Whoops !!!

Well what a busy year so far and no I haven't forgotten I am running a blog (well maybe I did).

The past 5 weeks have whizzed past so quickly with a little excitment with the earthquake in Christchurch that we felt even in Fairlie and had us scattering under desks. We are finishing up a week of art, drawing military vehicles, and next week jumping feet first into our unit on sustainability in farming.

Term 4

Well its been a while since I posted anything on here. Last term was madness with a production and the move back to my classroom. The classroom looks great. For those who don't know what happened, a pipe burst in the ceiling over winter and cause a lot of mess.

The production called the Button Box and was a lot of hard work, but fun as well. Well done to all the children who work so hard on their parts, the songs and the dances.

This term my class's focus is on mini beasts, watch out all those creatures in the school's gardens and local environment. This week we are looking at worms and have created a worm farm in the classroom. The ultimate classroom pet, they are quiet, make no mess and I only have to feed them once a week. Yay!!!

Weather

Cripes what crazy weather we are having at the moment. Lots of rain and now snow threatening. So what are we doing in the classroom to stop us all from going crazy? Lots of discussions and explorations around weather.

Our question was: 'Where does the all this rain go?' We feel the rain goes down the drain, through the pipes and out to sea. Which is quite a distance to go for all the water as we are a reasonable distance from the sea. We have had some surface flooding out here but it hasn't been as bad as other areas around us. We have talked about how the ground acts likes a sponge and how it is rather full at the moment which is why the rain is sitting on top of the grass rather than soaking in like it normally does.

Discovery

"What is Discovery?" you ask. It is a programme on Friday afternoon that has the children exploring different things. Such as baking, scrap booking and painting. It is reliant on parent help and the skills they can bring to the classroom. Friday was our first session and we had two adults in to help. One taught her group of children how to make the most delicious ginger biscuits, another taught scrap booking and myself took painting. This is an important time for the children as some have never done such things at home. I am hoping for more parents to volunteer as I would like the groups to be as small as 3, so the children get the most of the time. It was a fun afternoon and everyone went home smiling, a great success.

Yummy Maths

Over the last two weeks we have been exploring making bar graphs. We have looked at what they are and what they are used for and the next step was for the children to make their own. Looking at the graphs we have created we discovered that boxing is the most popular sport in Room 1,strawberries are the most popular fruit and pink is our favourite colour.

To create their own graphs the children used coloured blocks and finally for today as our final day on this topic they got to use candy. Very yummy of course and a great motivator for the children to complete their graph. However they couldn't eat them until the task was completed. It was great activity and no one should under estimate the power of food and maths. A big thumbs up from all of us with this graphing unit.

Whoops how time flys

How time has flown away from me this year and so many exciting things we have done in class this year already.
Our highlight for term 1 was making the butter. Very simple and easy to do but created such awe and wonder in the children. They didn't believe me with a jar and some cream you could quickly make some delicious butter. They voted it was better than the shop stuff and they had fun sharing about it with Room 2 next door. Also we explored how to stay safe at school, at home and at the pool. And with a visit from Constable Hocking we learnt about safety around cars and found out how they are all needing a car seat of some sort to stay safe in a car. This is due to their heights and weights. There was a short video on the news a few weeks ago showing what happens if a young child is sitting without a seat and I will see if I can a link to the video for those who are interested.

Favourite sites and downloads

Hi to everyone, before the holidays arrive I would like to add links to some favourite sites and to some good downloads.

story on line - a story telling site, where famous actors read the books
http://www.storylineonline.net/

For internet safety for all children
http://hectorsworld.netsafe.org.nz

A photo editing free program that the children use at school
http://picasa.google.co.nz/

from here you can download photostory, which is what we used to make the "three little pigs" story that we shared
http://www.microsoft.com

Junior Dance Celebration

On Friday 27 November the entire Junior School assembled at a local hall and presented their terms worth of dance. It was glorious. The children all danced beautifully, remembering all the dances and managing to go where they needed to, when they needed to. The children of room one did especially well as they are only 5and 6 year olds. As an extra challenge we learnt a new Jump Jam and then taught it to the other two classes. So we had a small group of girls and boys who stepped up to the challenge and were able to stand at the front of three combined classes and teach the new steps and moves. No small feat if you're so young. Well done those children. We danced four folk dances from around the world, two line dances and two Jump Jam and finally at the conclusion of the dance all the children had to pull an adult down onto the dance floor. They then danced with their moms, dads, nanas, grandads and complete strangers to the Bird Dance. All the children's faces shone with their joy and it was great to see many laughing parents. It was a fabulous success and I know that we all enjoyed it.

Junior Athletics

What a busy week we had last week with Junior Athletics pulling in children from across the Mackenzie Basin. It was a beautiful day, a little overcast, which meant that we didn't get too hot like last year.

The morning activities were a lot of fun. The parachute was a popular event with many parents and preschoolers having a go to bounce the balls off the side. For those who haven't seen one it is a huge multicoloured circle with handles around the outside. Everyone takes a handle and they start creating waves across the surface by lfting and lowering it. We threw balls on it so the children needed to work as teams to throw it off the opposite side. Other activities we had were sack races, gumboot throws, egg and spoons races, ball skills, 3 legged races and mini hurdles.

The day ended with sprints, which the children enjoyed and they all did well, as it was a long day for everyone. It was great to see so many laughing children and to have the event attended by so many parents. A big thank you from me to all the children who gave it their best go and had fun.

Clinger

Last week we had a small visitor come to class by the name of Clinger. He was a young possum that had been discovered while one of our class members was out hunting with Dad. We were thrilled to meet him as many of the children and myself had never seen a possum up close before. He was very cute with his long face and short fur. We were especially amazed at his paws, with the sharp claws and his long curvy tail. Unfortunately despite all efforts to look after him Clinger has not survived. We all think fondly of him and have decided as a class to post this short piece about him.