Welcome back to Term 3!
Our letter for Week 1 of Term 3 was the Letter Ii. Our inquiry this term is looking at Environmental Logos which we see all around our community as well as on television.
We linked the Letter Ii to the Interislander Ferry which many of you may have been on in the past.
Our craft activity was to watch a You Tube clip of how to make a rocking ship with paper.
Great mahi Ruma Wha!
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.
While we were studying mammals each child began to understand that we ourselves were mammals too.
We created some human skeletons out of pasta for our letter of the week. This was a fun fine motor activity that all the children participated in. They also enjoyed spreading the PVA glue with their fingers.
We hope you enjoy the photo’s.
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.
Last week we focused on the Letter Zz and the sound it makes.
We enjoyed creating finger puppet zebras as well as cutting strips of black paper for our craft zebra. Zinzan also completed his writing which was inspired by our zebra craft. Room 4 is becoming very proficient at cutting of late which is truly pleasing to see. Keep up the great mahi Room 4.
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.
This term for Mathematics we are concentrating on Time.
For the first two weeks of this term, we have looked at the difference between night and day. We have been able to name different activities which we do throughout our day and whether they are performed during the day time or night time. We then created a night and day picture.
Great mahi Ruma Wha.
Please feel free to check out the Maths Google Slide on our Room 4 Class Site or leave a comment on this blog.
For the past two weeks our Inquiry has been on Animal Classification and more specifically on birds.
We have been linking our Letter of the Week, poem, writing, reading, maths and Big Book to this Inquiry Topic as well which our tamariki have enjoyed.
Below you can see some cute little owls we created which linked to our poem called ‘5 Little Owls’.
We also created two birds each for the rhyme “Two Little Dickie Birds.” We had a lot of fun singing the rhyme and playing with the birds we had created. We hope you enjoy the little video.
Finally, seeing our letter of the week was the Letter N we created a noodle nest after investigating a real nest and watching how birds create nests in our Google Slide. The children soaked the noodles in some warm water and then began creating a nest. This was a lovely sensory activity which the children all enjoyed.
Our Inquiry for the last two weeks has been on different movies which our tamariki enjoy. We linked our Letter of the Week to the letter Ll which ties in beautifully with the Lego Movie in Week 7.
We had a lot of fun building towers, snakes and even Mario with Lego. We also created the letter L with lego as well as using lego to make a print with paint.
Check out our Letter Ll Google Slide.
In Week 8 we continued with our Inquiry into different movies. We worked on answering ‘who’ questions and matching a movie to a particular class member in Room 4. We also looked into the movie ‘Inside Out’ and discussed different emotions and what they look like. We then created some beautiful masks relating to the different emotions.
Our Letter of the Week for Week 8 was Tt. We were learning about what the letter Tt sounds like. We then had a lot of fun creating a Teddy Bear from toast. We learned about how bread was made and then the steps of turning bread into toast. Once the class had created their Teddy Bear they all enjoyed eating it.
Here is the link to the letter Tt Google Slide
Crimson and Zinzan have been working on the reader ‘Lizard Loses His Tail’ last week. They watched a couple of video’s to extend their knowledge of lizards losing their tails. Then they both created a lizard of their own with playdough and took a photo of their creations to share with you. Great mahi Crimson and Zinzan.
Check out their Learn, Create, Share reading task here.
