Gingerbread Play-dough

Yum, this gingerbread play-dough smells delicious. I added heaps of dried ginger, mixed spice, and cinnamon to our play-dough for the start of our second term.

Check out the children in action - rolling and cutting gingerbread men families, and enjoying the scent of the play-dough.

Our gingerbread play-dough supports our mathematics measurement unit (thanks NZmaths).

We watched this YouTube clip about the Gingerbread Man. 

As part of our length unit we have been using measurement words to compare and order gingerbread men. The children have been using words like; smaller, shorter, bigger, larger, taller, fatter, thinner, littlest, biggest, tiny, middle-sized, higher. 

Click on the 'play-dough' label in the label cloud to see my other play-dough posts

ANZAC Day

Together with our senior school buddies we made these gorgeous red poppies. 

Click here and here if you would like instructions about how to make this poppy flower craft.

The red poppy has become a symbol of war remembrance the world over. People in many countries wear the poppy to remember those who died in war or who still serve. In many countries, the poppy is worn around Armistice Day (11 November), but in New Zealand it is most commonly seen around Anzac Day, 25 April.

 http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/war/anzac-day/poppies

The whole school made poppies and they were made into a wreath to lay at the base of our flagpole in a special ceremony.

We have 'Buddy Time' every Monday morning, normally we read and play literacy games together. It was fantastic to see my gorgeous class working so hard with their older buddy for this special occasion.

Easter

 

We made our Carrot Tree and explored other Easter themed activities for Discovery this week. It was our last Mountaineers session for most of our visitors - they turn 5 during the holidays and will start school at the beginning of Term 2. I'm looking forward to having them join my class.  

How to Make a Carrot Tree for the Easter Bunny.

Find a large branch and put it in a pot of sand, cover the sand with glass nuggets, and make a sign so everyone knows who the Carrot Tree is for.

Cut out carrot shapes from orange card.

Use a hole punch to put a hole in the top if the carrot. Then thread green ribbon or string through the hole.

 

Tie the carrot to the branch.

Put your tree where the Easter Bunny will see it and wait until Easter Sunday (then you may find something delicious under your tree). We put our tree in front of the window for everyone to admire.

If you're lucky the Easter Bunny might visit with Easter eggs for you like he did for us. Yum!

 Check out the rest of the Easter activities we enjoyed:
 

Easter egg hiding with the little containers from kinder surprise eggs. Some children spent nearly the whole session hiding and hunting out eggs together.

Thumb bunny cards from here. So cute!

Colouring Easter eggs from Sparklebox.

Chocolate playdough. See my previous post here.

Easter bunny paper plate craft.

 Egg shaped resist art with white crayon and dye.

Bunny tangrams from here.

We have also been reading these Easter poems.

Mail Myself to You

With a couple of new children starting this week we have been having fun with a letterbox theme.

We have been reading this poem together. It is too cute! I couldn't resist having it as part of our shared reading.

We collaged an outline of a stamp with pictures we cut from magazines.

We practiced counting to 20 and we each made a letterbox out of a box for 'Our Street' display.

We also wrote stories for Totara Park Kindy about our visit last week and made it into a book for them to read. We put it into an envelope that we addressed together. Tomorrow we will walk across the road to the mail-box to post our book.