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. 

Mr McGee's adventures continue

After watching Deziah's and Noelani's Mr McGee stories, George and Ofa were inspired to write their own. Have a look at the movies they made of their stories using puppet theatre on the ipad.

Mr McGee and the Fight

 By Ofa

 

Mr McGee and the Apple

By George

 



All I want for Christmas . . .

Here are three more letters to Santa written by Noelani, Ofa and Ashley.  I hope Santa has been looking at our blog!

T-Rex, by Ofa

Ofa's favorite dinosaur is the T-Rex and here he is reading his description of one.  What is your favorite dinosaur?

Catch it if you can

We have been reading the poem Catch it if you can.  It's about cooking pancakes so on Friday we decided to make some pancakes of our own. 

 Sandy, Noelani and Ennie have written stories about the pancake experience:

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.

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. 

Lightning, by Ofa

Listen to Ofa's story about the stormy weather we have been having.  What did he see when he went outside? 

Ofa's lion story

As part of our predators unit we have been learning about lions.  Ofa has written a story about two lions who are good friends. 

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.

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. 

Wattle and Wally have arrived!

Today we received an envelope in the post and inside we found Wattle and Wally.  There was also some vegemite and a book full of stories that the children from Prep K and Prep S had written.  Wattle and Wally said they had had a great trip, although they had been a little frightened by the tornado.  Wattle is going to stay with us and Wally is going to spend his time in A4.  Take a look at the video to see what Wattle got up to on his first day here.

Untitled from Kirsty Macfarlane on Vimeo.

Teddy Bears Picnic

On Friday our Teddy's came to school for a picnic.  We spent the morning getting them dressed up and ready for the big teddy parade, and then we made some fairy bread for our picnic.  We think the teddys really enjoyed coming to school for the day.