Welcome to Room 2
Kia Ora Koutou. I am very excited to have the opportunity to spend the next school year teaching and empowering your children with their learning journey.
My husband and I have lived locally in Tauwhare for the last 15 years. Most of our family activities are focused on the outdoors, camping, tramping, biking, skiing and sailing.
In Room 2, I strive to ensure a culture of learning as a lifelong process, encourage students to whakamātau in all curriculum areas, be responsible for their own learning and have a drive for success.
I encourage whanau support and involvement in all students learning, and I hope that you will feel comfortable to discuss any learning (or other) opportunities for your child. I look forward to engaging in a positive and active learning environment with everyone in Room 2.
Term 2 2024
ANZAC Writing. Students investigated the Gallipoli landing and events that followed, including listening to stories other support people who helped with the war. We also read a book called ‘Jim’s Letters’. It was a series of letters between Jim who went to Gallipoli and his family in New Zealand. Students have written letters to our Grandparents to remember all the Jims who did not return from War.
Enjoying the Space Centre in Kihikihi
Term 1 2024
Science - Tauwhare School is so lucky this year (thanks to Ms Quinn), we are currently receiving House of Science Kits during various time of the year. Room 2 have spent time investigating the power of simple machines. A machine is something that helps with work, which is the energy needed to move things over a distance. When you push, pull, or lift something, that's work. Work is basically force times distance. Photos
Writing - Ode to the Garden and School Poem
Term 3 2023
Take Up The Challenge - Room 2 decided that the school needed essential sports equipment to be able to play tennis, badminton, basketball, and pickleball. They applied to Tū Manawa Active Aotearoa for a grant to cover the cost of this equipment. The application had to include student feedback so they conducted a senior school survey, letters as to why Tauwhare School needed this equipment, parental and teacher feedback and they created video to show why their request was important. Well, their hard work paid off and and Tauwhare School received the grant, thank you so much Tū Manawa and thank you Room 2 for your effort.
Term 1 2023
Portrait Art - Lots of bold colours with added details. Everyone did a great job.
Cyclone Gabrielle inspired Wild Weather Poems .
Xylophone with Ms Duncan.
2022 Term 3
Room 2 were amazing at their speeches, lots of research and building confidence to share themselves and their ideas. Cross Country was another highlight for us with many continuing on to the Tamahere Race day and Hamilton City Cluster Race.
Everyone wrote an amazing recount of our Kapa Haka performance at Grandparents day and for me the students really put their heart and soul into both. Writing and Art.
2022 Term 2
Autumn took awhile to arrive but when it did it has been relentless. Here are some Poems to express what it feels like in Autumn.
Space was a recurring theme during Term 2 and for some of us an amazing trip to the Observatory in Hamilton. Room 2 put themselves back in time to report on the Moon Landing.
2022 Term 1
What a great start to the year. We have achieved so much already . Room 2 are in charge of the school veggie garden and have a huge task ahead of them. But with lots of determination, resilience and teamwork we are already seeing huge changes. We are all looking forward to our cooking competition early Term 2.
Room 2 are proud to share their amazing portrait art images. Inspired by Sandra Silberzweig and Kimmy Cantrell students used pastels, different cardboard textures and amazing scissors skills to create their names and portraits. Portraits
After our Question of the Week we decided to create poems of our favourite place to add to our NZ map. My Favourite Place Poems
After sharing our ideas and personification sentences about 'The Dawn' Room 2 have created some beautiful poems to share. Dawn Poems
2021 Term 4
Lockdown put a stop to a lot of our learning but as soon as we returned to school in November we started on our Summer and Christmas learning. It was very exciting to be back at school with our friends and teachers.
We studied a poem called What Makes a Kiwi Kid? by Eva Werry then we wrote our own poems discovering what made us Kiwi Kids. We then illustrated them and you can see the published product in this folder. I think they are absolutely beautiful.
2021 Term 3
LIFE Education
Fabulous day in Room 2, we started off in the LIFE Ed caravan with Sarah and Harold. I was amazed by the learning and deep thinking of the children learning about their emotions, their brain and how to respond not react to situations. We learned about TRAPS and tools for our emotional toolkits and also sang Karaoke with Harold. Enjoy our photos and our karaoke here!
Out My Window
The children were asked to write a moment in time when they wake up in the morning and look out of their window. What do you see?
There lovely poems can be read on this link. Out My Window
2021 Term 2
Room 2 combined their Te Reo knowledge and punctuation expertise to create these lovely cartoons. Each cartoon contained a greeting, farewell and Ko wai toku ingoa? Kei te pēhea koe? Nō hea koe?
And the results Cartoons
Room 2 spent a lot of time investigating the properties of a 3D shape. We looked at how many faces, vertices and edges a 3D shape has. Students had to create the shape with playdough and popsicle sticks, magnetic shapes and connectors and record their understanding on seesaw.
Geometry Learning Download the QR code scanner to listen to the students knowledge.
A wonderful afternoon collecting pine cones to fundraise for camp in 2022. Students were learning about participating and contributing to help others get to camp. Plus engaging in little bit of hard work, mud and prickles!
Science Roadshow
Room 1 & 2 visited the Science Roadshow for a morning of Scientific exploration and experimentation. The demonstrations were thought provoking and reactionary especially when hydrogen met oxygen with a very loud bang and nitrogen showed its freezing properties! Magnets, solar power, electricity, honey-tasting, colour spectrums, periscopes, friction and many more were all available for hands-on learning.
2021 Term 1
Statistics using Google Sheets
We had a bit of fun in Room 2 using the charts in Google Sheets to visually show our information about Sports Played in Room 2. We learned to move the chart to its own sheet and to select the most appropraite chart for our information. Our next task is to customise the graphs, learning how to add the title, and change the colours. Please click on the tabs along the bottom to see the different graphs.
Term One
Room 2 had a great time discovering the fundamentals of boat building. With the America's Cup racing to inspire our young boat builders of the future we spent our reading time learning about buoyancy, steering and propulsion. The result was fantastic. For some all that was needed was a bit of wind...
See the photos and videos of the design and creation process and finally the big race. Photos.
Term 1 2020
Portrait Art Thank You to Mrs Nicholson for helping us create our beautiful portrait pictures. Art Work
Summer Holiday Stories The beginning of the year is a great time to share holiday stories. Room 2 were practicing planning, paragraphs, punctuation. Stories
Geometry Students spent time exploring the school, measuring the perimeter of the school grounds and creating a keynote video to show their new knowledge. Keynote
Poems These are definitely worth a read, they may explain a few things! Poems
Term 2
Autumn Poem Writing
Students spent time expressing their feelings and ideas about Autumn making connections with the world around them.
Persuasive Writing
With restrictions around school sporting activities Room 2 embraced the resurrection of Hopscotch. Students developed a passion for Hopscotch and the surprising challenges it brought. Below are the letters sent to Ms Bradley to convince her that Tauwhare School needed permanent Hopscotch's.
Wind Powered Vehicles
Inspired by the development of our Room 3 makerspace and many days of persistent wind. Room 2 spent time creating, developing and modifying a wind powered vehicle. Students developed an axle solution and created the best type of sail to suit the conditions. The race is on!
Term 3
3 D School
Room 2 were asked to create a 3D model of Tauwhare School as a Envirogroup project. A great opportunity to showcase their knowledge of drawing accurate nets and making models from these nets.
Character Writing
Room 2 spent time developing and perfecting their own character. Lots of imaginative energy went into creating and describing the finer details of that person or animal. See for yourself.
Unplugged Computational Thinking
With a focus on step by step instructions students got to experience the challenge of accurately recording instructions, following instructions and debugging their 'code'. Each student experienced being a programmer, a robot and a tester.
Term 4
Spring and wind makes for great Poems. Inspired by the cherry blossoms dancing over the asphalt to the teacher carpark, students had the opportunity to express their thoughts through poetry.
Drive in Movie Cars
For a fun ending to the school year the students created their own vehicles for a drive in movie.
Photos
2019 Science - Term 3
How high can it go? Rocket Experiments/ Popcorn explosions/ lava lamps. Great opportunity to practice our collaboration skills while learning about chemical reactions and creating an iMovie of our learning. Inspiring students self directed experiments for our Science Roadshow in Week 8.
Rocket Posters and iMovie
Short Story - Term 3
Term 3 was spent focusing on planning, punctuation and recrafting. Students were to create a short story of their own choice and inspiration. During the term students watched short Pixar videos and viewed interesting images to practise and hone their writing skills.
Pepeha -Art/ Handwriting/ Recording - Term 3
Students spent time recording their Pepeha's, developing artwork to represent their maunga, awa and whanau, writing in cursive to show what they have been practising this year.
Pepeha Recordings, Pepeha Art .
Oral Language - Term 3
Room 2 have been developing their Oral Language with our Word of the Week competition, Lego challenge and tongue twisters.
Lego Challenge. A quick brainstorm to describe all the words we could use to explain the lego shape we created. Now back to back, students had to describe their creation to a partner, the partner listened to follow instructions to recreate the original. Lots of skills needed, listening, interpreting and clarifying instructions. Photos.
Wasjig - The challenge was accepted - Term 3
We all spent time before school, morning tea and lunch times talking around the jigsaw. Lots of fun seeing how quickly we could complete the puzzle once we put our minds to it.
ANZAC Poem and Art - Term 2
Many students spent time researching the role their whanau had in either WW1 or WW2 and shared this with the class. Each student wrote a remembrance poppy to put on our class wreath, they also created a poem to include with their artwork. We were also lucky to have Marc Dresser bring his Sunbeam motorbike from WW1 down to school to share its history with the students, definitely a highlight.
Writing - Narratives - Term 2
Term 2 was spent focusing on improving punctuation, and language features. Every student had goals to achieve over the term. Students were given the freedom to develop a narrative and published a book each.
Pink Shirt Day - Term 2
Room 2 students had the opportunity to share their knowledge of Pink shirt Day. Students researched and prepared a presentation which they shared at the school assembly. Each group was responsible for informing other classes about Pink Shirt day, taking photos, collecting koha, delivering promotional material and organising the school Pink Shirt Photo.
Raglan Rocky Shore - Term 1
What a great day we had exploring the Rocky Shore at Whale Bay in February. Room 2 spent time investigating Rocky Shore creatures, writing and recording a report on their chosen creature and creating beautiful artwork.
Treaty of Waitangi - Term 1
We celebrated the Waitangi Day at the beginning of the Term. In class we spent time learning about why, who and where the Treaty was signed. Our first major piece of writing was a Historical Fictional recount of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Our focus was on the correct use of punctuation, using our imagination combined with facts learned during Social Studies time.