Reconnecting with our mountain.

It's been a few weeks since we visited Mount St John, due to poor weather and our visit to Cornwall Park last Wednesday, and so the girls were very eager to go this morning.

The weather was beautiful, and with spring upon us there were so many new discoveries to be made. The flowering Kowhai trees were a favourite, as were many other spring flowers. We took our sketching books and the girls were invited to draw their surroundings. They drew cows, trees, spring flowers and the wider landscape of the mountain.

Here are some pictures from our walk:

Kowhai flower        Artist: Victoria H

Farewell to Natalie

A much loved member of our Foundation Class was farewelled on Friday as she moves to join the girls in Mrs Burson’s class. Natalie is a ‘founding’ member of the Foundation class and we have learnt so much together since the class began in May.

We will also miss you Eliane and Gary, and look forward to catching up on how ‘school days’ are going.

Happy school days Natalie!

"Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are all excellent educators, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books. - John Lubbock

Parents evening: Thursday 1st September

 

Group and Individual Learning

We focussed our discussions at our term 3 parent evening around group and individual learning. Starting with a glass of wine, the parents were invited to move around the classroom taking some time to look at their daughters work on display. As they moved around, they were asked to introduce themselves to people that they did not know.

The next task was to work individually, sketching their thoughts on the provocation; ‘How  does the smell of a rose get to your nose?’. The parents then moved into working with a partner on using the language of clay and wire to develop a three dimensional interpretation of their ideas.

Following on from this we gave the parents a further complication to their thinking and asked them to form a group of four and combine their efforts into one creation. This was accomplished with much fun and hilarity, especially during the time they had to explain their thinking to the rest of the group.
The evening concluded with a powerpoint presentation showing the work their daughters engage in during the week and how their learning is provoked both individually and in the group setting.

The next day, the girls were delighted to find their parents work on display. They kept visiting it and showing the other girls what their mummy or daddy had made. Of particular interest was the powerpoint show we showed the girls of their parents working away. They enjoyed spotting their parents in the Foundation Class busily at work.

What we hadn't realised was how attached the girls were to the parents work. When we tidied up the table and 'deconstructed' some of their work, several girls were quite upset. Sydney couldn't believe that the Mt St John sculpture had been unpacked and it took a lot of talking to explain our way out of that one!

Our trip to Cornwall Park.

Yesterday we had the pleasure of visiting Cornwall Park. Now that spring has arrived the park is bursting with life, from beautiful flowers  to sheep and their lambs grazing in the fields.

The girls had discussed and drawn about what they might see prior to visiting the park, and we took the girls books along, so that they were enabled to sketch the daffodils, bluebells and also the sheep with their lambs while they were at the park too.

The girls seemed to really delight in the experience, sketching their surroundings, climbing trees and having a picnic in amongst the lambs.

A huge thank you to our parents who came along and helped out with transport, you are all wonderful!

Here are some photographs from our trip:

Here are some of the girls reflections from the trip. They are looking forward to writing about some of their ideas and drawing some more pictures about their experience at Cornwall park:

"I liked climbing trees. My favourite was the tree with the big hole in it!" - Harriet

"I liked looking at the daisies." - Priya

"I liked doing the drawing. Drawing flowers." - Mia

"I liked the baby lambs and how they eat the milk from their mummys." - Olivia

Bandana Mufti Day!

Today we helped to raise money for CanTeen by buying beautiful bright bandanas. The money for these goes towards supporting and empowering young New Zealanders living with cancer through a national peer support network and fantastic educational and recreational programmes. The girls were excited to know that their money was going towards helping others.

Don't we all look neat!

Native Birds.

Tui by Priya

Kereru by Priya

Pukeko by Olivia

Kiwi by Olivia

Recently, on a trip to Mt St John, with the help of Mia's lovely Nana we were able to collect and identify different leaves and flowers which belong to the native trees which grow up on the mountain. This week we created a chart which shows which leaf or flower belongs to each tree, and following on from this the girls expressed an interest in drawing some trees of their own. We created a 'native forest' mural, and it was then decided that we needed to fill the forest with native birds too.We sourced some lovely images of different native birds from the internet and used these as a provocation for the girls drawings.

Character day.

Here are some photographs from our book character day which was held on Friday:

   

   

   

   

   

   

'Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.'

- Dr Seuss

Smoothie fun!

We had a wonderful time last Friday making our very own fruit smoothies! We couldn't believe the wonderful response we got when we invited our families to bring along some fruit to contribute. We called it our 'rainbow of fruit' and prior to making the smoothies we even got to have a fruit tasting session. We recorded each of the girls favourites and after lots of counting we established that strawberries were the overall favourite. Thanks for you help once again Robin!

Our 'rainbow of fruit'

Eagerly awaiting the blending process!

Can we try some now?!

'Check out my smoothie mustache!'