Tag: Inquiry

Wonderful Week Two

Last week Ruma Wha was working on the Letter Aa for different body parts such as your arm and ankle.  We incorporated numeracy into our Inquiry/Alphabet craft work as well as practicing writing their own name.

We look forward to responding to your comments left on our blog.

Enjoy the montage of photos of your tamariki, as well as our Google Slides.

 

                                             

D is for Dad

This term for our Inquiry we are looking at who we are, our whanau, and our wider community.

Our reader this week called ‘Dad’ ties in beautifully with our Inquiry as well as our letter of the week which is the Letter Dd.

We all had fun painting over the letters ‘d-a-d’ with our hands.  What great artists Ruma Wha are!

We hope you enjoy our masterpieces.

       

 

 

Keeping Ourselves Safe

Over the last few weeks, we have been looking at how we Keep Ourselves Safe.

We have been working on recognising and writing our full name as well as where we live.  All the tamariki enjoyed seeing their house on Google Maps and the majority of the class could point to which house was theirs.  Ka pai Ruma Wha!

Naming the different parts of the body was also an area we worked on.  This was consolidated with body part songs.

We had a visit from our Community Police Officers Brent and Gary.  They brought in hats and vests for the children to put on.  They all enjoyed this experience.

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Ch, Ch, Cheese!

In Week 1 and 2 this term we have been looking at how cheese is made and we all took part in practising to make cheese sandwiches and cheese on toast.  We followed a visual schedule and created our own visual schedule.  Helen, our wonderful Speech Language therapist reinforced the learning through her speech session as well this week.

Enjoy the delightful pictures of your tamariki!

                                                                 

Super Supermarkets

Last week we were focusing on different supermarket logo’s and what healthy food can be bought at the supermarket.

We had a lot of fun matching the logo’s to the shopping bag and placing the food in the corresponding bag.

We also made a fruit kebab each with healthy fruit which the children enjoyed devouring after they had constructed it.  The children utilised the voice activated button to say which piece of fruit they would like to cut and place onto their kebab.  This was great communication by all of Ruma Wha!

Cool Car Logos

This week we have been reading different car logos for our Inquiry.

We took 3 different logos and went on a logo hunt in the school car park.  We had lots of discussion about whether the logos were the same or different and took some photos of our tamariki matching the logos to the car.

I wonder what type of car logo you have on your family car?

                                            

 

Fast Food Logo’s

Our Inquiry for Week 3 and 4 was  about different Fast Food Logo’s our tamariki knew.

We balanced out our discussion of Fast Food with foods that are healthy/everyday foods compared to the treat/sometimes foods of Fast Food Restaurants.  The children were looking at their own lunch boxes and we were discussing everyday and sometime foods with them.

                                                                 

The children have been engaging in creating pizza patterns which links directly to our maths unit this term.  We also made a delicious pizza and shared it with our friends in the class.  All the children took part in adding different ingredients to the pizza.

As part of our learning we also practiced lots of different songs.  One song in particular definitely caught everyone’s attention.  It has been such a hit in Room 4 that we got Room 3 to come and join in the actions with us so that together R3 and 4 could perform it at assembly on Monday.

Click here for a link to this song.

 

Yy is for Yellowfin Tuna

Our letter of the week for Week 9 was Yy.  We linked this to our Inquiry Unit of animal classification and specifically to fish.We created some fish with the use of bottle tops as scales.

 

We also created some paper fish earlier in the week where the children followed step by step instructions.  The children were all engaged and extremely gentle with their creations.  We displayed the cool fish on top of the tote trays for the rest of the week and the children would often pick them up and investigate their work which was lovely to see.  Some even tried to see if their fish would fly. Great mahi Ruma Wha!

Feel free to link onto the Class site to revisit our learning for the week with your tamariki.

 

Awesome Amphibians

Our Inquiry focus for Week 5 and 6 was Amphibians.  We were looking at the characteristics which make amphibians special such as them being cold blooded and laying soft shelled eggs.

We enjoyed singing the song ‘5 Little Speckled Frogs’ with the green frogs we created to go with the tune.

 

We also loved the song ‘Over in the Meadow.’  This was a great song to reinforce one to one counting of different animals.  Click on the link above to revisit this catchy tune.

In Week 6 we focused more on the life cycle of a frog.  All the tamariki created a headband and a booklet showing the life cycle.  They all looked very proud of their creation while wearing their individual headbands.

                                                                              

 

Reptiles

Our Inquiry for Week 3 and 4 was Reptiles.  We learned about what characteristics are unique to reptiles and classified them into their correct grouping.

We created some beautiful tuatara’s and stuffed them with shredded paper then hung them in Room 4.  Crimson also showed his creative skills by drawing a tuatara on the whiteboard once he had completed his own stuffed tuatara.  He then continued to draw other reptiles he had learned about through our Inquiry Google Slide.  Love your initiative Crimson.

We also created some free standing tuatara’s which are positioned within the classroom.  I wonder if you can see where they are hiding the next time you come into Room 4?

            

 

In Week 4 we focused more closely on crocodiles and sung some fun songs about 5 Little Monkeys teasing Mr Crocodile.  We enjoyed using props to demonstrate this song and after we had created a snapping paper crocodile by following a set of directions some of the children used their own crocodiles to catch the cheeky monkeys.

Another favourite song was this action song in our Google Slide on Reptiles.  You may like to join in with singing the song and performing the actions with your tamariki.  Enjoy!

 

We were extremely grateful to Amelia who brought in an enormous turtle shell that she has had in her possession for many years.  The children loved feeling how smooth and hard the shell was.  Zinzan even enjoyed pretending to be a turtle himself.  Thank you so much Amelia this fitted in perfectly with our learning about reptiles.