Painting our stones.

Last Tuesday it was time to paint our stones as a gift for the tree. The girls had spent a lot of time the previous morning designing what they wanted these to look like and were so excited to transfer their ideas onto the stones.

Painting the stones required lots of patience, as well as concentration. It was a joyful experience, and the girls spoke about how they thought their gift would "make the tree so, so happy!" - Isobella

When the girls had finished painting their stones, they celebrated how beautiful they all looked with one another. They complimented each others work and spoke excitedly about being able to give their gifts to the tree.

Using our imagination.

Today Melissa (Anika's mum) came to the classroom and spent some time with the girls. First she took the girls for a 'bee' hunt in the garden, before telling them an imagination story.

To get the story started she asked each girl to think of one character

they would like to have in the story.

This is a list of their ideas:

Witch - Sophia

Bee - Daisy

Unicorn - Anika

Prince - Sophie

Princess - Jenesis

Barbie - Zoe

King - Ria

Pony - Emma

Man - Lutie

Queen - Isobella.

It was a wonderful story and I'm sure your daughter will enjoy telling it to you!

Thanks Melissa

Mrs Brewin on Mt St John.

When the girls heard that Mrs Brewin was coming up to Mt St John with us they wanted to tell her all about our walk. This is the conversation that we had. We sent it to Mrs Brewin by email.

"She needs to bring her gumboots" Isobella said. "Please wear shoes that you don't like so if you get them dirty you won't mind."

Jenesis said "don't wear your black high heels cause you might step in the mud and get cow poo all over them."

Sophia said "I think you should bring a jumper as it might be a bit cold."

"Be careful of the cows and don't go behind them cause they might kick you with their back feet."

"Mrs Brewin we don't know if Tahi will be up there but we think that he might go early and we won't see him. We want you to meet Tahi 'cause he is our favorite dog and we love him. Don is Tahi's owner. Sometimes Tahi jumps into the trough and stands in the water. When he gets out he shakes his body and we don't stand too close cause we don't want to get wet."

Anika said, "Don't step in the water mud 'cause you will get dirty. You might fall down and get mud in your eyes."

"I have something to say about Ti tiko puke – that's Mt St John – Mrs Brewin, be careful you might sink in the mud."

"There is a sign and it tells you that you are allowed to look at the birds, you can walk your dog but you can't have your dog on a lead, you can't bike up there."

"You can also look at the view. You can have one or two biscuits but you have to wipe your hands first and drink your water."

"You can climb trees!"

We leave at 9.00am!

Mrs Brewin on Mt St John with us.

Estimation.

Needing a giant for our ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ story gave us an opportunity to introduce estimation. I asked the girls ‘can you estimate how tall the giant needs to be to fit in the castle?’

Their replies centred around how ‘huge’ and ‘enormous’ giants were. ‘Bigger than a house’, ‘as tall as the clouds’ and ‘much bigger than you Mrs Bayes’.

I showed them a picture of a giant and Jack and we talked about proportion and estimation (explaining that it’s a guess). I asked them ‘If Jack is this big, how big would you estimate the giant needs to be?’

I introduced the measuring tape and asked how many centimetres the giant would need to be to fit in the castle on the wall. Using their hands they showed how tall he would be. We then measured 

their estimations;

Emma     20 centimetres            Daisy        34 centimetres
Lutia        30 centimetres             Jenesis    62 centimetres
Sophie    42 centimetres

I then climbed up with the measuring tape to measure the castle and the girls were asked to collectively agree on what height the giant should be. The consensus was 20 centimetres!

These are the giants that Lutie, Sophie, Jenesis and Daisy drew exactly 20 centimetres tall. They had to think about the proportion of body parts to make the giant look ‘just right’. Emma drew the giant for our story and it is on the wall.

Sophie

Lutie

Jenesis

Daisy

Tree paintings.

Anika, Ria, Zoe, Sophia and Isobella all worked very hard on these paintings of our tree with the missing branch. They are really proud of their pictures. Can you spot the branches that have been cut away in their paintings? 

Artist: Anika

Artist: Isobella

Artist: Ria

Artist: Sophia

Artist: Zoe

A gift for the tree.

When we returned to school this term, we were all very devastated to find that the trees in our garden had been pruned over the holidays, and that during this process our favourite branch and hand made swing had been removed.

We decided that rather than telling the girls about what had happened, we would wait for them to discover the branch was missing for themselves. Sure enough, the first thing that several of the girls noticed when we opened the door to our garden, was the missing swing and branches.

Zoe, Isobella and Sophia were the first to discover the missing swing and seemed to be deeply effected by what they saw. Zoe took on the role of bringing the information to the girls who were still inside the classroom.

The word quickly spread to all of the girls and it became very evident from listening to their conversations, that they were carrying a real sense of loss. What was also very prevalent was the sense of empathy the girls seemed to feel for the tree.

A few days after the girls discovery of the missing swing, a small group of children entered into a very special conversation:

“You know it made me so sad about the branch being cut off.” - Isobella
“I couldn’t believe it!” - Sophia

“What did you like so much about the tree/swing?” - Mrs Smith
“It gave us lots of fun.” - Sophia
“It was SO special.” - Isobella

“I know...we will make a gift for the tree.” - Isobella

“I think maybe we could make painted stones. I saw those in Rarotonga once. We can put them all around the bottom of the tree. Just here.” (pointing to the base of the tree) - Isobella

“...and the tree will be beautiful again.” - Isobella

“Do you not think the tree is beautiful anymore, now that the branch has been cut Isobella?”
- Mrs Smith

“It’s a little ugly now. You know, if you cut all of a trees branches off then its not even a tree anymore.” (Looks sad) - Isobella

“Well what does it become?” - Mrs Smith

“...it’s just a stump.” - Isobella

And so, Isobella, Sophia, Anika, Ria and Zoe have begun the very special journey of creating a gift for our tree.

From Garden to Table.

Lately, during our baking experiences the girls have been invited to pick and taste some of the produce from our garden. The girls decided that it would be a good idea to put some chives, spring onions and silver beet on top of our pizzas, and to pick some fresh lettuce for our buns. The girls have been enjoying exploring the herbs and vegetables with their different senses. Smelling and tasting the herbs, and feeling the different textures as they pick them and hold them in their hands. When it comes time to prepare the pizzas, the girls work very carefully to evenly disperse the chives, spinach and onions and to make sure they look “lovely and delicious!”

Each week the pizza’s have ended up tasting very delicious, and utilizing some of our very own produce to enhance our weekly baking experience has been very exciting for the girls. It is a wonderful way to reinforce the idea that we can put effort into caring for and nurturing plants, and in turn we can enjoy the results of this.

Fresh herbs to taste.

Preparing the 'love heart' shaped pizza's.

Isobella and Ria explore the different scents of the herbs.

Ria carefully breaking the silver beet into little pieces.