Self Portrait - Dying

We have been really busy working on our Self Portraits over the last few weeks and are now up to the dying stage!!  Look how carefully we are using the paint brushes to dye our pictures in the correct colours and without mixing the colours together!  So much fun :)

Firewise!!

We are working our way through the Firewise programme at the moment.  You will have received the Firewise booklet that you can also work through with your child.  This booklet runs alongside what we are teaching in the classroom.

Today we read a story about what we do if there is a fire at our house, we watched a video about fighting fires and learned a song too.

We have been given a Safe Meeting Place sticker to put in a special place at home where we agree with our family is safe to meet if there is a fire.

Bugs/Insects Explore!

This week we have been learning all about bugs and insects in Piako Tahi. Lots of us were bringing in insects we found in our garden and we had lots of questions about them so we spent the week finding answers to all our questions! We have been focusing on asking good questions and sharing this week. We learned lots of new and exciting information about bugs/insects. We learned that insects have 6 legs and 3 body parts and that to check if something is an insect we can count it's legs and body parts to be sure.

Here are some photos of us hard at work! 

 Geordie, Coltyn and Kruz coloured their 'bug hunt' once they had found all the bugs!

 Indi, Noah and Jackson worked together to sort the toys into piles of insects and non-insects

 Jacob loved colouring the butterfly for his bug book!

 Ella took time and care to make her finger patterns counting caterpillar

 Mason and Leon made a house for their bugs. They made a room for insects and a room for non-insects. Mason counted his legs and knew he wasn't an insect so he jumped into the 'non-insect' room! 

 Jed enjoyed showing the boys that he found ALL the bugs -even the tricky ant!

 Jed was also very proud of his colourful snail 

 Trinity was an expert helper at the life cycle of a butterfly activity

 Lots of fun and cool patterns at the snail colouring table

Maelee, Indi and Isalei were very focused on our bug hunt and worked together to find all the bugs! 

Some of our most creative work gets put up on our Explore Wall in the Rocket Room each week! 

Kitten Visit

Today we had a visit from three cute little kittens that are staying at Mr Pike's house at the moment!!  They visited us because we are learning about Pets in Explore at the moment.  We learned about what they eat, how they feel when we touch them, how to speak quietly and not move too quickly around them.  Some of us even wanted  to take them home because they were soooo ADORABLE :)

Space Explore

This week we explored space! We learnt how the Earth spins and orbits the Sun and talked about how each planet is different. We got to try a range of different things to do with Space such as, drawing like a spaceman, making an Earth and Moon that orbit the Sun and designing our own planet! We worked on being creative and thinking of how we could make our creations different.

Drawing upside down like a spaceman

Madison helping Bower put his Earth, Moon and Sun together

Jack's planet rover that could fly!

Maelee's solar system

Dinosaur Explore

This week in Explore we learnt about Dinosaurs!

We learnt about what dinosaurs eat and whether they might be a carnivore or herbivore. We also learnt a new song that we love to sing along to!

We worked hard on including our friends and sharing the dinosaurs while we played.

These girls are making dinosaur footprint pictures

Maelee, Indi and Madison making dinosaurs using shapes

Liam built a habitat to keep his dinosaur safe from the T-rex

Isalei and Penny playing dinosaurs together

Samuel's awesome shape dinosaur

Firewise!

On Wednesday Piako Tahi and Rua were lucky enough to have a visit from some REAL LIFE firefighters!! Belinda and her friends came to talk to us about what it means to be firewise. We learned about having a family meeting point organised in case of a fire and lots about what we should do to stay safe in a fire. 

We learned about the difference between 'tools' and 'toys' and the firefighters were so impressed that we knew the difference between those 2 words. 

We had so much fun learning about being firewise and we even got to see Mr Pike dress up as a firefighter! They said if we do a good job learning about how to be firewise with our teachers they might even come back with the firetruck next time. We can't wait! 

Thanks so much Belinda! :D