Learning about the gateway

This week, we have been learning about our gateway, and exploring the stories behind what each carving represents.

I introduced this brown bear called "Brownie" to the children first and said that Brownie has a problem to solve and wondered if the children could solve his problem.

Brownie had a picture of the gateway, but he was not sure where this was located in the school. Some children described where the gateway could be. This was a great exercise for using prepositional words like "It is at the front of the school", "No, it is at the bottom of the school." "Is it at the back of the school?"

With the gateway picture in hand, Brownie and the children went out to see where this could be in our school.

One of the children led her way to show us where it is...

                                                      "Hotumane is looking at me!"

As we came back from visiting the gate, we talked about each carving. Children looked at each photos of the carving, and we put them together like a puzzle to build the gateway. This was quite a fun activity, and again it provided a fantastic opportunity to use positional language.

On Friday, we again visited the gateway to explore. Children enjoyed touching with their hands/fingers, and some of them even felt it against their cheek.
This time, it was great to hear some children sharing a little bit of knowledge about some of the carving features. It is easy to recognise the fantail, the lizard, and the tāniwha. They love the facial expression of the koruru.

Each child decided to draw one feature of the gateway, so that we could construct our room 2 gateway together. We are still working on this, and it will be very exciting when we put our gateway together to go on the wall!