Tuakana - teina: Buddy Time at WBS

The Tuakana-teina relationship is an integral part of the culture of Wainui Beach School. It is based on traditional Maori society, where an older or more expert tuakana ( brother, sister or cousin) helps and guides a younger or less expert teina.

At WBS our new entrants are teamed up with Yr 5 and 6 students from Room 1. Each Friday afternoon, our classes join together. The older students ( tuakana) mentor and work with their younger buddies ( teina). It is a time of the week we all look forward to, as it is heaps of fun, and a great way to end our week.

This week, we all went down to the beach to drink our milk. Our buddies showed us how to fold our milk cartons correctly after we had finished.

Jade and Ella

Nina and Millie

Momo and Israel

Mia and her buddy Amelia ( dressed in yellow for Daffodil Day).

Alice and Anika

Brooklyn and Max

Lewis, Oska, Cash, Roman and Stormur

Ivy and Waelyn

Josephine and Olivia

Bramm, Te Atawhai and Sophia enjoy their milk.

The boys and their hut.

Jade and Ella show their creation.

Maori Cultural Day

We had a great day last Thursday. Staff from the museum came and worked with us to explore aspects of Maori culture. Our day started of with a Powhiri to welcome our visitors.

We spent the rest of the day doing lots of different cultural activities. We sang, danced, listened to stories, helped make a korowai mural (cloak shaped art work), played string games, stick games and learned all about some old maori musical instruments.

Amber talks to us about Korowai, and the traditional cloak shape.

She shows us how to use crayons and the rubbing technique to create maori patterns.

Momo and Cory use their template to create their rubbing art.

Cornelia, Mia and Ivy hard at work.

Cornelia shares her koru pattern.

Millie shares her mahi (work).

Tino pai to mahi Te Atawhai.

Rori concentrates to complete his pattern

Ahi begins his pattern.

Oska watches to see what to do next.

Aaron talks about the museum's collection of musical instruments. He played many of them for us.

We got to make our own Porotiti instruments. 

We asked lots of questions.

We were fascinated as we listened to the sounds the instruments made.

There were reeds, bamboo and shell instruments.

This one was really loud!

Aaron shows us the Porotiti. He showed us how to make it work. Then we got to make our own.

Fundamental Movement Skills

Mrs Arthur takes us out for Fundamental Movement Skills everyday. She teaches us cooperation games too. We learn how to balance, skip, throw and catch a ball, run, jump and control our movements. We have heaps of fun.                            

Training Day down on the Cross Country Course

Today we walked down to the Okitu Reserve to train on the cross country course. It was such a lovely afternoon. We walked down with our buddy class Room 1. Some senior students ran around the course with us and showed us where to go.

What a beautiful day down by the beach.

Here we are waiting for our turn. We are lined up in our year groups.

Lucy from Room 2 lead us around the course.

Lucy leads Momo, Rori and Te Atawhai across the finish line.

Here we come towards the finish line.

We all tried our best. Way to go Room 8!

Circle Time- Weekly Superstar Me Posters

We run  Circle Time at Wainui Beach School. This is a social skills programme developed in the UK.
The programme was introduced to the school 4 years ago by the Resource Teachers of Learning and Behaviour.  We have our Circle Time on a Monday afternoon. We sit in a circle and play games that encourage us to mix up and interact with everybody in our class.  We solve problems that may have arisen during the week either in the classroom or out in the playground.

Over the last 3 sessions we have been brainstorming ideas to help us in the playground if we can't find our friends, or ways we can ask to join in games etc. Our class Mascot Albie gives us advice too.

Another important part of the session is the "Superstar Me'' time. Here we nominate a child to be the superstar for the week.  Here we learn how to give and receive a compliment. Each person in the class gives the superstar a compliment. Mrs Broad writes them down and makes them into a Superstar Me poster.

Here is Albie our class mascot. He loves watching Room 8 doing great work!

Here are our class Superstar Me's so far. Watch this post as more are added as the weeks go by.