My Starting School Adventure Booklet
Five pages, one for each lesson · Years 0-3
He kōrero mā te kaiako | Before you print
This is the booklet the five Starting School lessons are built around. Each lesson finishes with one page of it. In Lesson 5 the five pages are bound with flax or ribbon and go home.
Print single-sided, one page per sheet, A4. Each of the five pages below is a separate sheet. Print the whole set at the start of the week and keep them in a named folder — new entrants lose loose paper, and the booklet only works if all five pages survive to Friday.
Punch the holes before Lesson 1, not Lesson 5. Three holes down the left edge of every sheet, at 6 cm, 14.5 cm and 23 cm from the top. Doing this in advance is what makes the 15-minute binding activity in Lesson 5 achievable with five-year-olds.
Page 2 asks about whānau. Read this first. In any new-entrant class some tamariki are in foster or kin care, live across two homes, have recently arrived in Aotearoa, or have lost someone. A drawing task about "my whānau" is not neutral for those children.
Page 2 is deliberately worded as "the people who look after me" rather than a family tree with fixed branches. A child may draw one person, six people, a caregiver, a pet, or a house. All of those are complete answers, and none of them should be corrected or counted.
No child is asked to say their pepeha or name their iwi. Lesson 2 teaches the stem "Ko [name] tōku ingoa" — my name is — which every child can say truthfully on day one. Whakapapa beyond that belongs to whānau, not to a classroom worksheet.
Child's name:
Kaiako / rūma:
1. My Classroom Home | Lesson 1
From Lesson 1 · Nau Mai ki te Kura
Page 1 — My Classroom Home
Finish this page at the end of Lesson 1, after the treasure hunt and after you have drawn your happy spot for the wall.
1. Draw yourself in your favourite spot in our classroom.
Kaiako: name the spot for them as they draw — book nook, blocks, art table, mat. Ask "what are you doing there?" and scribe their answer on the line underneath if they want you to.
2. Decorate your name badge.
Write or trace your name in the middle, then colour it in. Cut it out and hang it on your cubby hook.
2. Ko Wai Au? | Lesson 2
From Lesson 2 · Ko Wai Au?
Page 2 — Ko Wai Au? | Who am I?
Finish this page at the end of Lesson 2, after the mirrors and after the sharing circle.
1. Draw yourself. Use the mirror to help you.
Look for your eye colour, your hair, your smile. There is no wrong face.
2. Draw the people who look after you.
Kaiako: one person or many, and pets count. Do not ask a child to add more. See the note at the top of this booklet before running this task.
3. My name is —
Say it out loud first: "Ko ________ tōku ingoa." Then write or trace it here.
3. My Friendship Tree | Lesson 3
From Lesson 3 · Whanaungatanga
Page 3 — My Friendship Tree
Finish this page at the end of Lesson 3, after the yarn web and after the turn-taking games.
1. Friendship Flower — trace your hand, then trace a buddy's hand over it.
Two hands overlapping make the petals. Write both names underneath if you can.
2. Colour in one star for each kind thing you did today.
Kaiako: three stars, and a child who colours one is not behind. Ask them to tell you what the star is for — the telling is the assessment, not the colouring.
4. My Kaitiaki Badge | Lesson 4
From Lesson 4 · Kaitiakitanga
Page 4 — My Kaitiaki Badge
Finish this page at the end of Lesson 4, after helper training and after the tidy sprint.
1. Design your kaitiaki helper badge.
A kaitiaki looks after something. Draw the job you are looking after this week — books, pencils, the bin, or the mat.
2. Where does it go? Draw a line, or draw the thing in the right box.
Kaiako: use your own class bins. If your kura does not sort compost, cross that column out together and say why — that is a real answer, not a gap.
| Paper and card | Food scraps | Things we reuse |
|---|---|---|
3. My kaitiaki promise:
Kaiako scribes what the child says. One sentence is plenty.
5. My Celebration Star | Lesson 5
From Lesson 5 · Tākaro me te Ako
Page 5 — My Starting School Star
Finish this page at the end of Lesson 5, then bind all five pages together and take the booklet home.
1. Colour your star and write your name in big letters.
2. The best thing about starting school was —
Kaiako scribes. Use the child's own words, not a tidied-up version.
Binding (Lesson 5, 15 minutes): stack Pages 1-5 in order with this page on top. Thread flax, ribbon or wool through the three holes and tie at the back. Holes were punched before Lesson 1 — see the note at the top of this booklet.
If a page is missing, bind what the child has. An incomplete booklet still goes home.
Kaiako signature
Date
He kōrero mā te kaiako | What this booklet is for
This is a keepsake, not an assessment record. It exists so that the five lessons produce one object a child can hold at the end of the week, and so that whānau can see what the first week actually involved without having to ask.
If you want evidence for reporting, it is in what tamariki say while they make each page — which spot they chose and why, who they drew, what their star is for. Scribe those answers on the lines provided. The drawings themselves are not marked.