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!

Off to The Big Top!

 We put on our red noses and clown hats this morning and went off to the big top to perform in the J-Block Circus for Discovery this morning.

 The children made the clown hats from coloured card and stickers. Peeling and sticking stickers is a good fine motor activity to practise in preparation for writing.

 On the way to the circus we decorated popcorn cups and watched popcorn explode from the popcorn poppers! Yum!

We sold circus tickets in the ticket booth using our play money, and wore these circus masks from Sparklebox.

We also coloured in mini circus books to take home and cut out these cute paper circus animals.

In Room 4 we have also been reading and practising the actions for this cute clown poem.

Off to the Big Top

We were off to the big top today for Discovery, well nearly! We created our own circus in front of J-Block and had a great time.

We sold tickets to our circus with play money....

.... made clown hats ....

.... dressed up as circus performers and animals ....

.... practised our throwing, juggling, balancing, and other circus tricks ....

(Last year a fantastic grandmother of one of the children made a whole class set of bean bags for us, they have been well used for several Discovery and PE sessions.)

.... made popcorn in personalised popcorn cups ....

.... when ate popcorn while watching our classmates perform in our circus (and between our own performances).

Some children made a miniature circus ....

.... decorated a circus book ....

 .... sewed miniature bunting ....

.... cut and folded circus animals from cardboard ....

.... and wrote circus words.

Phew, we were worn out by morning tea time!

Clowning Around

Guess who came to visit?
Here is a clue:

Ronald McDonald came to visit us today to talk to us about keeping ourselves safe on the road. His road safety tips included-

• Making your seat-belt click.
• Stopping, looking, and listening at sneaky driveways and when crossing the road.
• Listening to the road patrollers at crossings.
• And walking on the house side of the footpath. 

After his visit we made clown hats.

The children enjoyed the opportunity to peel and stick lots of foam stickers onto their hat to decorate it. Peeling and sticking encouraged careful hand-eye coordination and allowed the children to practice their fine motor skills and strengthen their fingers, the same fingers we use for holding a pencil to write with.

We finished with a pompom on top and painted our noses red - just like real clowns.  

We have been reading a funny clown poem all week. We are experts at reading our poem and acting it out too. 

We glue copies of our weekly poems into the homework books. That way the children can share their poems with their families at home.