Painted jigsaw puzzles

Room 2 have been busy painting underwater pictures onto pre-made jigsaw puzzles.  They made plans first before carefully transferring their designs onto the jigsaws.  They look stunning and the children are looking forward to breaking them up into their pieces before having a go at putting them back together again!


We would like to thank Mrs Patrick for coming in to help us make them.

Island Bay Marine Reserve - Rocky Shores Visit

Rooms 1, 2 and 3 had a fantastic time down in Wellington investigating the rock pools and sea creature touch pools at the Island Bay Marine Reserve.  We were really lucky with the weather - rain and wind gave way to beautiful blue skies!  The children were awesome and most had a go at touching or holding some of the exciting sea creatures.  There were sea cucumbers, star fish, sea anemones, hermit crabs, octopi, fish, sea spiders and heaps of other animals!  

Starfish or Sea Star

Sea Urchin

Sea Anemone in a Paua Shell

Looking closely!

Thinking about picking up some creatures.

Mr Turtle

One of the fish.

 

Handling the creatures.

Camo Crab

Star Fish!

Hermit Crab

Yeuch - holding a Sea Slug.

The foot of a Sea Snail.

The Sea Anemones.

Going rock pooling.

A Sea Anemone - waiting for the tide to come in.

But what did the children have to say......

Zoe - When the lady gave me the Camo Crab it was heavy and spiky.

Georgina - When I picked up a Spider Star Fish it felt bumpy.

Estella - When the lady gave me the sea crab it was spiky.

Nate - The lady gave me the Camo Crab.  First I was scared, then I held it.

Hana - The Sea Anemone felt like jelly and it was very smooth and sticky and sloppy.

Hugo - I liked it when I picked up the sea slug up.  It was slimy and yucky.

Amy-Lee - I was too scared to pick up a StarFish but I picked a baby one up.

Angelina - I liked feeding the Turtles.  First I had it (the food) on a little string, then really tight in my hand.  I held it really tight because they are really strong.

Angus - When I fed the fish I had to get up on a big, big, big ladder because the fish tank was really big.

The Elephant by Angus

The Elephant I drew is just a plain elephant, but coloured in different colours because we didn't have any grey!!  I learnt to draw elephants in Room 3 with Mrs Robinson and Mrs Burton.  I feel really good because I knew how to do it.

Reading Elmer books by David McKee

Elmer is a patchwork elephant.  He is inspiring the HoT Learning topic in Room 2.  The children are loving Elmer and have been bringing in other Elmer stories that they have found at home or in the Levin Library.  We have read: Elmer; Elmer and the Lost Teddy and Elmer and the Rainbow.  If you find any other Elmer stories please feel free to bring them in.
We even have an Elmer toy in Room 2 which Mrs Keene has let us borrow!  The children really love having it in their class.

Creativity - Elmer

Following from the children's brilliant brainstorm of what they would like to learn about they have been focusing on their play about Elmer.  The children identified that they needed to: decide on parts; make scenery, props and masks; have people to tell the story (the narrators); learn their lines and think about simple costumes.  We have been busy, busy, busy getting prepared.  The children are enthused and keen to make a good job of their production. Rehearsals start tomorrow!!  Take a look at the children preparing some masks for their play.

Term 3 - Creativity

To inspire our HoT Learning topic of Creativity we are using the children's picture book - Elmer (by David McKee).  This is what the children would like to tell you about Elmer and their plans for the learning in Term 3.


'We are learning to think creatively.  We listened to the story of Elmer and talked about it.  With our talking partners we thought about what we would like to do.  Then we made a brainstorm showing what we really want to do.


We are planning our own, 'Elmer's Day Parade'.


We would like to make some shoebox 3d art showing jungles and elephants.


We want to learn about colour because Elmer is a patchwork elephant.'

Room 2s Brainstorm showing what they would like to learn

The children have already made a good start at planning their 'Elmer's Day Parade' for the end of term - including food, games, movies, a masked parade and their own 'elephant' names!

In art Room 2 has been thinking about line, shape, colour and space as they designed their own patterned elephants for a 'Where's Elmer?' display (just like Where's Wally?).

Term 3 is well under way and it's going to be a busy, busy term!

Room 2 Print Making with Mrs Robinson

Room 2 were desperate to share their print making skills.  As part of the modular learning programme the children spent several sessions with Mrs Robinson learning all about print making.  To link with our HoT Learning topic of The Environment the children made Pukeko prints.  Print making is a slow process and quite tricky but the end results are definitely worth it.  The prints are absolutely awesome and will soon be on display in our classroom.  Enjoy the photographs which were all taken by the children.

Stage 1 complete- the first colour

Rolling the ink onto the template

The finished products

You'll have to visit Room 2 to see the finished products.

Another interesting visitor...

A few weeks ago this little frog came hopping up the steps to visit us. We thought he was a great colour and had a good discussion about him! We've certainly seen some interesting creatures in Room 2.  Today we even found a dead Weta in the class.  Yeuch!!

Meet the 'Walking Stick'.

Wow!  Take a look at our class visitor.  This stick insect was found on the school grounds by two of our eagle eyed children.  We used him to launch our HoT Learning (Higher Order Thinking and Learning) topic of the Environment.  As a class we decided to look at the animals of New Zealand and  their habitats and adaptations.  As part of our learning we have visited the Green Rig, brainstormed questions about two of our native birds (the Kiwi and Pukeko) and have started to learn how to find answers to our questions.

This is some our 'Kiwi' art.  We learnt about using shape, space and line to create these pastel and ink pictures.