We are learning to retell a story in the correct order. We read the story Mrs Wish Washy. We all really enjoyed this story.

We talked about the characters in the story and what happened at the beginning of the story, what happened next and what happened at the end of the story. We then made stick puppets of the characters and the other things that were in the story, like the mud, the soap and the tub.

In groups we retold the story using our stick puppets.

We did a great job at retelling the story in the correct order and trying hard to use expression when the characters in the story were talking. Tino pai Weka Iti, what a super effort for your 1st time at doing this.

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We have been finding out what makes good compost for our school garden. We learnt that ‘compost’ is like magic dirt. It turns “yucky” waste into “yummy” food for our school garden! A compost bin is like a “tummy” that needs the right food to stay healthy. To make the best compost we mix a layer of green things and then a layer of brown things and repeat this.

We decided to turn our compost knowledge into a compost monster as a sign for the compost bin in our classroom. This will help us to know what to put in our compost bin in our learning space so that we can then transfer this to our school compost. We are going to invite Trevor, our school caretaker into our class to see if he can help us with helping to give our school compost a tummy that is getting the right food.

We also learnt that there are some foods that are not good for our compost. We have to be careful not to attract “unwanted guests” like mice, rats or possums. These foods are not OK for our compost…. meat or dairy. No leftover ham sandwiches or cheese. No plastic. No glad wrap, chip packets, or fruit stickers and no bread as this can attract pests.

Check out our Compost Monster

Today Rūma Pīwakawaka learnt about safe walking.

For writing we have been writing about ourselves. Some of the things we wrote about were the things we like, the things we don’t like, what we are good at and what makes us happy. We illustrated each story after it had been published. Here we are with our film strips.

Mrs King keeps a passport for each child on her wall. We turned our film strip into a passport for Mrs King’s wall. They looked like this.

We think they look great.

Our tamariki have been exploring the world of numbers between 1 and 20! Using our Numicon tiles, rods, and tens frames, they’ve been ‘building’ numbers to see how they are made.

Matching number cards to these tools helps our learners move from simply recognizing a digit to understanding its actual value. Whether it’s seeing how two ‘5’ Numicon tiles fit together to make 10, or filling a tens frame to see ‘one ten and three more’ for 13, our tamariki are becoming confident mathematicians through hands-on play!

“Play with purpose!” Each day our tamariki engaged in play-based provocations designed to spark curiosity and build foundational skills. Guided by Kōwhiti Whakapae, we aren’t just playing—we are noticing, naming, and extending the incredible learning that happens when children explore their world. “

On Monday we had cricket skills with Michael. It was lots of fun. First we played snowball tag and we had to tag each other with the cricket ball. We each got a turn at being the tagger. We all liked it when Michael joined in the game too. Lots of us tried hard to tag him.

Next we played pizza knockdown. We pretended the cone was a pizza and we had to hold it like a pizza in our hand. When it got windy it was quite tricky. If you dropped your pizza you had to do 5 star jumps.

The next skill we practised was batting. We needed to learn and remember quite a few things. These included hitting the ball with the flat side of the bat. Looking at the cricket ball on the tee when we went to hit it. Making a v shape with our hand when we held onto the bat and then putting the other hand on top, bending our knees a wet bit as we went to swing the bat as well as facing side on to the ball. We all did a great job though.

Finally we got to have a turn at bowling at the wickets to see if we could hit one.

Thanks Michael for a great cricket session. We all thought it was great. We wrote about our cricket for writing.

Rogan said “I liked throwing the ball with Oscar.”
Oscar said “I liked throwing the ball at the wicket.”
Kahlo said “I liked doing cricket. I liked doing snow ball tag because it was so fun.”
Alita said “I liked playing snow ball tag because it was fun tagging people with balls.”
Salem said “I liked hitting the ball because I hit it far away.”

This is the place where you will find pictures and stories about the adventures and learning experiences we have as a whole class. Watch this space!

Kia Ora e te Whānau

What a summer we have had! While the weather over Christmas was not very summery, it is sure putting on a show now. The days are hot and the tamariki are having a blast, lapping it all up.

This week, we had our first big session of Tiaki Taiao(previously named Enviroschools) where the Tiaki Taiao Leaders introduced their Rōpū to the tracking tunnels we are going to have around our kura. It was a great afternoon full of awesome learning. A massive well done to our Tiaki Taiao learners for running an awesome session.

Check out some pictures below!

We have had some awesome visitors to our learning space since the beginning of the year. It has been really interesting watching them move through the different stages of their life cycle. Check out our slide to see what we have observed so far!!

Our Weka Iti whānau grew a little wiser this week thanks to a very special story shared by Kahlo and her mum about one of our most precious local treasures—the Whio.

We have a new fort care code. This means that we know what the expectations are for us in the fort when we are up there playing.

We climbed up on the mighty stump and had our photo taken.

Well the first full week is done.  We have had a busy work week.  We are starting to get into some work and getting the class routines sorted.  We have been problem solving patterns using a hundreds board.  We also finished Fun Friday with a Kahoot on compound words and CVC words.

In Weka Iti we often use playdough. We use it for creating, forming our letters and sometimes for developing our fine motor skills. We thought it would be a great idea to make our own. Check out how well it turned out!!

Welcome to 2026 and the wonderful Weka class.

We are looking forward to a great year of learning and getting to know each other.

What a great start to the year all Weka Iti students have made. And what a delight they are, all 5 of them.  Here is their 1st BLOG post…….This is our 1st week at school.  We have 5 students in our class.  We have been very busy learning different things about school. Salem said her favourite part of school is handwriting.  Kahlo has really enjoyed playing on the playground with everyone. Rogan can read a book and likes reading. Alita made some red play dough  for the class. Oscar has enjoyed looking at our monarch caterpillars. They sure eat a lot of leaves.  Mrs Scott said “this is going to be a great year!”