Thursday, October 29, 2015

What an amazing week!
On Wednesday The Bellbirds/ Korimako and Harakeke classes  visited Orana Park as part of our inquiry  into survival in hot environments.
We braved the cold and wet conditions as we explored the animals around the park. 
 We enjoyed an up close encounter with the rhinoceros! We were amazed at how big they were!
The gorillas were a highlight for many of us!  
We had to be super quiet while we watched them so we didn't frighten them as they get used to people watching them. 
They played, they banged the window and swung in the tyres! 
 The tall giraffes were  not so impressed with the cold water and didn't stick around for many of us to feed them.  A  lucky few got the chance! We had to hold on tight to the branches as they wrapped their tongues around them to take off the delicious leaves!
This lion was very interested in us! 
It watched us very carefully.  
Some of us were a little worried it thought we might be a nice lunch!
A huge thank you to all the parents and grandparents who came with us!

Our goals at Discovery Time today were to listen carefully to each other and to help keep our classroom tidy by helping to pack up. 
We were impressed at how hard we tried to do this this week.  
We were also  super impressed with lovely manners that we also heard today!

Thank you Janaya for your fabulous cat idea.  It was very popular.  You were very well organised and patient with our younger children. An excellent role-model for us.
 Thank you Joel and his Mum, Cheryl, for your amazing skeletons today!  They were so cool.  We showed good patience and perseverance to do a quality job!
Thank you Maisie for your well organised bird research idea today that was inspired by your trip to Rainbow Springs.  


Our milk experiment was fun to watch.  We added a few drops of food colouring and a few drops of colouring to the milk.   The colours rolled, swirled, mixed and merged together! Exciting to watch!


 We worked carefully to produce these lovely thank you cards for the Ashley School PTA Boxing Fundraiser.  Just a few final touches and they will be ready!

Another fabulous week of learning in the life of a Bellbird!




Friday, October 23, 2015

Jelly and More!

Friday always brings lots of variety and surprises.  
Today we even had a special possum guest !
Thank you Joe for bringing in your cute, cuddly pet possums for us to see and find out how you take care of them!

 The creativity table was the most popular choice at Discovery today.  
The different materials on the table helped us think of lots of different ideas to create ,from  birds, wizards, fabulous rings, sock puppets to gloves and more!
These girls enjoyed playing card games with each other. They were great at taking turns.
We showed good concentration when making these marvellous monkeys.
We also observed that  our sprouts from last week had sprouted!
After morning tea we followed a recipe to make jelly.   
We dissolved the jelly crystals in  hot water. 
Then we poured it into little cups. 
We had to make sure we had enough cups for everyone!  (Lots of counting!)
We put them in the fridge to cool and set!
Then of course...we tasted it!

We thought it tasted...
... yummy and delicious !
... very nice! It was wiggly and wobbly!
... tasty and scrumptious!







Friday, October 16, 2015

Yes it has been a huge first week for the Bellbirds this week!
We were lucky to have Toni Batey , a golf professional, come and teach us some golf skills for 3 days this week.  We are getting really good at chipping and putting! 

Discovery Time always has lots to offer and it gives our children the chance to choose what they will do. They create, explore and work on problem solving activities that they are personally interested in. 

We are really loving  how the children are coming up with their own ideas and wanting to share them with others.   
 Olivia came organised with her imagination and medical kit today! We had lots of enthusiastic children helping to take care of all her puppets!
Sam H's Minion fortune tellers and  Phoenix's fantastic egg people for  growing sprouts in were also very popular!
 We made predictions and made careful observations about what happens when we mix small amounts of coloured vinegar and baking soda using a pipette.

 Mathew had lots of fun dismantling an old phone and dvd player to see how they are made. 
 We discovered how to make floating boats using corks.  We even tried putting a crew on some of them! We used our problem solving skills when some of our boats capsized!
 Tushil and Fern enjoyed making their sharks and using their  imagination to swim them around the classroom!  Tushil had lots of questions about sharks so he decided to  research some of them on the internet.

Keep up the fantastic work Bellbirds!
 We can't wait to see what ideas you will bring next!



Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Welcome back. It's Term 4!!!


Hi there all! We have had such a great first week back at school.
Monday morning we became interior designers.
We discussed how we would all really like our classrooms to look. 
We drew.....

 We constructed 3d plans....

We measured......

We discussed......

 It takes a lot of careful thinking to plan something this big!!!!


We then took all our ideas, plans and collated them as one big plan out on the deck.


It took a wee while to get everything in its new places.

But once we did...........what a great place it is to learn.

Thank you Reg the Caretaker for lowering two of our tables.

 The couch is nice and makes it feel like a home away from our own homes.


 The junior Choir also started back up this week. We sounded SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!


We have our moves all sorted now!!! Soon we will be walking to the preschool for a sing-along.


What an exciting first week back at school.