Our wagon always provides a rich opportunity for the girls to exercise their negotiating and problem solving skills. The girls work to determine what order they will take turns in and have to work with all of their might to navigate the wagon around the garden. It is always a pleasure to observe them at play.
"Coming together is a beginning. keeping together is progress. Working together is success."
- Henry Ford
As we have been listening and observing the girls over the past two weeks, we have noticed that they have been paying particular attention to the shadows which they have encountered. We have heard and been a part of many fascinating conversations about shadows as the girls have worked with our projector or played in the sun. Shadows produced with both natural and man-made light have captured the minds of the girls, and we have caught hold of this interest, as a possible focus of inquiry for the term.
We will work to provide the girls with provocations and questions to ponder, relating to shadows in order to take their thinking deeper. We look forward to where this interest may lead.
"A shadow is like a mirror, but much more grey."
- Emma
We have just enjoyed our first week back at school after close to seven weeks of summer holidays!
We would like to say a huge welcome back to everyone and a special welcome to our newest additions to the Foundation Class, Paige, Alice, Kaitlyn, Sophie, Chloe, Emily and of course their families too. With fascinating areas of interest, and potential inquiries already beginning to surface, we are looking forward to another term filled with loads of opportunities for wondering and making discoveries.
Make sure that you check back regularly for updates about the learning that is taking place in our classroom and the adventures that we are having.
With the recent introduction of an overhead projector to our classroom, many of the girls have been exploring concepts such as light and shadow. The girls have really enjoyed creating intricate patterns with tiny beads and buttons and seeing these projected onto the wall has really added to the experience. Here are some images of the girls at work:
A few days ago as Chris was beginning to prepare the washing liquid ingredients with the girls, she posed a question:
“Why do you think we are making Rainbow washing liquid?”
The girls responses were as follows:
“So we can make lots of money for ice blocks."
“Cause we have the recipe.”
“Our mums want to buy it."
A little taken aback, she then asked “But do you remember what we discussed when we were talking about what the world would be like without Buttercups?”
“I know” responded Ishani, “cause it’s got chemicals in it that are good chemicals”.
“No that’s not right, some chemicals are good and some are bad,
but some are bad if they go into the sea." - Siena
“It’s about the environment... what’s good for the environment, isn’t it Mrs Bayes?” - Chicky
Since this discussion, the girls have busily worked to make washing liquid, design packaging and market their product to their parents. We sold heaps! Which meant, to the girls absolute delight, that we were able to purchase ice blocks with the profit. This went down a treat!
Here are some images of the girls busily producing the washing liquid.
It is definitely made with love.
Mrs Brewin often pops in to visit us. On Friday she was lucky enough to catch our music group. The girls showed their musical skills off beautifully. Waiting for their turn, resting their instruments at the end of the song and stopping and starting right on cue!
The girls are particularly proud of their ability to time joining in with 'Aie Chipanekas, aie, aie!' (sp). Ask your daughter if she can show you how it's done.
Watch this space.
The girls are busy designing, marketing and creating a washing liquid product which is good for us and good for our environment. We will be selling this to our families at $2 for two litres (an absolute bargain). The cost of the ingredients was $20 and so the girls are aware that if they make a profit they will be able to spend their hard earned money on ice blocks!
“There are apple trees and pear trees, mandarin trees and rose trees.”
- Chicky
“And...honey trees!” - Sydney
“Yeah, they have hives all around.” - Chicky
“Camellia trees.” - Victoria
“Bottle brush trees and peanut trees, even moving trees.” - Ishani
“There are mango trees. Mmmmm my dad loves mangos.” - Olivia
“There are banana trees, grapefruit trees...Christmas trees!” - Siena
“Oh, and FANCY TREES! I’ve seen a fancy tree before with a fancy ribbon around it.”
- Siena
“A fancy tree would have a bow tie don’t you think? - Ishani
“Did you know there are girl trees and boy trees!” - Ishani
“Do you girls agree with Ishani that there are girl trees and boy trees?” - Mrs Smith
“Yes, yes...yes!” - All of the girls agree
“Girl trees have long hair and boy trees have short hair.” - Siena
“The leaves are their hair. The boy trees are the biggest trees and the girl trees are the smaller ones.” - Ishani
“Annnnnd, have you ever heard of a ‘lovely’ tree?” - Olivia
On Friday we celebrated Katie's fifth birthday. Here's a great action shot of Katie blowing out her candles. We would like to say a huge thank you to Katie's lovely family for the delicious cake which we all enjoyed!
“Eyes are shaped like lemons.” - Emma
“Eyes help us to see!” - Mila
“How do you think they help us to see?” - Mrs Smith
“They work...by opening and by closing. If you open them up then you see all of the things, but if you close them then you must be going to sleep. Then you can’t see.” - Katie
“If I close them, I can see darkness.” - Zara
“Sometimes, when I wake up in the morning I have sleep in my eyes. It’s yellow and crunchy stuff.”
- Emma
A conversation about eyes:
"Eyes are shaped like lemons." - Emma
"Eyes help us to see!" - Mila
"How do you think they help us to see?" - Mrs Smith
"They work...by opening and closing. If you open them up then you see all of the things, but if you close them then you must be going to sleep. Then you can't see." - Katie
"If I close them, I can see darkness." - Zara
"Sometimes, when I wake up in the morning I have sleep in my eyes. It's yellow and crunchy stuff." - Emma
We've recently begun a project around portraiture with our newest girls, who have been busy exploring their facial features with mirrors, engaging in dialogue about the purpose of the different features, and beginning to draw their eyes etc.
Here are some
During the last week of term we were so captivated by the sunshine that rather than baking something as we would usually do on a Friday, we decided to make our very own ice cream instead. The girls worked busily alongside our lovely Robin to make two batches, one of which was chocolate and one which was strawberry. We had the pleasure of eating the ice cream on Friday afternoon as part of our farewell ceremony for the girls who are moving up to year 0 and it was really delicious!
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!
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!
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!
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!'
Recently on a visit to Mt St John, as we sat on a beautiful log in the shade of the trees, a fascinating conversation was had about fairies. The dialogue encompassed ideas such as size and scale, and the possibility of working to create not only houses for fairies, but also furniture and clothing. The girls began to theorize about the difference in size between people and fairies, and considered the natural materials which they could utilize to create fairy sized items.
“We could make the fairies some furniture...using all of the things of nature”
Priya explained.
Intrigued by the possibility of taking the girls interest in fairies in the direction of design, architecture and construction, utilizing natural resources, we caught hold of this idea. We came up with some questions to provoke the girls thinking and shared these during one of our morning meetings.
We asked the girls to share with us just how big they perceived fairies to be and there was a general consensus that they were indeed very small.
We recently said goodbye to four of our very special friends; Elena, Charlotte, Demira and Alison as they moved on to their year 0 classroom with Mrs Burson. We shared in a beautiful ceremony where we sang together, shared stories and presented each of the girls with a red rose to symbolize love. When the girls first began in the Foundation Class they were presented with a yellow rose, symbolic of friendship.
It has been a pleasure to work and learn alongside these four girls and their families and we wish them all the very best for their future.
"Life is partly what we make it and partly what is made by the friends we embrace."
- Tennessee Williams
When the idea to visit a cafe for lunch on our last day first arose we carefully considered the location of the lunch as we wanted it to be close enough that the girls could hold a sense of ownership over planning to get there and also far enough away that it would be an exciting journey.
We also wanted to provoke a sense of occasion within the girls, as well as responsibility and fun, and so we separated the girls into two teams.
One team was responsible for researching what food was available, developing a menu and tallying up what each child wanted to eat on the day. The girls also worked out the cost of the food and were each responsible for earning the money they needed to buy the food by doing chores at home. We heard many stories about the wonderful things the girls were coming up with to help out around the house.
The second team was responsible for determining how we would get to the cafe. This involved locating the cafe through use of the internet, reading maps, establishing the fastest route to get to the cafe and which means of transport we would use. In addition the girls also researched bus timetables, bus stop locations and the costs involved when using public transport. The girls also worked busily to design and create individual bus tickets for everyone in the class, teachers included.
The journey of planning the cafe trip seemed to really foster the notion of team work and collaboration, and also provoked rich engagement in literacy and mathematical experiences.
The girls seemed to really value the level of responsibility that they were given in planning for this trip, and the work that they put into the different elements of the planning process is evidence of this. There was a real sense of anticipation present in the classroom the week leading up to the trip to the cafe and the girls seemed to really delight in the experience on the day, which saw many of our families come together to enjoy a lovely meal and celebrate what we have done this term.
