Sporting Times!

We have been busy in Kowhai with swimming and athletics. It's been great to practice new skills and reach towards the goals we have set ourselves. How exciting to see so much learning happening, and the pride the children have when they master something new! We are writing stories about Athletics Day- keep an eye on our blog for the story and some action pictures! Look in your childs homefolder for some new spelling homework this week. This activity is great for helping to reach our goals about hearing sounds in words. A little bit each day really helps accelerate progress.

Writing in Kowhai

We are learning to hear the sounds in words and write them- say it, hear it, write it! We are also learning to correctly write some words like am to the they was. We don't always write in our books in kowhai. Here are some other ways we write.

Our Kowhai Tree!

We have been finding out about kowhai trees. We worked together to make our own tree! We know that kowhai means yellow. Did you know that colours have meanings? Yellow means happy and energetic. We think its a great colour for our happy and energetic classroom! We have been learning other maori colour words this week too. Here we are making our tree.

We have been finding out about kowhai trees. "They are green" said Lucy. "The leaves are really really little" said Lauryn."The trees are tall" said Scott. Have you got one in your garden at home? Athletics practice has been helping us develop skills in running, jumping and throwing, and we are looking forward to swimming beginning on Friday.

2012!

Welcome back to 2012! It's great to see our 8 children return rested and rearing to go after the holidays. It has been a busy time settling back into school routines and setting some new learning goals! Our new name is Kowhai - we are looking forward to finding out more about what it means. We welcome Miss Hannah van't Wout (pronounced van-twout) to our class. She completing her teacher training this year and will be a regular part of our class throughout the year. I am looking forward to seeing our families at the 'meet the teacher' evening on Wednesday. It's a great chance to get a sense of what learning in Kowhai is all about, and answer any questions you may have.

Magical Matters!

During Term 3 we discovered what scientists do when they explore new ideas. We hypothesized and tested our ideas about how to change things through heating, cooling and mixing. Here is the movie we made of our experiments. It was shown at our first Myross Bush Media Awards night. We won the award for the biggest explosion- keep an eye out for it!

Safety Signs

During our 'Safety Matters' inquiry, we investigated some things that are designed to keep us safe, like signs, safety caps and visi vests. After hunting around the school for some things we thought were unsafe, we took action! We made some signs to help warn people to be careful. Some children chose to use kidpix, others chose to paint thier sign. Here we are with our warning signs around the school. Can you see the bright shapes and colours, the warning words and the simple images?