A tea party in the garden.

The introduction of our new wooden tea set has provoked some lovely imaginative play amongst the girls. The girls have been taking on different roles and creating different scenarios and stories within their play. 

Today the girls enjoyed a tea party together in the garden. You had to dress up in 'fancy clothes and jewellery' to attend the party. It was such a delight to listen to the girls chatting away and pouring each other tea. 

Here are some photos:

Food for the mind, body and soul.

Our morning walk to Mt St John was so good this morning. We managed to stay out of the cold wind by spending our time in the crater by the pond that has formed at the base. There was not a cloud in the sky and it was so sunny and warm.

The delight the girls had from finding rocks and stones to throw into the pond was very heart warming. Such a simple thing that offered so much pleasure. Of course we were able to take advantage of the opportunity for maths conversations. Finding the heaviest rocks and longest sticks provided a challenge and then thinking about why they didn't go as far into the water as 

the lighter rocks and shorter sticks did, provided us with great problem solving. 

 Sophia must have thrown at least 20 sticks and rocks into the pond 

and had a smile from one side of her face to the other!

Isobella having a go throwing sticks into the pond. 

 You can see her stick flying through the air if you look carefully.

Tahi is always a highlight on our walks. 

The girls collected sticks and enjoyed walking with them.

There were a lot of keen girls that wanted to pat the cows (not Mrs Bayes though), 

but this cow had other ideas today!

Mrs Smith thought she was the best stick thrower!

 The girls noticed the reflection of the cow in the pond and wanted to capture the moment.

We work on offering the girls opportunities to explore the world 

and take risks, challenging them physically and ensuring that they are kept safe from harm.

Painting Monarch Butterflies.

Take a look at the beautiful paintings that some of the girls have been doing of butterflies. Butterflies have been very popular in our classroom lately.

Artist: Sophia

Artist: Emma

McKenna's tower!

I built a big tower. It is long and skinny. It didn't take too long to build. It was hard work but I had fun. I used orange, blue, brown, black, green and yellow rods. 

By McKenna

A warm welcome to the boys from Kings.

Today we enjoyed the company of twelve boys from Kings with four of their teachers. We began the visit by the children introducing themselves to each other. At first the girls were a little shy, but they managed to say their names and we were relieved. The girls then showed the boys around before we had morning tea. We enjoyed Stephanie's (McKenna's mum) lovely iced cupcakes (thank you Stephanie), a chocolate chippy and a glass of fruit juice, before going off to play together. 

Unfortunately we found it difficult to get many photos of them playing together! 

Boys are certainly different than girls and we enjoyed seeing what they enjoyed doing.

After the boys had left and the girls were having their lunch, Anika said, 'next time the boys come can just the big boys come?'I wasn't sure what she meant so asked her to explain 'you know, those big boys who read us stories when we went to the concert, the one that I liked (we had named him Henry), I want him to come next time!'

Sophia's old friend is well looked after!

Jenesis and Zoe spent a longtime in the sandpit with their friend.

As we said goodbye, the boys shared what they had enjoyed doing; playing with the shadows and making up stories (the overhead projector), the computer, drawing, using the spray bottles, digging holes in the sandpit.

We plan to continue this exchange and think it will make a wonderful new tradition for the Foundation Class.

Colourful maths!

This morning Ria, Emma, Sophia, Jenesis and Zoe worked busily to collect and organize some of the different materials which make up our treasure box. We discussed similarities and differences between the items and then worked to categorize the materials by colour. Following on from this we made estimations about which group we thought had the most and which had the least. We then counted and recorded how many items represented each colour and explored concepts such as ‘more’ and ‘less’.

We had a wonderful morning exploring different mathematical concepts in such a fun and hands-on way!

“Children develop and use mathematical concepts when they collect, organize and compare different objects and materials.”

(Te Whariki p.98)

Daffodil Day.

Here we all are pictured with our Daffodils. We purchased these in support of the Cancer Society. It has been such a beautiful day and we have been making the most of the sunshine by spending lots of time outside. 

Bring on Spring!