Happy Halloween!

 

 We had a blast dressing up for our Halloween Discovery session. (The teacher in the cow onesie is not me, but one of the other amazing teachers in J-Block.)

I always try to plan activities that encourage the children to practise a variety of skills and attitudes we use at school. Cutting, gluing, folding, drawing, writing, copying, sharing, turn-taking, persevering, taking risks, and helping others are some of what I observed during today's Discovery session. Discovery allows the children to discover about school, about our topic for the week, and what they themselves are able achieve.

Have a look at some of the activities we explored today:

 

 We blew up balloons and drew jack-o-lantern faces on them. I bought 90 orange balloons to ensure we had enough!

 We made paper-towel mummies, spider thaumatropes, folding bat cards, skull masks, icky insect wristbands, and tissue ghosts.

One of my favourite activities was using a permanent marker to draw jack-o-lantern faces on oranges. Which we got to eat for lunch, yummy.

We played Toca Boca Monster Kitchen on the ipads. This is a free app where you have to choose food for the monsters, cook it, and then feed it to them. Sometimes they don't like it and will spit it out all over the screen.  (That's the best part!)

Watch Me Spin

With Halloween around the corner we created these paper plate spiders to decorate our classroom. They have folded paper legs, all that folding was good fine motor practise and helps strengthen the children's fingers. And finger strength is just what we need for all of the amazing writing we have been doing lately.

We have also been reading this spider poem.

Mini Beasts and Creepy Crawlies

There were bugs galore in J-Block this morning, we were busy discovering about some of the amazing small creatures that inhabit our world.

One of my favourite activities was using a torch to discover the glow in the dark creatures hiding in a dark box in Room 2. 

We also had a great time carefully inspecting snails and other insects with our magnifying glasses.

Today was a very special Discovery session, we have had lots of new Mountaineers start visiting us at school, with more to come next week. Lots of fantastic children will be starting at Totara Park School next year, I can't wait! 

And.....

As it is Halloween next week, you can dress up for our Discovery session on the 30th of October. 

Now, I'm off to find my costume!