Sunday, August 30, 2015

Rob!

Introducing our new class member.

Rob the Rabbit!
Welcome Rob! We love you already.

Today we have learnt that you like to eat carrots, apple, silver beet and spinach leaves and your special pellets.

You also need lots of fresh water.

We also know you don't like loud noises and definitely no yelling!!!

We think you might like learning how to read. You seem to love snuggling up to the sight words in the classroom.

Ooops! You also leave a few surprises for us to pick up sometimes.

Welcome to the Korimako classrooms Rob.
We will take very good care of you.

Thursday, August 27, 2015

What a great Discovery Friday today.

Our focus this week was to participate, 
contribute and work well with our friends.
We are learning to give compliments, 
speak nicely to each other, and remember our manners.

Olivia came with her balloons and helped us to make animals.
Everyone really wanted to do this and Olivia was a great teacher.

As part of our Inquiry into cold environments
 a little bit of ice excavation went on.
We worked well together and showed patience
 while we gently chipped away to reveal dinosaurs!




A lot of creativity and imagination
 was needed to create creatures with 'googly eyes'.




We always appreciate the parents who come to help us.
Today Joel's mum and Tushil's dad 
came to work with us to make a rabbit hutch.



Mrs. Taylor is excited as she has a pet rabbit for us.
We will care for it and take photos to share on our blog.
So keep checking to see what our rabbit looks like.

Other animals called in today as well.
Maisie knew that the calves on the trailer were Murray Greys.
The calves are only five days old.

At Language Experience time we talked about Fairy Tales.
We retold the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.
We brainstormed characters that we might find in a Fairy Tale.
Everyone got to choose a character, draw a picture,
 and tell us a little about the character.


Check out our wall display.
During Discovery Angus and Maisie's Aunty Margo
 (who came all the way from Australia to help)
worked with us to create a castle. 
White bricks were carefully printed onto the black paper.
Rectangular sponges were just right to make our bricks.
Thank you .


Albert Einstein

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”


― Albert Einstein






Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Antarctic Centre

Our trip to the Antarctic Centre was amazing. We were told exactly where to find it on the world map.

Penguins were a big part of the day.

 Little Blue Penguins.

Fern's Dad kindly tried some heavy looking clothes on for us to see how many layers would be needed when working in Antarctica.

There were special places for all of us.

We kept our distances from open mouths and sharp teeth. 

Watch out Lucy B!!!

The cold room was FREEZING.

We saw vehicles. 


And more clothes. 
ARE YOU IN THERE MITCHELL????? 


 See, kids really do make the world go round!


 Lots of great lessons to listen too.


And things to try. 


So many questions to ask.

We can't wait to make our own discoveries in our inquiry afternoons back at school now.

What a great day it was.

Sunday, August 9, 2015

Maths Expo!!!

pssssssst


Did you hear?

Our Mums and Dads can come along to school on 
Wednesday 12th August
6.30pm
Maths Expo

Come and find out what we REALLY do at school for Maths learning.


ssssssssh secret squirrel
The Bellbirds prize is edible!


See you then.

Friday, August 7, 2015

Engineering and Experiments!

Wow, what a busy week of learning in the Bellbirds! 

On Thursday Rachel, from the House of Bricks, came to visit.  
She brought 30 000 pieces of lego.
We worked in groups and had to follow 3 rules: 
To  share the lego.
To keep the lego on the sheet. 
And to have fun!

We were amazing!  
We helped each other and worked as teams.
We problem solved!
We did lots of fantastic thinking!
Amazing Mazes were created!
 Brilliant colour and size patterns !

 The bridges took lots of thinking! 
We had to try and try again with these until they were strong enough to hold our class mascot 'Tui"! 
 We learnt lots about strengthening and patience!
Perhaps some future engineers!

We also built towers and compared their sizes.

On Friday we became scientists.  
We wanted to find out what could melt ice the fastest! 
We tried adding salt and sugar to ice. 
We predicted that the salt and sugar would both make the ice melt quicker.
We waited and observed throughout the morning how the ice changed.
What did we find out.....?




We discovered that the salt melted the ice the fastest.  
We  noticed that the sugar and ice seemed to melt at the same speed as the plain ice!

Mrs Tipping told us about how in the country her sister lives in they use salt to melt the ice  on roads!
I wonder if you remember which country her sister lives in?





Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Week 3: Awards! Responsibility! Volume! Soup!!!


 This week has been sooo busy already in the Bellbirds.
Joel has shown his talents on the football field!

Most improved! Well done chum.

Another superstar showing promise.......

But not for the first time. Sorry Emily this should have gone on here before now. Well done to you too!!

 In fact........others popped in to share before school! Love how proud they all were. Well done to all of you.

 On Monday we started to talk and learn about VOLUME and CAPACITY.
How many cups of water will these vessels hold?
Which holds more?

You had better ask your children. 
Was it the tall bottle or shorter fat jar?

We took Mrs T out to the 'Friendship Pole'. We agreed that it is everybody's RESPONSIBILITY to ensure we have all have friends to play with.
The Korimako (Bellbirds) would like to suggest a new coat of paint to brighten the pole up. Maybe the student council could help with this?

On Tuesday we made SOUP for MATHS.
Yes that's right, we measured, counted, estimated, combined, halved, doubled. So much real life maths thinking. 

 We pretended to make our own pots of soup with very silly looking ingredients. Funny but fun. 
Maths is lots of fun!

We really liked the soup too.


If you would like to know more about these maths activities and our learning why don't you come along to the 'Ashley School Maths Expo' next week on Wednesday evening.


Sssssssssssh, secret squirrel........
 We have a prize at the Bellbird's display you could win on the night.