Mufti & Daffodils

We had Mufti Day yesterday and raised money for Kid's Can, an organisation that supports disadvantaged Kiwi children.  You can visit their website at http://www.kidscan.org.nz/ to learn more about what they do.

One student made daffodils with his family and brought them to school to show us.  He explained how he made them from a handprint and crepe paper tied around a pipe cleaner.  They look so pretty don't they!

Time for Art!

What can you make art with?  Paint, dye, paper, wire, clay...  Well, this week we made art out of mud!  We're not joking!  Here we are collecting the mud...

Next we got some brushes and water and used them for painting trees! 

 When we finished our mud-paintings we went outside and made art using bark from the garden! 

We made all sorts of things...



candles and cakes...

faces and volcanoes...

 a boat and a house (complete with chimney and smoke!)...

 a tree and even a lollipop!

We learnt that art can be made with anything!

Adding with jellybeans

To keep with the theme of beans (from our 'Jack and the Beanstalk' story) some of the class did some adding with jellybeans.  They had to add two different colour jellybeans together and show how many there were like this...

The other group were learning different ways to add up to 10.

Guess the story

Can you guess the story we're acting out?

It's 'Jack and the Beanstalk of course!

We made some artwork about the story too. 

Do you like our scary giants at the top of the beanstalk?

We also did some thinking in Maths time about Probability.

We had to decide if Jack WILL, MIGHT or WON'T see certain objects while climbing the beanstalk.

Seed hunt

During the week we went on a seed hunt around our school.  We found lots of kowhai seed pods.  It was so fun to open the pods and see the little yellow seeds inside.

We also found a few other seeds, including some in a tiny fruit.

Lettuce plants

Our lettuce seedlings grew a lot and we had to thin them out because the container is only big enough for one plant.  Our teacher showed us how to thin the plants out so that the healthiest plant remains.  Now we will look after one plant per pot.

Class Rules

We've been thinking about ways to have a happy class this term.  We want to have a good time with each other so we made some rules for our class.  Here are the rules we made.

If we don't follow our class rules there are negative consequences like having time-out or missing out on doing something fun.

Sounds

This week we talked about sounds.  We realised that sounds means 'noises' and that they can come from many different sources.  Some sounds come from people, some from living creatures, some from machines and then there are natural sounds which we called 'other'.

We went outside and listened to see what sounds we could hear in our environment.  Because we were so quiet we could hear many sounds.  It was a stormy day so we heard leaves rustling in the wind and rain dropping on the roof.  We were even lucky enough to hear a mother duck quacking to her ducklings as they wandered past us!  We could hear a train rumbling by in the distance, the sound of hammering and lots of running feet!

We tried to think about some other sounds that we might be able to hear in nature.  We thought of a bee buzzing around, an alligator snapping his mouth shut, thunder, waves crashing onto the beach and the sound of waves from a seashell.  

What other natural sounds can you think of?

Mystery Bag

We have started a new activity in our class.  It is called 'Mystery Bag'.  One of us can take the special bag home every night and we have to hide something inside it and make three clues to share with our class the next day.  They have to try and guess what is inside the bag!

 

Can you guess what is in the Mystery Bag?

Clue 1 - It is made of plastic.

Clue 2 - It has a battery inside to make it work.

Clue 3 - You can use it at night.

Look at us trying to figure out what the mystery object is!

Visitors

One of the boys in our class goes to a different classroom for Reading.  During the week his group came to visit us and they read a Reader's Theatre about visiting another planet.  It was great to hear the different expressions in the reader's voices and to be involved in the story too!  Thanks for visiting us guys.

Our Worm Farm

We made a worm farm this week!

First we put some dirt into the box then we layered sand and rolled oats and more dirt on top.  We put about twenty worms inside then we covered the front of the box so that the worms would think that they are still in the dark earth.  Every morning we take the cover off the box and say "Good morning" to our worms!

The power of a seed

Is one seed important?  Can one seed make a difference?  Watch the video to find out!

The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle

The well-known author Eric Carle wrote a lovely story called 'The Tiny Seed'.  You can see it here...

Have you ever watched a seed sprouting?  Here is a short video showing a bean seed sprouting.

Here's another videa showing two beans sprouting and growing into seedlings.

New topic for Term 4

In Term 4 we are going to be learning about plants and how to take care of them.

Do you know what plants need to stay alive?  Watch this video and sing along!