This week it was our assembly. The children were very excited about this and decided they wanted to share their cat in the hat stories and art work. So this became the theme of our assembly. They made hats to wear, recorded the music for their song, practised a dance to go with it, and reading a portion of the story 'The cat in the hat'.
Thank you all the parents who came in to watch the children present their assembly, and especially to Tracy and Michelle who came in right at the end of lunch to help put the finishing touches on our kids.
Below is a video of the highlights of the assembly, for those who could not make it to see the actual assembly. Also look at the children's individual blogs for view a close up picture, taken just before the assembly. I hope you enjoy.
On the 28th of August our school showed their support for Daffodil day. Here is a mass yellow school photo, that was taken on the day. We raised around $400 for this cause. Our class also created some daffodil art which were displayed around the Kerikeri community.
Today we had another visitor in our classroom. This was Julie from Enviro-Schools, She came into our class as a way of supporting us in the inquiry topic, that has our classroom buzzing with ideas about why and how plants are important.
Today we learn't lots about butterflies, caterpillars and swan-plants, along with ideas that we can use to help create our butterfly and bee sanctuary. We liked how you agreed with us, that we should set up a separate area, and you gave us lots of other ideas too on why and how we could make this happen. WE ARE SOOOOO EXITED!
Thanks Julie, we look forward to receiving your package in the mail to support our Room 4 (Year 1) learners.
Room 4 is loving their topic about "why plants are important". Although the children still have a large number of questions to answer about plants, they are coming up with fantastic reasons for why they are important to life on earth.
The class is also realising that in our school environment, plants play an important role, on things they like to see and experience. This the children have now grouped into 4 main ideas, that they want to investigate further.
These areas include:
We want more food.
We want more caterpillars and butterflies.
We want more bees.
We want more birds.
Below is some photos of the kids working on Friday. It was magical to see them all completely focused on their own ideas, as well as helping other other groups in the class, when they realised that some of their ideas, could help the other groups. I was so impressed, I had to send a quick email to Mrs Ayr and Mr McLeay to pop over and visit us.
Today Mr Cookson found an amazing visitor in our school. He shared it with us. As we have been having fun looking at Seeds under the digital microscopes, the children asked if we could use these to view our special visitor. Can you work out what our special visitor is? (click on answer when you think you know).
Some interesting facts we learnt were...
The eggs are white initially but slowly turn a purplish black.
The eggs hatch after 2 weeks.
The caterpillar hatches and spends a couple months feeding on fungi (the stuff on forest floors).
It will then crawl up a 'suitable tree' and 'burrow in'.
It will live inside this tree for around 5-7 years, before it moves back to just inside the entrance of its hole.
It then will pupate into a moth (similar to a caterpillar making a cocoon), while still inside the tree.
It then hatches and flies out.
It only lives for a few days (up to 1 week), and spreads thousands of eggs in this time.
It has no functioning mouth parts so it dies of starvation!
Today many of our Junior children, enjoyed having a visitor to our Junior play area. We took lots of photos so we could look more closely at it, before we captured "The Science Girl" releasing him into a better environment.
Can you guess the name of our visitor? (When you think you know, click on the link that says answer below).
In room 4, we have been enjoying learning about "Why plants are important". We have come up with questions we want to find out more about, and now we have begun to look into our own environment (the junior gardens) to learn more.
Today the children enjoyed making play-dough. This was a fun way to help children remember discussions we have had, in class, around the letter 'd'. We also covered the initial blend 'dr'. For many child, this week was not so much based around the sound and word association, but, about quickly recognising 'b' and 'd'. This is a common error at this level, but an important one to overcome. If your child is one of the few, who are still struggling with this, please ask them to think of the word 'bed'. They will quickly tell you, how the word 'bed' helps them with this.
In maths we have also been doing lots of work around fractions, and of course doubles and halves. While making play dough one group made a single batch and another group made a double batch. The second group needed to not only discuss doubles, how to make doubles, but they had to use their doubles for a real purpose.
