Happy Leap Day

I meant to post this yesterday, but happy leap day!

We celebrated February 29th by making these froggy headbands with long paper tongues with our Maunga buddies.

Our buddies from Maunga are year 6 children and visit us once a week on Mondays after lunch. The children like to read to them and play games, and at playtime they will come and say 'hi'.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Check out some of our activities for our Valentine's Day Discovery session. This was our first session for 2016, and we were rushed off our feet making something for someone we love.

Love bugs in a jar - thanks Pinterest.

I found these glow sticks in the art resource room.

Marble heart art. 

 'You Rock' cards.

The best things about these Valentine crafts is that they are low cost! Something we try to keep in mind when you are planning activities for 70 plus children.

It was great today to see the children working hard and making choices about what they want to make and what skills they want to practise. We try to provide activities that promote fine motor and practical skills. As well as things that are appealing and exciting for the children to experience.

 

Introducing the Amazing Apple Cutter!

 

We had a great time peeling, cutting, and eating apples on Friday. After eating our apples we experimented with apple prints. Take a look:

Inside the lunch boxes are photos of the children eating their apple.

Capital E Arts Festival Trip

Yesterday the whole of our Junior Syndicate traveled into Wellington to see three amazing shows as part of the Capital E Arts Festival. First up we saw Carnival of the Animals, a fantastic acrobatic circus performance.

After our guide escorted us to Te Papa Museum we enjoyed a quick morning tea before seeing...

 And after lunch we walked through town to Paramount Theatre and the children danced to Orchestra of the Spheres.

It was such a busy day that on the bus ride home I counted 3 children fast asleep!

The Book With No Pictures

We visited PJ on the Library bus today, and he read us this hilarious book at the end of our session. The children could not stop laughing!

We visit the Library Bus three times a term and the children have an opportunity to issue a book to take home. Because this is a public library service they need an Upper Hutt Library card.

Beautiful Bubble Art

These amazing artworks are currently up on the wall in Room 4. 

The children created their bubble art by using a straw to blow hundreds of bubbles with bubble mixture and dye into a tall cup. When the bubbles overflowed the top of the cup they placed their paper on top to pop the bubbles and transfer the pattern to the paper. It can be rather a messy activity, but I was very impressed that everyone managed to blow the bubbles through the straw and not suck them up!

We have also been blowing real bubbles with our S-Block buddies, writing about bubble blowing, and reading poems and stories about bubbles.

Check out these posts about other bubble art activities I have completed with previous classes:

Bubbles

 Bubbles on my Shoulders

 

Children's Day 2015

The first Sunday in March is Children's Day. We celebrated a little early and the children discovered how special they are for our Discovery Children's Day session. 

One very popular activity was eating an ice-cream cone - I told the children it was a gift from our Principal Mr Webby for being so fantastic!

I didn't get the photo of the Prince or Princess for a Day crowns the children made, but I hope they remembered to wear them on Sunday. (My child did!)