A is for Anzac

With Anzac Day tomorrow, I hope you all have a lovely three day weekend.  It's been a great start to Term 2 in Room 6, I was so impressed by all the children this week.  The behaviour has been fantastic and it has been a pleasure working with the children.

Our Big Idea is Past, Present and Future this term.  We will be focusing on Their Stories, Our Stories with WW1 and what life was like 100 years ago as the focus.  We spent time this week looking at the meaning behind why we celebrate Anzac Day.  We made a poppy wreath for the Fields of Remembrance Service.  The children all showed respectful behaviour at the service, and it was a opportunity for them to be a part of this nationwide commemoration.

Will and Mackenzie presenting our wreath

F is for Fire Truck

Did you hear we had a fire truck come to school today?  It was very exciting.  Thanks to the Tawa Volunteer Firefighters who took time out to bring the truck up to school today.  We loved counting the hoses....there were 27 hoses....wow!!

We learnt about all the different things the firefighters do, and got to have a really good look at the truck.

It was very cool and we are looking forward to starting our Fire Wise learning next week.

C is for competition

We have been having a competition in Room 6....it is a Teacher v. Children competition!

When the children in Room 6 are making good choices and following our class rules they get a point.  They know all the right things to do, sitting nicely on the mat, putting their hands up to talk, showing our RED values, being engaged in their learning, working quietly and trying their best.  If they are not doing these things the teacher gets a point!

You will see that the children have been doing a good job of winning the competition.  Each day the winner gets to decide what we do for the last 10 minutes of the day.  The children enjoyed a play in the sunshine yesterday.

E is for Elephant

We had a great poem this week - it was about the elephants trunk.  It inspired some cute art, which the children in Room 6 proudly showed at the Kiwi/Tui Assembly this week.  It looks super cute on our classroom walls now, come check it out!

They did a great job of reading the poem with interesting voices....it is in their poem books, so make sure they read them to you over the weekend.

P is for portrait

Well portraits of a sort!!  We had a bit of fun last Friday with this Andy Warhol style of portrait.

The children were asked to use only 4 different colours on each photo.  They could colour any part of themselves they choose.

C is for counting!

Wow the first 3 weeks are already done!  We have been busy in Room 6 getting to know each other, setting up our class routines as well as establishing our learning programmes.

We have started counting the days we have been coming to school and are looking forward to the 100th day.  Today was our 14th day at school.  We talked about all the things we could do to celebrate when we get to 100 days.  One suggestion was a pizza party with 100 pieces of pizza!!

I asked the children how many pizza we would need to get 100 pieces - and how many people we might need to eat them!!!  What do you think?

W is for Welcome!

Welcome to 2015

I hope you have all had wonderful summer break.  I have enjoyed the time off, catching up on chores and gardening, enjoying the sun with family and friends and I also managed a get away with my husband.  As a result I feel well rested and relaxed and am rearing to go with the new school year!

I look forward to meeting you all over the first week of school, getting to know your children and starting our year together.

With my children on the Devonport Ferry in Auckland.

G is for goodbye!

So this will be my last post for 2014 and G is for Goodbye to the wonderful children and their families I have worked with this year.  It has been a lot of fun, and very rewarding for me to see that amazing progress these children have made over the year.  I will enjoy watching them as they grow through their years at Redwood School.

Today we made kites and enjoyed the parachute with Room 5 - activities we had hoped to do as part of our Education Outside the Classroom last week.  We never got to them with the bad weather.

I hope to see lots of families at the school picnic tomorrow, and the final assembly on Wednesday.

Merry Christmas, have a wonderful break and do stop by and say Hi in the New Year.

B is for bush walk

Thankfully the rain held off today for our bush walk.  We left school soon after 9 am and walked to the Brasnose Place entrance of the Redwood Bush walk.  It was about the perfect distance for us, and we arrived back at school close to 11am ready for our ice block treat.

Thanks to all the grandparent helpers, we appreciate your support!

T is for Teddy Bears Picnic

What a fun day our Teddy Bears Picnic was.  It has been a tradition in the junior school for a number of years now and seeing the fun and enjoyment the children had I think we better keep it going! The children were mixed up into teams and rotated around 3 different activities.  The teachers all had really creative idea's and there were lots of fun activities.

In Room 3 the children enjoyed the popular book Corduroy bear book, then they made their own Corduroys.

Look at these cute bear activities!  One is made with puff paint and was cooked in the microwave!  The other is a shaker.  Too cute.

In Room 9 the children made these awesome little bear garlands.  Sweet!

Panda Bears and Origami Bears - more fun!

Teddy Cards!

In Room 5 the children went on a Bear Hunt and in Room 4 there used all sorts of building things to create safe houses for their bears!

It was lovely to meet all the special bear friends the children brought to school today.

We finished the day with a Teddy Bear treat!