a go being a leader. She did a fantastic job and it was so great to see her confidence grow and how proud she was! The smile on her face said it all! Ka rawe Azariah!

On Thursday and Friday last week we enjoyed days 12 and 13 of our school bubble. It will certainly be different going back to school on Monday with a full Hub rather than the 6 children and 2 adults that have been using this space each day for the last few weeks! So we decided to make the most of our time and have lots of fun! So we went for a walk and rolled down the hills!                                    We enjoyed the playground opening again on Thursday! Then we ended the week with a movie! We can't wait to see you all back on Monday!

We were very busy today with lots of tidying and moving. Getting our spaces back to what they were like before we left. But we still had time to get a few of our challenges done and to have some fun too!

James worked very hard this morning, working through multiple pages full of maths problems. He also did some word works. James also remembered to do some fitness activity. Check out the video to see James making the robot moves. James, it is so wonderful to see how hard you work at home and I look forward to seeing you next Monday. You are a superstar, James!

Oskar and Locklyn have been at school working in Te Ara Takitini Bubble. Check out the writing they did about a girl leaving her school.  

Here are our awesome activities from yesterday. Only a few more days with our little bubble before everyone comes back to school and we can't wait!

Kelsea talks about her favourite food, yummy doughnuts in the first video and she shows us how she did the egg experiment and what she found out. I enjoyed watching your videos, Kelsea. You expressed yourself and explained the process of the experiment very clearly. Awesome work, Kelsea!

  Kobe did a measurement activity today. He estimated the length of the coffee table with the lego bricks first and then he measured the actual size. His prediction was 20 bricks but it actually measured 34 bricks. He did the same for measuring the width of the table but this time he used a spoon. His prediction was 10 but the actual length was 4 spoons wide. Well done, Kobe!

  Isabella followed the writing activity this morning. As you can see in the photo on the left, her favourite food is chocolate, and she described it as yummy and sweet. After that, she worked out the food type and drew good food and moody mood food. I love chocolate, too Isabella, but I try not to eat too much as it can affect my mood. Excellent work, Isabella!

Look at this amazing maths work James did! He worked on so many different maths tasks here; counting numbers from 1 to 60, before and after a number, addition and subtraction problems, fraction problems and problem-solving tasks. I love the way you take charge of your own learning. Superb work, James!

Jake had fun today doing our Science activity and seeing if different items around his house would float or sink. I love how much fun you had while doing this. You always make me smile.

Manith came to our zoom for the first time today and it was so exciting to see him. Thanks for joining us Manith it was fun! In our zoom meeting we drew a picture today and Manith coloured his in after we were finished our zoom chat and sent it through. I think it looks even better with the beautiful colours Manith! Miss Corry drew a picture too you can see hers next to Manith's.                            

Here are all the things we got up to yesterday, another very busy day! We can't wait until next Monday when everyone else can come and join us :-)

On Friday last week, Kobe worked on Maths Buddy. After that, he baked banana muffins with his family. Next, he made a lovely Mother's Day Card and then worked on the Maths Challenge, The Tall Tower Equation.  He worked very hard to work out how to get exactly 35 spells by starting at 1 and exiting at 9. I think you are very lucky, Kobe that your family are having fun learning together. Excellent work, Kobe! Kobe baking banana muffins with his family On Monday, Kobe watched the story of 'Mostly Monsterly' and created his own monster. Kobe's monster is a 'lonely' monster. His monster has a round head covered in skin. It has 6 eyes, 2 ears, 5 noses and 3 months. It has a rectangle shape body covered in tentacles with 1 larger tentacle for one arm which has 6 hands and 5 fingers. The two legs are round and covered in fur. After that, Kobe used his skip counting knowledge to solve today's maths challenge. He then worked with his mum learning the days of th

Isabella listened to the story 'Mostly Monstery' on Monday and drew her monster. She described the characteristic of her monster as being 'kind'. It looks like your monster is in a nice place with pretty flowers around it. Great work, Isabella!

Mikayla sent in her talent video today. Check out her amazing ballet skills. I have added her to the super talent slideshow but I wanted those people who have already watched that to be able to see her fantastic talent of ballerina. You are very talented Mikayla! Ballerina Princess  Mikayla Jackson - 5 years old             

Mikayla has been a busy beaver  once again in her bubble. She has been getting crafty with making a beautiful mothers day card and an awesome sock puppet. You are very creative Mikayla and I love how you are always so proud when you show off your incredible work.

Carter had a busy day designing and making his new biscuit creation. He made them with his little sister. He called the biscuit 'cheater' and it is orange with blue icing. It also has yellow and pink sprinkles with hearts and butterflies on it. Carter also made a blue rainbow package for them. These biscuits look impressive Carter, I bet they tasted delicious. Great work!    

Last week Te Ara Whakatau ran a competition to uncover the hidden talents of our students. Boy did we find them! The wonderful students in Te Ara Whakatau are incredibly talented. From baking to cooking to singing and dancing, comedians and musicians, we have it all! Check out the presentation below to see the awesome talents in Te Ara Whakatau!

Aanaya continues to be busy in her bubble! Last week she made a kite with her mum and nana. The kite went a long way up in the sky! Aanaya was very busy folding origami hearts and she even made a 3D rainbow. I am so pleased you are enjoying learning in your bubble Aanaya.              

Harsirat wrote a beautiful poem for Mother's Day. Thank you so much for sharing and I'm sure your Mum had a tear in her eye when you read your poem to her.

Another great end to a great week! We had a fun pyjama day and spent time working on making our Mum's Day on Sunday!

Here are our antics from day 7. Today was all about the arts: singing, dancing, music and even a bit of drama. We had lots of fun with our talent entries but you won't see those until Monday! Until then check out everything else we got up to!

Isabella was busy writing an acrostic poem for her mum today. She is getting so good at writing an acrostic poem. It will put a big smile on her mum's face and make her feel very loved and appreciated when she reads it on Sunday. What a lovely and caring daughter you are, Isabella!

  Kobe wrote a wonderful letter about what makes his mum so special, with lovely photos of his family and his signature. He then had a go at the Maths challenge. He used his excellent mathematical skills for working out the honeycomb puzzle pattern for the buzzy bee. Guess what! Kobe got all the numbers correct for the number pattern. Excellent work, Mathematician Kobe!

Here is our learning from yesterday! We were very busy again with our adventures, we even got to see some of our friends (from a safe distance :-) when we went out to count cars for maths! Check out our awesome day below, we even included some of the fantastic drawings that our friends did during our zoom chat!

Charlotte and Maddison have had another busy day in their house. Maddison has been doing Charlotte's challenges with her. Our writing for today was to write a story about the muddy picture. Check out the picture we used and then have a look at Maddison's writing and check out the video of Charlotte reading her story.                What is really cool, is that they have had experience in a mud pit before by competing in the Muddy Run. Check out the photos of their experience.  They also made their sock puppets and put on a show. Check it out.              AND Charlotte did her Maths and collected data  on the colour of cars that drove along Gilberthorpes Road during a 15min period and recorded in on a tally chart. I love seeing what you get up to each Charlotte. It is super cool that you and Maddison complete each others activities. I hope we made your day when we went for a walk and called out to you to say hello. Keep up the amazing lea