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!)

Happy Valentines Day 2015

This week we discovered about Valentines Day and explored about how to show others that we care about them. 

 We made love bug bookmarks with our thumbprints. Click for a pdf.

My youngest son and I went out the other night and collected small stones and the children used them to show someone special that 'you rock!' Click for a pdf.

We made delicious waffles with maple syrup. Luckily my waffle machine makes a waffle that you can split into 5 hearts.

We made bead bracelets to give away.

And we used marbles to make these cool heart paintings to take home.

I was really pleased to have 9 new children come today for their first discovery session, it is always exciting to meet new children and see younger siblings of previous students finally come to school. We encourage parents or caregivers to come along to our Discovery sessions with their children (at least for the first few sessions). So today was very busy! 

We call our pre-school visitors Mountaineers and they have between 7 and 10 visits before they start school. Our Discovery sessions are only until 10.30, but for our Mountaineer's last 3 visits they stay longer and participate in a normal classroom programme. We have found that by the time our Mountaineers turn 5 they are ready for school and confident and excited about starting.

Easy Marble Hearts

 We used shaving cream and paint to make these hearts, it's easy marbling for kids. The children were very impressed to see the marble pattern and it is always a nice surprise for them to see what they have created.

Squirt shaving cream into a shallow tray, drop on a few blobs of paint (we used red and a little blue), swirl it around, gently push the paper on top then peel it off carefully, use an ice-cream container lid to scrape of the paint and shaving cream and reveal the marble pattern. 

We did both sides of the paper which was little messy and I made sure to use extra thick cartridge paper.

I've done this paint activity before, you can check it out here if you want instructions with pictures.

Welcome Back

Welcome back to school, I just wanted to show something amazing that one of my 5 year olds created last week.

This fantastic Lego aeroplane. 

I put the Lego out as one of our writing activities of the children to explore during a writing session. Lego encourages fine motor skills, problem solving, and creativity, all skills children need for school. We have been very lucky and have been given different Lego bits and pieces, but we are always on the hunt for more!

 

Give a Little For Callum

Callum was in my class last year and is now seriously ill again after defeating cancer as an infant. Please think of Callum and his family.

Cat and Bird Art

 Cat and Bird (1928) Paul Klee

Our amazing Cat and Bird art is up in the office. I was inspired by this post at Rumriver Art Center. We used paint rolled on with a roller, vivid marker, and pastel.

I really enjoy mixed media art projects with children, and Paul Klee is great inspiration. I used Paul Klee's Senecio portrait as a model for some amazing self portraits that I created with my class last year. Thanks to Use Your Coloured Pencils.

Outdoor Week

Check out some of our outdoor week photos. We have been so busy, I was falling asleep straight after dinner! Just like the children.

Staglands....

 Kite making and flying....

Watching the raft race....

Chalk people....

We also dug for treasure, walked to the duckpond and feed the ducks, exploded the air rocket, played on the playground, and made rock art. 

Happy Diwali

Diwali is the Indian Festival of Light and falls between mid October and mid November each year. We celebrated Diwali with lots of exciting activities. 

One of the favourite activities was henna designs with real henna. Henna is a temporary tattoo, and the children enjoyed receiving a small tattoo on their hand. Once the henna dried the children washed it off and a pale brown tattoo remained.

We also had a vegetarian dal curry for the children to sample with basmati rice. Dal curry is made with lentils, and for some children it was the first time they had tried them.

We also dressed up in traditional Indian clothing, created rangoli patterns with coloured salt, and made diya to take home with tea-light candles and plasticine. 

Mini Beasts and Creepy Crawlies

Today we were very lucky to have an entomologist (a scientist who studies insects) come to Discovery and bring some amazing bugs and insect resources for us to explore. 

We had fun catching mosquito larvae to take home, then looking at real live locusts, spiders, mosquitoes, snails, and worms. The children used a microscope to look closely at insects set into resin.

When we have visitors come to school to share their knowledge the children are fascinated to talk to them and enjoy the opportunity to learn from experts. Luckily our entomologist is a parent and volunteered his time and resources. 

If you have something (knowledge, resources, or time) to offer us for Discovery please mention it to a teacher. We would love to have you help out.

Today was also a special session as we had lots of new Mountaineers start their school visits. We call our pre-school visitors Mountaineers as they are 'scaling the heights of learning'. It was great to meet lots of new children and their parents. We encourage parents to stay for our Discovery session to provide support for their children, after a few sessions it is a good idea for parents to leave for a short time before returning for morning tea at 10.30.

Crazy Sock Day 2014

 

Check out the crazy socks we wore for out Dr Seuss Discovery session last term. Fox in Socks likes wearing his socks and our crazy socks were a fun way to remember some of the many enjoyable and slightly crazy stories Dr Seuss wrote.

We explored lots of Dr Seuss themed activities for discovery - including planting bean plants truffula trees, which grew 20cm over the holidays!

International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Ahoy me hearties!!!!!

Ahoy, me Hearties!

Wow! It's been over two weeks since I last posted an update about what we have been up to in Room 4. Yesterday we came to school dressed in our pirate gear and explored like pirates for our Pirate Discovery session. We dug for gold, walked the plank and jumped into shark invested waters, drew treasure maps, folded newspaper pirate hats, threaded bracelets with special beads, made eye-patches, and created hooks for our hands just in case we need them! Whew....

Tomorrow is International Talk Like a Pirate Day and the whole school is dressing up like pirates. 

Here is some of the 'Pirate Talk' I've been practising:

Ahoy! - Hello!
Ahoy, Matey - Hello, my friend!
Ahoy, me Hearties! - the same as saying "Hello, my friends!"
All hand hoay! - comparable to all hands on deck
Avast ye - stop and check this out or pay attention
Aye - yes
Booty - treasure
Crow's nest - small platform atop the mast where the lookout stands
Cutlass - short heavy curved bladed sword used by pirates
Doubloons - other coins or found in pirate hoards and stashes
Head - the pirate ship's toilet
Heave Ho - give it some muscle and push it
Jolly Roger - pirate's flag including white skull and crossbones over a black field
Lad, lass, lassie - a younger person
Landlubber - big, slow clumsy person who doesn't know how to sail
Old Salt - an experienced sailor
Pieces of eight - coins or found in pirate stashes
Savvy? - do you understand and do you agree?
Scuttle - to sink a ship
Seadog - old pirate or sailor
Shark bait - will soon join Davy Jones' Locker
Shipshape - cleaned up and under control
Thar she blows! - Whale sighting
Ye - you
Yo Ho Ho - cheerful exhortation to demand attention

And you can create your own pirate name with this Pirate Name Generator.

Spring Has Sprung

I can hardly believe it is the 1st September. We wrote stories about spring this morning and spent last week learning about spring for Discovery. Last Friday (29th August) was Daffodil Day in New Zealand and is a fund-raising and awareness day for the Cancer Society. So some of our Discovery activities were about daffodils and Daffodil Day.

The children painted watercolour pictures of a jug of daffodils.

 And we made our own daffodil badges with yellow and orange cupcake cases.

I like how one of my children described it this morning - "the daffodils are waking up."

Apple Fractions

 

We have been learning about fractions in Room 4, particularly 1/2 and 1/4's. 

We made sure to wash our apples before cutting them carefully into 1/2 then 1/4's. The children were excited to eat their pieces of apple in class and I was pleased to hear them describing their apple pieces using the fraction language we have been learning.

At home you can encourage the development of mathematical concepts like fractions by using words like 'half' and 'quarters' by using food. Asking your child if they want their toast or sandwich cut into half or quarters and the same with fruit or other types of food is a good place to start. One half is 'one out of two', and one quarter is 'one out of four'.

We have also made and cut up fairy bread as part of our learning about fractions.