Activities Week

We have just enjoyed three terrific days of Outdoor Education in our custom designed Junior School Activities week. Before school began the Junior teachers decided that it would be great to have some fun camp style activities without staying over at school. We also incorporated our inquiry learning into our day trip planning. Whakawhanaungatanga was our beginning of term focus which led nicely to incorporate a visit to Kerikeri to the Stone Store, Kemp House, walk to the pa site and visit Te Ahurea. We were able to take a glimpse back in history to see how Maori and European people could live within close physical location many years ago. For the rest of this term and all of Term 2 we will be exploring sustainability through the context of the ocean. To kickstart this unit we planned a trip to the rocky shore at Chuck's Cove. This location is right on our doorstep and some children have spent many hours there and some had never been before. Many parents had a greater understanding of the marine life in our rocky shores than I do and the day was fantastic thanks to the easy learning atmosphere our parents created at Chuck's Cove. Our first day was based on experiences that we knew our junior children have previously enjoyed at school, such as making huts in the manuka trees at the top of our hill (normally out of bounds). We also enjoyed borrowing Paparore's recently purchased second hand bouncy castles. This was a fabulous fun time with no agenda. The three junior teachers were able to observe students in their outdoor play, gaining further insight into their interests and learning behaviours. We were able to have lots of fun building relationships with our tamariki. Reflecting back over the week I do think this worked well for our traditional camp week. We had lots of fun and formed closer relationships with tamariki and whanau. This is normally what we would expect from camp week, but the added benefit was we incorporated our inquiry learning which made planning a lot easier than planning another day trip later on to match our learning. Overall, a top week!