End of the term! And 2019!

What a rush to the end of the year!

Mrs Wallace worked with Room 1 on some Christmas art. They made amazing Christmas Trees to take home.

Then they made some really cool Christmas decorations with beads that were melted together.

Room 1 and 2 went to visit the Kiwi Creche as part of our topic. We then made a Kiwi burrow from 'Cup a soup' boxes. We painted them brown, then glued in some wood shavings. The tricky bit was making a kiwi and its' egg from modelling clay to go in the burrow.

They do look very cool!

The first week of December was time to put up the new class christmas tree. The children were excited to see the decorations and lights.

We then set to work making some decorations of our own along with some cool cards.

Our Christmas trees,

Our  very special reindeer christmas cards,

For these cards we used black paper, glue and sequins.

We even made our own gift bags!

We used wax crayon and dye to do patterns on our bags, then Mrs A folded them into bags.

Then we put on lots of glue and glitter to make them pretty!

Our last activity for our topic was to make a 'bee hotel'.

We cut some bamboo into short pieces. Then made them into a bundle which we pushed into some plasticine, in the bottom of a cup.

Then we pushed some more plasticine around the top of the cup to hold the bamboo.

Next we made a little sign so the bees would know where to go for a rest.

Out into the school orchard we went to find a good place to put our bee hotel.

We have had a fantastic year and we are looking forward to a good rest over the summer.

Merry Christmas everyone and a Happy New Year!

End of week 6 and Xmas is coming!

The last two weeks have been very busy working on our reading, maths, writing and phonics. The children in Room 1 have been working hard on their handwriting skills. More children have progressed to Independent Handwriting, they have to complete set differentiated, independent handwriting tasks, to a good standard before moving to the next level. You can see the pride they take in their work by how focused they are.

They also enjoy playing phonic games after their handwriting tasks are complete.

Tiaan and Isla match up the upper and lower case letters.

Elizabeth finds the correct letters for her board.

Lincoln, Brooke and Renae are playing a memory sound game.

This week was the build up for Rooms 1 and 2 to visit to the Kiwi Creche. We were going to go on Wednesday. Sadly the weather didn't come to the party, so we were keeping our fingers crossed for Friday.

Friday dawned full of promise. The children were very excited when we all got together in Room 1 for getting sorted into groups. 

Once sorted, it was into the cars and off to meet Jo and the Kiwis.

Jo gave us all a talk on how to behave around the kiwi and what we might see, then off we went over the grass and into the bush.

When Jo found one of the kiwis, she showed us what information she gathered each time she checked on the kiwis.

First she did a visual check on the overall look of the bird, 

the kiwi didn't look to fussed by it's audience!

Then Jo took measurements of the kiwi's beak,

then popped it into a bag to weight it.

after all her jobs were done, Jo snipped the little ties she had put around the kiwi's legs (to stop it kicking Jo with it's strong legs),

carefully picked it up,

and slipped it back into it's burrow.

What a day! Everyone had a great time and learnt heaps about kiwis!

Looking forward to lots of great writing and artwork about kiwis!

That's all for the moment.

End of week 4 already!

Here we are nearly half way through the last term for 2019!

Our sharing this term has changed from other terms as we have so much happening in our day, eg: swimming, outdoor activities, end of year trip etc.
We still have a letter or blend focus for the week, but instead of having rostered days for the children to share items they have bought to school, we have a hands on activity relating to the letter or blend of the week.

Last week our letter blend was 'qu'. Room 1 children completed a quilting patch by drawing on a square of calico with fabric pens and wax crayons. They then chose a patterned backing sheet to glue their square onto. I then taped all the squares together to make a beautiful wall quilt. 

Everyone in Room 1 contributed, teacher and teacher aide included!

The children are very proud of their hard work.

 Our quilt is on display in Room 1 till the end of term. It will then be split up so each child can take home their quilt square.

This week our letter blend focus was 'gl'. We made sun glasses, which ties in with our mini-topic unit of being sun smart.
For this activity we had to colour in our glasses template, there were lots of colourful designs and patterns happening! Next was some very careful cutting out, everyone did an excellent job!
Then we had to choose the colour 'lens' we wanted and carefully glue it all together with the hot glue guns. We had a sunny lunchtime, so it was the perfect opportunity to try them out!

At the start of this term we filled out a KWL chart about the sun, K=what we know, W=what we want to know, L=what we learnt.

We have all been learning new things about the sun and how it works. To share our sun-smart message with others, we have been practising a sun-smart song. Hopefully we will be sharing this at one of the up-coming assemblies. 

We’re SunSmart!

We’re SunSmart!

We wear our hats,

We wear our shirts,

We wear our sunnies out in the sun.

We won’t get burnt and we still have fun,

We tell our friends to be smart in the sun. 

Cos we’re SunSmart

Our maths strand this term is Time. We are learning how to tell the 'o'clock on our clocks. The children worked in pairs and were getting to grips with where the hands have to be in relation to the numbers.

On Monday this week Room 1 were lucky to be working with Room 2 and Mrs Wallace while I had a much needed day for completing assessments. They had a great time making firework pictures, working along-side Room 2 children and going swimming together.

That's all for now, looking forward to sharing more of our activities in two weeks time.

Cheers!

Welcome back to Room 1, term 4!

End of week 2 already!

Room 1 would like to welcome two new students this term.
We have Chloe, who joined us at the start of the term,

and Isla, who started in week 2.

This term we had our Pet Day. The children bought along all sorts of pets, dogs, cats, frogs, a rooster etc.

These are some Room 1 pets,

This is Mellow Yellow the rooster,

Harper bought in some frogs,

Skye bought in her pet cat, Smudge,

Brooke shared her puppy, Lola, with Tiaan,

Chloe and her sister Hayley bought along the dad of their little puppy, Lucky.

After all the pets had been judged, the children participated in workshops. Room 1 hosted the Art and Craft workshop. The children used materials from the environment to create pictures......

First they had to choose the materials for their picture,

then arrange them in their picture frame,

adding to it if they needed.

Then out with the glue guns and...

glue, glue,

glue! 

At the start of week 2, we had Sue, the health nurse come and talk to us about staying clean and healthy.

She gave us a little talk on how to clean our teeth and wash ourselves properly.

  

Then we watched a short video on washing ourselves regularly so we always smell nice.

I am pleased to say that the Room 1 children were very knowledgeable about keeping themselves healthy!

This week we tried out some Tai Chi as part of our Well being for Learning. The children enjoyed having a change from the Focus Yoga we have been doing.

It is now part of our morning routine of Preparing for Learning.

We ended the week with Grandparents day. Lots of Grandparents came along to school to share what their Grand-children have been learning. There were old fashioned games to play, and Room 1 had hoola-hoops to try.

  

There was lots of fun....

and laughs....

as every one had a go at trying to keep those hoola-hoops going!

After all the games, it was off to the pool for some fun in the water....

The children were keen to show off their swimming skills to their Grandparents, however, the Grandparents didn't seem keen to jump in and show off theirs!

After a busy two weeks, we were all very tired and were looking forward to the long weekend. After a good rest, we will all be ready for more fun and learning come Tuesday next week.

Cheers everyone!