Swimming Highlights From Our Budding Photographers

Towards the end of Term Two all children in our class had the opportunity to participate in swimming lessons at Dean Greenwood Swim School. The lessons were fun and engaging. Children were placed in a group according to their ability and taught at their level. Our three groups each had their own instructor who used a variety of activities and equipment to teach swimming skills. The children especially enjoyed the large mat on which they could learn skills as a group.

   

Throughout the sessions children gained confidence and improved their skills in the pool. A few children weren't able to participate in every lesson but keenly monitored the progress of their peers and recorded their progress through photos and video. You can see some of these in the slideshow above. It was great to have some parents join us for some of our sessions - thank you.

Beautiful Birds With Busy Beaks

For the last couple of weeks we have been studying New Zealand birds as part of our rich concept 'Identity'. In science we have been thinking about how the features of our native birds help them survive in their different habitats. 

The birds we talked about came from different habitats including the sea coast, the forest, wetlands, gardens, rivers and mountains. Mrs Driver had laminated colourful photos of New Zealand birds from different habitats. We sorted them by thinking about the habitats they belonged to and then by putting birds with similar beaks together. We got better at this as we learnt more about how birds use their beaks.

We used different utensils, which imitated the shapes of different beaks, to pick up models of different types of food. 

 

We found the scoop (bill) was good for picking up small shells in water.

We could also pick up items from the water using tongs (long, wide beak) and chopsticks (long, pointy beak) but the scoop let us pick up more at once. 

The chopsticks were good for poking into sand to find shells. They were also good for picking up plasticine shapes (soft-bodied creatures like worms). We made connections between the chopsticks and the long, narrow beak of the kiwi.

We found out lots during our study. One thing that really interested us was the wrybill. It's the only bird in the world that has a bill which curves to one side at the end. This helps it to find insects hiding under river stones.

I is for 'Injera'

In Room Four we have been learning about the different cultures of our classmates. On Monday we looked at a book about Ethiopia called 'E is for Ethiopia'. The book had a page for each alphabet letter and we read lots about different customs, places and food in Ethiopia. On the page for 'Ii' we read about injera. Injera is a round, flat bread. The next day Mikaile surprised us by bringing two freshly made injera that his mother had baked especially for us.

Some of the children from Ethiopia recognised the injera straight away and were excited to share their food with their classmates. We looked at it and noticed the tiny bubbles. We talked about how it is baked on a flat surface.

Mikaile passed the injera around for people to break a piece off and taste. Fresh injera has a sour taste. It is often dipped in sauce or eaten with meat but we tried it plain. It was a new taste for most of us and it was nice to try something we hadn't eaten before. Thank you Mikaile for sharing your special food with us!

Portraits

Outer Space Rhythms

Pasifika Families FREE Community Event 6th April

Exploring emotions through the arts

Today we were exploring emotions through the arts and language.
In painting we looked at the colours and how they are linked to emotions. We explored how colours can be mixed and how we need all the colours for balance.
In drama we shared a story called 'The Great Blueness and Other Predicaments' by Arnold Lobel which explored how colours relate to emotions and once again thought about how we need all the colours/ emotions to be satisfied.