Hero Discovery

We had a fantastic Hero Discovery session last week. We were very lucky to have some special visitors; a fireman, police officers, and 5 police dogs!

We practised our 'get down, get low, get out' fire safety procedure and talked about a safe meeting point. Later during the session the children got to make a fire-truck money-box and talk to Jamie the Fireman about his job. Some lucky children even got to try on his fire-fighting gear.

The police van came for us to explore and as a lucky surprise some police dogs dropped by for us to meet. We learned about how to pat a dog safely - after checking the dog is okay to pat with its owner, put your hand out for the dog to sniff and then scratch them gently under the chin or on the shoulder. After patting the police dogs we made some police dogs out of paper. Check here for dog origami instructions similar to what we used. We took our fingerprints, got to play with some real handcuffs, and try on a stab-resistant vest.

 

 We also turned into superheroes and practised saving J-Block!

Queen's Birthday Discovery 2014

I love these royal masks, the J-Block teachers wore them last year for a funny staff photo, and last Wednesday for our Queen's Birthday Discovery session the children enjoyed wearing them too.

 

 We also made these beautiful crowns....

 ... and stunning brooches.

 

Party Time!

 Last Friday we had a party to say goodbye to some amazing children leaving Room 4 and heading off to Room 13. It's always sad to have children (and their parents) leave my classroom but with so many Mountaineers visiting us each week for their pre-school visits I know I will have more happy faces to teach during the rest of the year.

 While the new Room 13 were visiting their new teacher the rest of us stayed behind and got ready for the party. We had fun making paper chains, decorating cups for our lemonade, and arranging the party food.

Stunning Autumn Leaf Art

 Our autumn leaf art is up and on display in our classroom. I love the bright colours of these artworks, and I encouraged the children to choose colours for their leaves that we have observed in the autumn leaves collected for Discovery the other week. We discussed using warm colours for our leaves and cool colours for the background. Warm colours are yellow, orange, and red, cool colours are blue, green, and purple. For more information about how we created these artworks check out my previous blog post.

Off to the Marae!

Tomorrow we are on the bus and off to our local Marae. Orongomai Marae is our local Marae, but for me and many of the children it will be our first visit.

For Discovery last Wednesday we explored several art and craft activities designed to give the children some experiences in Maori culture that they might not have had before. They made poi, practised with rakau, wove with paper, drew koru, and made headbands.

We have also been practising our hongi - just in case!

Autumn Discovery 2014

Check out the amazing autumn activities we explored last Wednesday for Discovery; mini leaf booklets, laminated leaves, leaf boats, leaf rubbing, apple cutting with our special apple cutting machines, hibernating hedgehog art, autumn leaf creatures, and pine-cone critter craft!

I love the apple cutting machines. They peel, core, and slice an apple in one amazing go. Funny enough, the children are just as fascinated as the adults! 

Once My Hand ...

This is my hand.
My hand will do,
a 1000 loving things with you.
And you will remember
when I am tall...
That once my hand
was just this small.

Happy Mother's Day!