Panitahi

Welcome to Panitahi Room! We have 20 wonderful and curious year 1-2 tamariki who love learning! Panitahi room is taught by Aimee Wisnewski and supported by our amazing teacher aide Jayne!

Structured Literacy:

In Panitahi we follow a Structured Literacy approach for the teaching of Reading, Writing, Handwriting and Spelling. Structured Literacy focuses on 'phonemic and phonological awareness, and alphabet knowledge' which provides our tamariki with the skills they need to read, spell and write with confidence. Phonological awareness relates to the tamariki's capability to make/break words, identify how many sounds in them and where they are. It also allows tamariki to identify how many words in a sentence, syllables in a word, how to hear and produce rhyme and delete/substitute sounds. The tamariki are also taught to recognise individual words, onset sounds, rime and both individual letter-sounds in a word and two or more letters that work together to make one sound. They learn to read using the Sunshine and Kākano decodable texts. Each day your child will bring home a book to read which practises the letters and sounds that have been taught at school. Thank you for supporting your child on their reading journey!

PR1ME maths: 

Here at Midhirst School we use the PR1ME mathematics programme. This is a programme built on clear, well-structured progressions mapping out a pathway through Year 1-8 based on practices used by top performing countries in international studies. In Panitahi, our students need a mix of both hands-on experiences using materials to support their understanding and mental number knowledge skills as we transition to imaging and mental strategies within maths. We dedicate our time to modelling and explaining new concepts, and consistent repetition is used to reinforce this knowledge. Our students receive a lot of explicit teaching in small groups and we have wonderful Teacher Aids that help to reinforce this knowledge. We also ensure we have rich learning tasks that are practical and cross-curricular to learn about maths in a range of contexts!


We explored symmetry and used it in context by creating some beautiful symmetry beetles - come check them out in our akomanga! 

2024

Kapa Haka:

This term we are lucky to have Whaea Rae hold Kapa Haka sessions both with our Junior and Senior school. Whaea also takes a special select bunch of students for a more in depth Kapa Haka session and this group will perform as well. We love the way she makes waiata engaging and fun for us! 

Swimming Term one: 

This term we have been very lucky to have Hine and Chelsea visit our Kura on Tuesdays to take our junior classes for swimming instruction! Through these lessons students are gaining water confidence and improving their swimming skills! We also take a swim lesson every afternoon (weather provided) in order to keep this fundamental skill developing! Check out some pictures of our superstar tamariki!

Tabloids Day Term one: 

Tabloids is a great whānau event that the whole school participates in! Our fantastic school leaders learn the activities and help our younger tamariki to rotate around and get them involved! It is a great way to build tuakana-teina relationships and to bring the Midhirst School community/whānau together! Who could forget our first house competition of tug of war too?!

Cricket term one:

We are lucky this term to have Ross from Stratford cricket club visit our kura fornightly to give our three junior classes some cricket lessons! We love trying a new sport (especially one of Miss W's favourites!), working on our hand-eye co-ordination and having some fun in the sunshine! Check us out absolutely smashing it! 

Korowai Inquiry :