Merry Christmas!!!

It was our last day of school for the year today and now we are on holiday until January 31st.  When we get back there will be a new bunch of children in A3.  It has been a great year and we have had a lot of fun together.  Thanks to everyone who has supported our blog this year.   Wally has promised to update the blog with tales of his holiday, so stay posted for his updates.  We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. 

Dear Santa . . .

We heard that Santa has got the internet in the North Pole and that he might be a regular reader of our blog.  We've all written letters to Santa and recorded them for the blog in the hope he will watch our videos.  Here are the first three letters from Rohit, Amalani and Nancy. We will be putting more up over the course of the week.

Tui Garden Challenge

A3 and A1 have entered the Tui Gardening challenge and on Monday we started getting our gardens ready.  We pulled out all of the weeds and old plants from our garden beds.  As part of the garden challenge we were given new gardening tools and these were very helpful to pull out the plants.  

Ashley with some of our new tools

One of our gardens before we weeded it.

Take a look at this slide show to see the children hard at work.
   

Four of the children wrote and recorded stories about their gardening experience so far. 

Dinosaur Prints

Last week we were very busy working on  dinosaur prints. It was a lot of work but we love the results. We made two different prints.  For the first one we chose one colour of ink to use, then we used dye and creative glue to add detail to the picture.  For our second print we were allowed to chose two different colours of ink.  Take a look at our slide show and let us know what you think.

Untitled from Kirsty Macfarlane on Vimeo.

What's Behind C Block?

After lunch on Friday Rohit, Kaya and Amalani came back to class with a scary story.  Listen to Amalani and Kaya reading their stories about what scared them while they were behind C block. 

Maths Week

Last week was maths week.  Each day we worked in groups to solve a different maths problem.  Some of the problems were quite tricky and we enjoyed the challenge of solving them. 

Here is Aliyaah, Ofa and Noelani telling us how they solved the following problem:

Mother Bear is making her 5 bear cubs new coats.  The coats have 3 buttons each. How many buttons does Mother Bear need?

We also used paint to copy a picture of a robot using shapes.  Take a look at the slide show to see the results. 

Monster Mash

We have been reading 'The Monster's Party' by Joy Cowley and we decided to have our own monster mash. We made monster masks and played charades, musical chairs and pin the hat on the monster.  After we had finished the games we ate lots of jelly!  

 

Here are some photos of the scary monsters at play. 

We also made a sound scape to match what was happening in the story.  We had to think of sounds that matched the story and then we added actions.  We hope you like it. 

The sandpit has opened!

Our sandpit is open and we love it!  So far we have made sandcastles, volcanoes and whales and we can't wait to see what else we can make.   Amalani, Sandy and Aliyaah have written stories about what they did in the sandpit, can you think of anything else they could make?

Duffy Theatre!

Today the Duffy Theatre came to our school to put on a play for us.  It was really funny and we learnt about how great our libraries are.  We can't wait to go down to our local library to borrow some books.

Listen to the stories Amalani and Rohit wrote about the Duffy show. 

Stuck in the Mud

Last week a truck came to our school to deliver sand for our new sand pit.  Unfortunately it got stuck in the mud and another truck had to come and pull it out.  



The truck is putting the sand next to the sand pit



Rohit and Amalani wrote stories about the truck and drew pictures using paint. 

Amalani's picture

Rohit's picture

Computers!

We are very excited in A3 because we now have our very own pod of four computers!  We are looking forward to using them to enhance all the learning we already do in our classroom.  Yesterday Amalani and Nancy used the computers to publish their stories.   

Check out their finished work. 

I went to the shop and I brought chocolate.  By Amalani

The giraffe is eating the flower.  By Nancy



Bye Bye Wattle

Friday was Wattle's last day in A3.  He has been visiting us from Australia for the last 7 weeks and now it is time for him to go back to his class Learning Together.  We have had lots of fun with Wattle and we are going to miss him, but we are looking forward to seeing our giraffe Wally again.  Take a look at the video to see what Wattle got up to while he was with us.  

Untitled from Kirsty Macfarlane on Vimeo.

Here is a video of us singing a goodbye song for Wattle.

Meeting the kittens

On Thursday we skyped with our friends in Australia, Learning Together.  We got to see their rabbit blue bell and her seven kittens.  The kittens have grown since we last saw them and Wally is having a great time playing with them.  You can see Wally playing with the kittens by clicking here.   

Wattle is saying hi to his classmates.  

Going to the zoo!

We went to Auckland Zoo yesterday and had a great time.  We were lucky the sun came out and all the animals were very active.  Wattle came with us and he had lots of fun and he made some new friends. 

Wattle met some friends at the zoo and he saw a real wombat's skull!  

Take a look at the slide show and movie to see photos and videos of the day. 

Untitled from Kirsty Macfarlane on Vimeo.

Amalani's Future Transport

Amalani has designed a super scooter.  It can go on the water and in the air!

Here is Amalani telling us about his super scooter. 

Futuristic Transport

Once a week A3 goes to the library to work on the computers with Ms Clark.  Last week they were learning to use kidpix to draw futuristic transport.  Take a look at their amazing creations.

Run run as fast as you can!

On Friday we baked gingerbread men.  It was a messy job but lots of fun!  We watched the gingerbread men carefully to make sure none of them ran away and lucky for us none of them did. 


The gingerbread men waiting to be eaten



The Gingerbread Man

We have been reading different versions of the Gingerbread Man this week.  Some of the children have written their own versions, watch the video to see what they wrote.

Sweet Sticky Buns

We have been reading Greedy Cat and on Friday we decided to make some sweet sticky buns.  Take a look at the slide show to see how we did it.  Deziah and Maqushio did a great job as our official photographers. 

Untitled from Kirsty Macfarlane on Vimeo.

Here is Amalani reading his story about the sticky buns.

The Dark Dark House

This week we have been reading a poem called 'The Dark Dark House'  We wanted to act it out and we needed a dark dark box to do it.  

Take a look at the video to hear us reading the poem and see what comes out of the box.