Merry Christmas everybody!

Thank you to all whanau and Kaikohekohe Cluster  students who have participated in Room 5's learning by commenting on our blog and on individual students' blogs. A special mihi to the students and teachers from Room 22 in Owairaka District School, Mrs Waho and Gliberthorpe School in Christchurch. I wish you all a safe and Merry Christmas. From Whaea Lana and Room 5 students.

Revisting our school's birthday!

For some reason this News Hub video made by Room 5 girls never was posted. It was made in Term 3. The girls wrote and filmed this as a group project. I love how it has captured a very special Whanau Day for us here at Tautoro School. The ending with Papa Joe's korero is a reminder and a challenge to love one another, and if we do not know how to then we need to learn to love.

The Ant Prank!

Last term we were learning about creating movies. We focussed on creating plots and using storyboards to help us plan. We also tried to plan for the different kind of shots that we will use too. For example, establishing, long, medium and close up shots. Tristan and Aryan worked together to come up with the ideas and they wrote the script for this movie. We think Waaka is an excellent actor.


Next time we will try use something to hold the camera still while we are recording so the movie does not look shaky.

Peru Project - The Beginning

Driving Question

How can we learn about, and persuade others to see, the benefit of growing peruperu?

China Inquiry

Today Room 5 presented their inquiry findings. It was awesome. We learnt a little about a lot such as, Chinese cuisine, the Great Wall of China, Mandarin, the Ghost Festival, New Year Festivals, growing rice, Chinese arts, Chinese medicine and the  wildlife in China.

Many students were learning to develop confidence presenting their inquiry findings.
Some students were learning to present their inquiry with confidence, using a variety of resources.

I chose to do this because too often students are cutting and pasting information from the internet that they do not understand or is not relevant to their learning.  By presenting live and getting instant feedback from friends and the teacher I expect inquiry process and presentation for next term to improve.

Things we focused on were:

• What is your focus question
• What did you find out
• Is your work in your own words
• Did you state your sources (where you got the information from)

What we will do differently next time
We will learn to find material on sites that is within our reading age
Using tools to help us build understanding such as online dictionaries, thesaurus and youtube.
Using a buddy system to support each other to present information in our own words and in a variety of ways.

Next term, our inquiry topic is science based. We will be investigating the life cycle of living thing that we are passionate about. We will also do  a whole class inquiry on the life cycle of the peru peru.

Learning Te Reo Maori is fun!

Today we had fun using greenscreen app to enhance our Te Reo Maori learning.
To do this successfully we needed to:

Know the Te Reo Maori words for you, he/she and I
Use e (action/verb) ana sentence structure
Use verbs we have learnt in class or resources to find the kupu Maori for verbs we want to use

Extension tasks: changing the tense of the sentence(past, present or future) and adding location (in, out, on, under)

Tumeke Tautoro!

Anei nga tamariki who represented Tautoro School, Room 5 at Ohaewai Cross-country today. They all gave it their best and I am very proud of them. It is terrific to see students challenging themselves and not giving up when things become difficult. Developing tumaia at a young age will help with challenges both today and in the future. Bring on Dargaville!

Persuasive writing is a writing form that is very useful as it can applied to many different contexts. Tristan has worked hard to develop his ideas for this piece of work. Well done Tristan.

Let’s Make Tautoro Exciting!

 By Tristan

Do you know what it’s like when your bored? I think that we should have more things to play with at Tautoro School so that everyone doesn’t get bored, plus everyone will get something to play with. For example I see people walking around doing nothing but if they had like a ball or a skipping rope or maybe a bike or something, something that will make the kids happy then it will be exciting.

 One way we should make this school more exciting is by putting a bike track around the perimeter of the school. I think we should put lumps down with the track so that they can bring their bikes here to ride and have fun. It will be remarkable to see everyone running around and riding their bikes around the perimeter. We can bring bikes so everyone stays happy and healthy. Isn’t this what everyone wants?

 Another way we can make this school exciting is having free time.What I think should happen is after we have finished our work then we can have free time. So we are not doing work all day long, at least for one hour we could have a little break off. Who thinks that’s fair? Yes or no. Because usually students get bored of doing work all day and they want a break. It is really important for the students to make sure that they are playing and learning should be fun for all of the kids.

 Wouldn’t it be tremendous if we had more options at school. That is why we need to learn more subjects so we won’t get bored. I think that is a good thing because if someone is doing the same thing all over again then that is boring, do you think that if you did the same thing all the time that life  will get boring? For example, we could do science, Art, Drama they are some exciting things that we can do.

 In summary, I think we should have more things to play with at Tautoro School. I think this because lots of people get bored of doing nothing that’s why if the teachers make the kids do different things then know one will get bored because they are doing something different and exciting.

Figurative Language Rap

Writer of the Week - Iverson

I am so proud of Iverson. One of her goals this term was to write engaging stories like Paul Jennings. This is what she wrote for her Term 2 recount assessment on Monday. One word - AMAZING! Read it to believe it.

What Lies Beneath 

By Iverson Year 6

 WARNING This Story may not be told to the children under the age of 8. Well, it could be, it's kind of funny. On a raw, misty Saturday in Kaikohe there I was in my house, walking as slow as a slug through the hallway to reach the fireplace. When I got to the fireplace I lay down on the ground by the fire and could still feel that cold icy breeze flowing through my hair like a river.

Then my Mum walked in and danced to her beats on her speaker. She said, “ It might just be a good day to go to the beach in Paihia.” I replied, “ Can you see? Can you feel, its cold as snow outside.” She danced, “ but the sun’s rising up. It's a great day to be playing outside and doing activities.” “ OK,” I Moaned. I got up off the floor and went to go get ready. One Hour later the sun was rising up and we were all ready to go so we put our stuff into the car. We drove off.

What seemed like a few turns later Jaryn shouted “Mum! Beach!” mum replied, “ yip we can go to the beach today Jaryn.” He shouted, “YAY!!” We took the last car park on the block and all we could really see was lots and lots of children playing in the sand and in the water. Mum said, “ go on you guys, go have a play we're not gonna be here too long.” We replied “ok, we will be back shortly.” Off we went.. Wondering around like little hindi dots in a crowd.

Kohl-lee was watching Jaryn and I was playing near the water. A few minutes later I walked into the water as deep as an adult can go. I couldn't feel the ground. I didn't even know how to swim properly. When I went to turned around I noticed something in the water. I went under the water to check out what it was. I couldn't see a thing! It was pitch silver. Haven't heard that one before aye? Anyway, all of a sudden a mysterious thing got hold of my back!

I tried to call for help but my mum was like months away from me. I panicked. I Doggie paddled to shore and ran onto the sand. There it was the culprit that got hold of my back. It was a humongous, big, tremendous... pile of seaweed. “Huh” I let out a big breath.

 All of a sudden mum shouted, “come on let's go!” I replied “Ok, be there in a sec.” I was so relieved it wasn't anything major. Feww! Ohh, and one thing I recommend is only go swimming up to your neck, otherwise things will get a bit scary. That was the scariest experience and It's was kind of funny too. I will try to forget about that time ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS.

Fire Brigade Cup

Well done to all the Tautoro School students who participated and played their best at the tournament yesterday. There was a positive atmosphere amongst the schools and students enjoyed themselves.

Today we celebrate our school's 110th birthday! Here is a video we made that explains why our school was opened.

First Rm 5 News Hub

After the Rm5 News Hub team and camera crew watched their first production they set the following goals: 

• To use something to keep the camera stationary

• to take different shot and edit rather than move the camera around

• To use more expression and eye contact when presenting

Financial Literacy

Today we had Matua Jeremy from ASB Bank talk to us about money. We learnt that as kids you can start saving your money now. Money in a savings account grows over time, so if you start young your money has more time to grow!  If you have money in savings then you get interest (free money) from the bank.

Pioneer Village Photos By Aryan

Pioneer Village Trip this Friday!

This Friday Tautoro School will visit Kaikohe Pioneer Village. What we learn will help us celebrate Tautoro School's 110th birthday and give us insight into the life of students in the 1900s.

This is the courtroom at Pioneer Village. Look at the photo. What roles are the teachers in?

WALT respond to our kaiako's written feedback.

Today in class I demonstrated how I want students to respond to feedback and feedforward I have written on their work.
In the past students have been clicking 'resolve' without making the improvements suggested. Responses differ depending on the type of feedback. It could be a simple 'Thank you, I don't understand, Okay - I have made those changes or please check it again'.
Well done to the following students who were very successful today:

Ricci, Sonny, Heaven, Tehanah, Charlee and Amira!

New tohu for Tautoro School! Thank you Matua Eric !

Scroll to find AJ's video

Science Movie

Well done Aubrey for creating your first ever Kizoa movie! Leave a comment on his blog

Here are the winners of the Teachers' Awards and the Principal's Award

Principle award Ricci for creativity and motivating others

Teacher's award Tuishaly for great progress in Literacy and awesome homework support

Teachers award Iverson for excellence in homework project - create a solar oven that shows an understanding of greeehouse effect, absorbtion, reflection and insulation

Similes and Metaphors - Which is Which?

Today's writing lesson was around learning the difference between similes and metaphors and using them to improve our  recounts. Here are some of the best.

 For your comment can you either name the person who you think did a great job as a writer or write the numbers of all the metaphor examples.

1. We were still looking. We didn’t give up. We were like Richie McCaw during a rugby tournament - Sweyde

2. We bumped into each other. We were elephants in a stampede - Rangimarie.

3. We could see all of the fish and turtles, they were as colorful as a rainbow. - Kaya

4. Whamo! I slipped over and slammed my head onto the ground. It was like atoms colliding together in nuclear fusion. My head exploded in pain! - Tim

5. I got up and walked quietly down the hall. I was a mouse, trying not to wake anyone up - Iverson.

6. I eat like a beast - Aryan

7. My eyes started to close, I was trying to keep them opened but I couldn’t. I was like a bat sleeping in it’s cave - Tristan

8. My dad said, “boy we're going to town and you are coming too, I shouted to dad, “Dad I don’t want to come to town, but I still had to go to town. I was a prisoner - Ricci

9. “Ok I’ll stay up as long as I can”  I said. My eyes were owl eyes - Heaven

Check Out Aubrey's Science Post!

I am so proud of AJ's first attempt at making a movie using Kizoa. Go to his blog and leave a comment about his work.

Shared Reading - CSI

Today in Room 5 we started our CSI shared reading program. We discovered that the following things trip us up when we are reading:

• hard or new words

• making sense of difficult punctuation

• reading content that we are unfamiliar with 

• when we realise we don't understand

• when the topic is boring

After discussing this, we realised we currently solve reading problem by:

• chunking 

• sounding out

• re-reading

• using tools/define or online dictionary

• searching the text for details

• searching the text for clues (making inference) 

I can't to see the progress Room 5 students are going to make as they learn to become great reading detectives! 

My Book Review

Hi my name is Ricci and this is my book that I've been reading recently.

The Book that I've read is called Stuffed By Paul Jennings.

The book is mostly about Martin saving the cane toads and he keeps two toads and names them Fruitcake and Pancake.  

Frisbee is the person who lives next to Martin anod he kills cane toads and Martin tries to stop him.

The thing that surprised me in this book was that Martin actually liked cane toads but no one else liked cane toads.

The part that I liked in this book was that martin saving the cane toads and why I liked this part because it was interesting for me.

The interesting thing in this book for me was when Fruitcake and Pancake were playing tennis to scare Frisbee.

What I learned from this book was that it has some interesting stories for me to read.  I would recommend you read this book because it has so much interesting stories in it and that.   

Here's a link to my blog if you want to check it out
My Blog

What  have you been Reading?

Spotlight on...

Well done Sweyde and Aryan these boys have received the tumaia hoe award! Both boys have improved a lot in writing in the last two weeks due to focus and hard work. Make sure you check out their writing post. Let them know the part of your writing you enjoyed the most. (They have not yet completed their final draft so there are a few errors)

Monday Writer

Te Reo - WALT understand, follow and give simple instructions in Te Reo Maori

Thanks to Tehanah for putting this clip together!

Welcome Aryan!

I am pleased to introduce a new member of our class. Aryan Vijent is a Year 6 student. He wants to be a lawyer in the future. Aryan has settled well into Room 5 and is setting his learning goals already.

First Day Back at School

This morning, between welcoming new students to Tautoro School, Room 5 observed some work by Salvador Dali. Here are a few responses from students.