Every week in Assembly 4 wonderful students get a certificate for their achievements; whether it is something social or academic. This week we had an extra special certificate.
William, who is Autistic, had worked so hard this week. He has been completing his work everyday, he is now learning List 7 of the Essential Lists and he has transitioned from completing one task and having a reward to completing two tasks and receiving an award. These are really big achievements and we wanted to celebrate them.
Because students receive certificates in Assembly we wanted William to also receive his certificate in Assembly. However assembly is very noisy and filled with lots of people, and that makes it hard for William to enjoy it. But Kylie, his teacher aide, and I thought we'd give it a go.
William did a wonderful job of going in. William's mum made it in time to see him receive his certificate and it was a very special moment for him.
Well done William! We are proud of your hard work and the way you came into assembly and received it.
On Friday 11th September our school Whare Hui was filled with excited and expectant students. Who was going to surprise us? Who was going to persuade us? Who was going to win?
Each class put forward their best three students (well expect Mr M and Miss B, who couldn't quite count) to share their persuasive speech. Te Kakano students were sharing poems as this was the beginning of their speech journey.
In Totara we had worked hard and listened to everyone's speeches. They were all so good it was a difficult decision but the three chosen had the highest marks.
Well done Jedi, Julia and Eze for all your hard work and effort in writing and practising. You did Totara proud on the day.
You will be able to see each speech on our personal blogs by the end of the week. However we do have the winning performances here to share so check them out.
Here they are with their winning certificates. From left to right 1st, 2nd & 3rd. Kai pai to you all!
We have been looking at Friendship Skills in Totara to help us be better classmates and playground peers. We have looked a range of things a good friend has. These include:
Friendship Skills> Talk - be interesting, keep up with what's going on around you, eg TV, sports, music, shared interests - so that you have something to talk about.> Share the conversation, so that you each get a chance to be listeners and talkers.> Listen to what your friends are saying and ask questions about it.> Praise your friends when they do something well.> Use your manners - say please and thank you. Friends like to be pleasant to each other.> Think of yourself as being a friendly person, look friendly and be friendly - and others will find you friendly.> Be helpful - do things for your friends without keeping a score on who's done the most favours.> Give back things you have used or borrowed from each other.> Be aware of others' feelings - think before you speak. (Sometimes it is a good idea to keep your thoughts to yourself rather than upset people's feelings.)> Handle conflict - by being clear about what you want and how you will compromise. Share your time with other friends.> Be honest about your feelings, eg. "I don't think this is a good idea because..." But don't always try to be the leader - try out other people's ideas.> Try to understand people by thinking about things from their point of view.> Don't argue and get upset if your friend doesn't agree with you about something. That's O.K. They have the right to an opinion too.
We then broke into groups and came up with some skits to demonstrate some of these skills. Check them out.
Today we had a special visitor. Dean Tonks from the Red Devils, the Christchurch Ice Hockey Team. He came along to talk to the junior school about Ice Hockey.
The students were really excited about the visit. Two students from Te Kakano in particular. Shjon and Laura are learning how to play Ice Hockey and Dean is their coach.
We listened to Dean talk about what Ice Hockey is about, the things you need to wear and how to balance on the ice. Dean also advised us on the right things to wear on the ice skating rink on Friday. He also offered to come down to the rink on Friday and give us all a hand.
We had a visit from three librarians from the Christchurch City Libraries yesterday morning. They had come to tell us all about what the libraries around Christchurch have to offer and give us a fun activity to do. Victoria was one of our librarians and she works at the Hornby Library. This library is Yaldhurst's closest library.
They began by asking us what libraries are near us. A lot of us knew about Hornby, Upper Riccarton and the libraries in town. We also found out about the Papanui Library and South Library. South and Upper Riccarton are big libraries that have cafe's and conference rooms.
We then were shown some cool things on the library website that we can use. Did you know that children can hold books for free? It costs adults $2 to hold a book but children can put a hold on any book and get it sent to any library they want all for free. That is pretty cool. The library website also has some great sites that we can use for free. For example the National Geographic site and a book reading site. These sites are kind of like online encyclopedias and would cost if the library didn't pay for them.
One of the librarians showed us all the types of things we can hire from the library; books, cd's, dvd's, read-along books, audio books and even books that are on a device that you can just carry around and listen too.
We were read a wonderful story called The Fantastic Flying Books of Martin Lessmore.
It was incredible. The book came alive on screen and we could see it move and change. It was so exciting.
The the librarians handed us iPads, one each! We had to move around the library, take a photo of something from the book and using our iPads, and an app called ChatterPix, give the character a voice. We recorded ourselves speaking and shared our ideas based on the prompt sheet we were given.
We then all sat back down together and some of us were able to share what we had come up with. It was really great. Thanks Christchurch City Libraries!
P.S - If you aren't a member of the Christchurch City Libraries then come and see me and I can give you a membership form. The library is such a great place to visit and there are so many benefits for children.
Do you know what to do when you see an angry dog? Do you know how to pat a dog? You might think you do but YMS students definitely do.
Last Thursday Yaldhurst students had 45 minutes with the Christchurch City Council Dog Safety team learning all about how to be safe around dogs. Te Pihinga went along unsure of what they were going to learn but boy were they excited when they saw Baxter the dog.
Baxter helped us learn how to do the right thing around dogs. Even those with dogs learnt a new thing or two. Mika showed us her skills in picking up doggy doo and Pania and Xavier showed us how to pat a dog correctly.
It really was a wonderful time. Thanks Christchurch City Council for putting on a great learning time for us.
Te Pihinga has been busy working out what we want to learn about. Being enthusiastic learners means we want to learn about things and discover things and share our learning.
And if the excitement levels are anything to go by after our first day we certainly are enthusiastic about our projects.
Here are some photos from the groups. We can't wait to share our learning in a few weeks.
