The Fruits of our Labour

This afternoon, we opened up a shop outside A1 to sell our garden produce to parents and students. We really enjoyed harvesting our garden and selling what we have worked so hard to grow! The sale was a huge success - we sold everything!

Caring for Pets

Every Friday, A4 go to the library for ICT with Mrs Clark. This term their inquiry topic was pets. Their task was to find and present information about caring for a goldfish.  Then, they had to present their findings by creating a slide using Powerpoint.



18 Sleeps Until Christmas!

We are very excited about Christmas in A4! We have spent a lot of time discussing what presents we would like. Today Hemakshi, Makaveli and Theodore wrote letters to Santa. 

Our Special Visitors!

We really wanted the new school kittens to come and visit our class. So we decided to write letters to convince Mrs Compston to let the kittens come to A4. Here is Loveday's letter. Can you hear Loveday using a persuasive voice?

Here are some photos of the kittens in A4.

Tofa Soifua Nanas!

Today was Nana's last day at Papatoetoe East School. She is flying back to Room 8 in Springston, Christchurch tomorrow. So A3 and A4 decided to have a farewell party for Nanas. Here is a video of the party!

Here are some stories that Alofa, Rani and Sen Nay Pow wrote about Nanas leaving.

Wally's Vacation

Today Wally is going to Christchurch!! He is going to visit our blogging buddies The Springston Explorers. They are also sending A3 and A4 a package and we can't wait to see what is in it! We wrote a lot of letters today and sent them with Wally. 



Wally getting ready



Wally in his package



 

Eli looking at the Springston
Explorers blog

Loveday posting her letter



 

Here is a video of some of the letters we wrote to the Springston Explorers.

If you want to look at the Springston Explorers blog, click on the link below:

http://springstonexplorers.blogspot.com/

Saal Mubarak

Diwali is the Indian Festival of Lights that marks the beginning of the Indian new year. To celebrate Diwali, we created rangoli patterns and made coconut barfi.

Rani was very excited about Diwali. Here she is talking about her experience.

Do you have a Diwali experience you would like to share? Leave us a comment.

What is it?

On Monday, the Frogs reading group read a book called Tails and Claws. It is a puzzle story. So the Frogs had a go at making their own puzzle stories. Can you guess their animal?

The Rabbit who got his Wires Crossed!

You guessed it! Stu has been up to more mischief. He has been eating A3 and A4's telephone wire. We were very worried about what our principal would say when he found out. So we wrote letters to Mr Gilbert and made a video. Sorry Mr Gilbert.

Freaky Friday

It will be Halloween on Sunday! Today we made masks, got dressed up and made treats. We had a lot of fun!

Groovy Gardeners

We had a very busy week last week getting our garden ready. Here is a video of how weeded our garden bed and filled it with soil. It was hard work, but now we are ready to start planting!

What do you think we should grow? Leave us a comment.

Snail Art

This week, we completed our snail art. We used pastels on black paper because snails are nocturnal. Our pictures had to include a snail's shell, foot, tentacles and eyes and as you can see, we have labelled these body parts.

Worm Farm

As part of our Minibeasts study, we now have a worm farm in our classroom. We will be feeding our worms food scraps and they will turn our rubbish into fertiliser that we can use on our new garden beds!

This is our worm farm.

Here are the worms eating.

Amy is putting bread crusts
 into the special container.

Ayush is putting his banana skin
into the 'worm food' container.

Hemakshi is feeding the 
worms bread crusts.

Here is a video of Hemakshi and Makaveli sharing their stories about worms.

Snail Trails

Here is Mihi holding a snail.
Look at its tentacles.

As part of our Minibeast study we have been looking very closely at snails. We are even keeping some snails in our class as pets!

We picked cabbage from our
garden to feed the snails.

Here is Rani getting some 
cabbage for the snails.

The snails eat their cabbage.

The Frogs group read a story about snails today. After they read the book, they had to draw and label the body parts of a snail. Here are their pictures. Use the magnifying glass to get a closer look.

Squeak Squeak!

A Block has another pet and his name is Chester! He is a guinea pig. On Wednesday, we got to meet him for the first time. Some of us wanted to hold him. Here are the pictures...

Fish and Chips!

On Monday, A3 and A4 made healthy fish and chips! We worked very hard! Watch this video to find out what we did.



Our thoughts on the squid

Mihi, Ayush and Hemakshi were not afraid to touch the squid while it was being dissected. Ayush thought the squid's tentacle looked like a boa constrictor! Here they are talking about their experience.

Squidward Leaves Bikini Bottom!

As part of our Under the Sea study, A3 and A4 got to see a real squid. The children were scared to touch it at first. Here is a video of the children touching the squid.

Later in the day, we dissected the squid to look at its body parts.

This is the squid's beak inside its mouth. The beak is for biting food into small pieces.

We cut off the squid's fins. Squids use their fins for swimming.

This is Ayush holding a tentacle. Squids have 2 large feeding tentacles and 8 shorter tentacles (arms).

This is one of the squid's teeth. The teeth are found at the ends of the two large feeding tentacles.

Look at the squid's eye. A squid has two very large eyes.

Good Morning City

This term we have been learning about the artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser and we have created art based on Hundertwasser's painting Good Morning City. It took us two weeks to complete. Here is a video of the art process.

Check out the final product! The art looks great. It looks even better in the classroom so if you would like to take a closer look, come down to A4! A big thank you to Rachel (Loveday's Mum - who is an art teacher) for your great ideas and input.

Kelly Tarltons Slideshow

Here is a slideshow of our fantastic trip to Kelly Tarltons on Tuesday the 31st of August.