MTG - Museum Theatre Gallery, Napier

Thursday of EOTC week saw lots of fantastic learning that took us back 100 years or more.  The children LOVED dressing up in 'olden day' clothes, investigating small household appliances, dabbling in the cursive script, playing olden day games and making butter!  It was a real eye opener for them.  What is an iron for?  REALLY?!!!

Haumoana Farmyard Zoo

Our class were split in two groups and went on different days.  We loved feeding, patting and handling some of the animals.  We learned how many of the animals can help us by giving us milk, eggs, wool and meat.  They can also help us carry heavy loads.  Which animals can help us?  Are any of these animals the ones which helped people in the war?

Check out the zoo website for more information.

Arataki Honey

By Tuesday we were buzzing about heading off to view the bees.  It was too wet to visit the Redwoods but we were happy to learn about how bees help us.

We learned about the 6 parts of the bee and how the bees work in their hives to make honey for us.  Each type of bee has a different job to do.  Check out the Arataki Honey website to learn more!

Arataki Honey

We then learned how to make a candle from bees wax.  Persistence was the key.

EOTC Week

What a great week of learning outside the classroom we had last week!  It was exciting and exhausting exploring a variety of venues and new experiences.  Cyclone Pam wasn't too mean and we were able to continue with most planned activities.

Monday did force us inside, and we postponed our orienteering exercise until Friday.  We wrote some interesting haiku poems about the storm instead.  These are really tricky to write as we had to count the syllables in each line.  The first line has 5 syllables, Second line - 7 syllables and Third line - 5 syllables.
 Here are a few of our creations:

Kingtides - by Josh L

Cyclone, thunder storm

King tides damaging houses

I hate thunder storms.

Thunder Storm - by Brad

Raining very hard

Waves get bigger over night

The storm kills people.

Storm - by Neve

Lightning hitting down

Thunder bouncing from heaven

King tides crashing trees

Cyclone Pam - By Elise

There could be a flood

Pouring rain, thunder, lightning

There are big puddles

Cyclone Pam - By Liam

The storm gets bigger

Waves get bigger over night

King tide, dangerous

Cyclone Pam - By Hagen

Dangerous King tide

Cyclone Pam can break houses

Hail hitting the ground

Excellent work everyone!  Impressive syllable counting.

EOTC Week

Hopefully Pam will be gentle on us and we will be able to go ahead with our planned activities throughout next week.  We are still looking for some transport - especially for the trip to Napier's MTG on Thursday.  At this stage it is looking as though we will need to cancel this one.  If you have a Grandparent, aunty, uncle or neighbour that may be able to help please let me know.  Thanks.



It will be great fun learning about how life was 100 years ago.

ANZAC

Let's Activate our Prior Knowledge

This week we will begin looking at ANZAC and the animal heroes of war.

What do we already know about this topic?

Reading

We are learning to:   Activate Prior Knowledge.

Activating prior knowledge is when you think about all the things you already know about a topic. This can include what you have experienced personally and what you have read about, seen on TV or at the movies, etc.

Thinking about what you already know is useful because it gives you a base to build new knowledge and helps you to make connections with the text.

e.g. "I know you can find little fish in the rock pools sometimes because I have seen them."

© Sheena Cameron 2009. 

Before you read a new book have a discussion about the topic.  What experiences or knowledge do you have?  What does it remind you of?

These discussions are very important to help your child understand what is being read.  

Maths Learning this week

Geometry - We have been learning to identify plane shapes found in objects.

We experimented with string and worked interdependently to create shapes such as square, rectangle, triangle, hexagon and octagon. Photos below.

Then, based on the Sea Week theme, we created sea creatures using these shapes.  Photos to come!