Kāhui Ako ki Orewa

Rāmere, te 1 o Haratua, 2020

Got 10 minutes? Why not watch this delightful TED talk

If you had to explain to a newborn what it means to be a human being living on Earth in the 21st century, what would you say? Visual artist Oliver Jeffers put his answer in a letter to his son, sharing pearls of wisdom on existence and the diversity of life. He offers observations of the “beautiful, fragile drama of human civilisation” in this poetic talk paired with his original illustrations and animations.

Engaging tools for online writing

Storyboard That is an online storyboard creator that helps visually communicate ideas and concepts to quickly tell a story. It provides templates in which you can create your stories in a comic strip style along with hundreds of scenes, characters, and text bubbles to fill your storyboard’s frames. It is also linked to Google Classroom to set assignments for your students.

To access the complimentary pilot until June 30, 2020 click here This is available to all new customers in support of online learning during the Covid_ 19 lockdown.

Fun activities to engage kids in video chat meetings

• Scavenger Hunt/ Scattergories using chat to answer. Examples: Scattergories Find an object in your house eg an odd sock, a rubber band, a plastic bottle. The ‘winner’ becomes the person to choose an item for students to find next. ( great at creating a mess!)
• Lego challenge: build a vehicle, playground etc
• Baking challenge: select basic ingredients found at home, challenge to bake/ cook from these. Upload images of creations.
• Treasure box: share 5 precious things in your treasure box
• True /False quiz: students hold up ‘T’ or ‘F’ for quiz questions. 2 points if answer is correct, 0 if incorrect, add up points at end of quiz for winner

Te Whāriki at home: strategies for supporting young children’s learning: CORE Education

By Kathryn O’Connell-Sutherland

He whāriki hei whakamana i te mokopuna, hei kawe i ngā wawata

A whāriki that empowers the child and carries our aspirations

When Aotearoa went into lockdown I began thinking about our tamariki mokopuna and how we can support their learning in the home. I wondered what might already be available for teachers/kaiako and parents/whānau. This led me straight to Te Whāriki – the early years curriculum. I re-read the document and explored the many resources available for teachers at Te Whāriki Online. Link to full article here

Learner Support : how to increase accessibility for your learners

So many of our students can benefit from increased accessibility on their devices. The following modifications for accessibility are relevant to iPad or iPhone, however PC settings can have similar accessibility functions in settings. You can share these photos with your students online.

1. Go to settings, click on Accessibility
2. Easy adaptation functions for your students (different colours in photo)… try them
3. Click on speech
4. Yellow ticks below are really useful
5. Voices – click on this to get various voice types, languages, accents, male/female
6. The turtle and hare – slide to speed up speech or slow it down
7. Highlight content has a number of different preferences for words, sentences, underlining, colour etc.
8. It is great for focussing the reader, developing finger/eye movement in reading, processing disorders, visual and/or audio needs, or for peer/group/cooperative/ reciprocal reading.
9. For senior students it can also help prevent fatigue in long readings.

Te Reo Me Tikanga Māori: Te Whare Tapa Whā

He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.

In te ao Māori, it’s important to look backwards to the wisdom of their ancestors as they move forwards. The whakataukī above, written by Māori tūpuna translates to, “What is the most important thing in the world? The people, the people, the people.” This is a perfect whakataukī for this current crisis and something to remember as the wheels of our mahi slowly start to rotate again. As leaders, we often get so caught up in our goals that we often forget that others have bigger things going on for them.

Te Whare Tapa Whā is a great Māori well being model developed by Mason Durie that uses a building as a metaphor for our wellbeing. This is a great model for both kaiako and tamariki as we begin to head back to some form of normality.

Put simply, our health is held up by four walls. Without four strong walls a house/whare is compromised and if neglected, our whole house (overall wellbeing) can come down around us. This can be as an individual or as a collective.

These walls of equal importance are:

Taha Hinengaro – Our mental health

Taha Tinana – Physical health

Taha Wairua – Spiritual health

Taha Whānau – Family

Being aware of this helps us to look at our own lives and ask, what could I do for my overall wellbeing today, read a book or do something for ‘you’ (Hinenaro/ mind) Go for a walk or ride a bike? (Tinana/ body) Call a friend or family member to connect? (Whānau/ family) Do some yoga or even dip your feet in the ocean? (Wairua/ spirit)

If you are interested in this model, there is a lot of information online that can help you  with your own wellbeing and with those precious tamariki who are going to return with all kinds of anxieties and potentially weakened walls.

Bubble Projects

Thanks to all who submitted these photos to admire and inspire.