An Interest in Bees Grows

We presented the girls with several pictures of bees and encouraged them to take a
closer look with the magnifying glasses.

Their first attempts at drawing the bees was quite different from their later drawings. Many girls began by saying “I can’t draw a bee”. We noticed that they were drawing faces on the bees; eyes, a nose and a mouth. The bees legs were straight lines. We asked them to take a closer look at the bees in the photos and we talked about the ways that the bees face differed from their faces.
This led to quite a change in their drawings.

After the first drawing, we took time to look at different parts of the bees, separately. We invited the girls to look at their own legs and to take a close look at how their knees and ankles
allowed their legs to bend.

When we looked through the magnifying glass at the bees legs, we pointed out that bees legs have different parts like their legs, and each part is shaped quite differently.

 

The girls then drew the legs of the bees several times to get a better idea of their shape. We noticed that the legs of the next bees they drew, were a lot more detailed.  

Once we had taken the time to look at all the body parts of the bee,

it was time to start drawing.

Here are the girls deep in concentration. 

Drawing bees isn't easy!

 

Introducing French

The girls have been enjoying their time with Mrs Alpe, the French teacher. 

On Tuesday the girls were introducing themselves;

'Comment t'appelles tu?'

'Je m'appelle ..........'

I have a feeling that the girls are going to catch on a lot faster than I am!!!

Constable Gordon Returns!

The girls achieved a perfect score in answering all Constable Gordon's questions this morning.

They really enjoyed it when Téa pretended to be in the back seat of the car with her brother (Constable Gordon played an excellent 'brother'). He began teasing and pushing her and she played along by pushing back (a bit of experience there perhaps?). 

When Constable Gordon asked why children shouldn't fight in the car, Kate surprised Constable Gordon by replying "because it will distract the driver". That was very impressive Scott and Kathryn!

The highlight was taking a drive in his car.

First they dressed up as police officers, which they loved, then walked up to the driveway.

They buckled themselves in and off they went with lights blazing. The girls didn't even get phased when he put the siren on!

A Glorious Day on Mt St John

On our walk up to the mountain, the girls noticed that one of the trees that just had a few buds on it last week, was covered in flowers. They were also delighted to spot a bee collecting pollen from one of the buds. Then they spotted another one, and another, until they realised that the tree was covered with bees. When they listened very carefully they called hear the buzzing of the bees too!

There was also a lot of discussion about the Lichen the girls spotted on the 

trunk and branches of the tree.

But the highlight of the walk was the cat that accompanied us from his home, up the steps, down the hill and came paddling in the pond!!!

Can you spot the cat?

And home again...

One of the girls asked me whether his mother knows that he goes up to Mt St John without her.

I seriously doubt it!!!

An encounter with a friendly cat on our lovely mountain really was just fabulous.

Constable Gordon Visits

We welcomed Constable Gordon to the Foundation Class today. 

Our wonderful girls answered his first question quickly and accurately...

What do you have to do when you cross the road?

STOP

LOOK

and LISTEN

Zoe added;

Then Mrs Bayes says 'Walk quickly but DO NOT RUN!!!'

Crossing the road to get to Mt St John, certainly paid off today.

No Photos but Wonderful Memories.

When we got up Mt St John, we discovered that the battery in the camera was flat.

We were very disappointed as the girls were having some very interesting experiences.

When we got back to the classroom and the girls were sharing fruit together, they talked about their time on our walk.

 

They talked about the very, very steep slope they walked down, that challenged us all...

Zoe said it took a long time.

Kate said it was scary. 

Inés said she was dizzy going down the mountain. 

Keira felt safe when she got to the bottom.

On the way down the steep bank, Inés told Mrs Bayes to hold her arms out to help her balance.

On the way to the pond Téa asked if ducks would be there, I said I didn't think so.

As we were standing next to the shallow water, a duck flew down and landed 

a few metres away from us on. We stood very, very still and it swam around, 

dipping it's head in the water finding food.

Téa noticed that the duck had the prettiest blue colour on it. 

What a wonderful encounter!

Luca remembered the cows drinking out of the water trough.

 

We flew plastic bag kites and Ines noticed that in some places the kites 

wouldn’t fly because there was no wind.

Ines did her exercises up on the mountain and she had to run fast.

Lily asked me to read a sign and it said “private property’.

Zoe said that means  that it’s a private area and we can’t go up and see it and she remembered that we also saw another sign that said private property in French. She thought that it shouldn't be there because this wasn't 'that country'.

Téa remembered that a nice lady invited us to visit her chickens. 

"They were two girl chickens and their names were Bock, Bock and Chock Chock".

 There was a cat there and it was black and white. Some girls patted the cat.

The lady gave us two eggs so we could do some baking!

So as you can see, not having a camera and relying on the girls memories to capture our adventures on the mountain was a very positive thing!

Noticing the Signs of Spring

The girls showed a great deal of interest in the flowers on our walk up to Mt St John last week. We brought some back to the classroom and I added some Daffodils the next day. 

You can see from the girls drawings that they took a lot of care with their work, noticing that there

was a 'frilly bit in the middle. We talked about the stamens and how bees collected nectar and pollen from flowers so they can make honey for us.
This work took a lot of concentration and I was interested in how difficult the girls found when it came to drawing the leaves. I underestimated how challenging that was going to be. They were determined to get the leaves to the right width and length and for some it took a lot of trial and error.

Great persistence was shown until complete satisfaction was achieved.