This is our advent calendar. Each day we open a new window and learn a greeting in another language. Today we learned the arabic greeting. It was pretty tricky and we had to practice it quite a bit with our talking buddies first. It is: Al Salaam A'alaykum. You say it like this: Ahl sah-LAHM ah ah LAY koom.

Light and Dark Update

Way back in May we were thinking about the seasons and how the amount of daylight changes at different times of the year. We made a chart to show the amount of light and dark. Our first photo shows how many hours it was light on May 9 (near the end of Autumn). The second photo shows how many hours it is light now that it is Spring.
We have also kept on checking the temperature. In Winter the temperatures were usually around 12 degrees Celsius. Now they are usually around 18 degrees Celcius and often higher in the afternoon.

Jack in the Box

Yesterday we each made a Jack in the Box.
First we had to make a box using a net for a cube. Before we glued the box together we had to decorate the sides and make a spring out of folded strips of paper. After that we made our special characters. Quinn chose Tashi and Alice just chose a girl. Finally we glued everything together. We are pleased with the results.
Today we did some thinking about other ways we could use a net for a box. Here are some of our ideas: glasses, a bird house, cube with Christmas decorations, make a bigger one for storing things, draw pictures on it, jewellery box, toy box, building blocks - Eiffel Tower!

Yesterday we spent some time thinking about safety for Guy Fawkes. We all made posters to get the message out about keeping safe with fireworks. This is Amber's one. She did a great job all by herself.

Toys Materials Brainstorm

We got together with our talking buddies to brainstorm what materials toys can be made from.
beads, fabric, glue, elastic, wood, marbles for eyes, stuffing, soft fur, plastic, string, rags, bows, cotton wool, paper, flour, wool, cables, metal, rubber, paint, fur, earrings, batteries, wires, buttons, clay, computers, colours, cardboard, sticks, electric wires, switches, glass, hair
Now we are going to do some reading to find out more. We will also be looking to find out what toys were made of in the past.
We read some more from a book called "First Technology - Toys" by John Williams.
We can add some more things now:
In the past - lead, tin, china
Now: pipe cleaners and glitter
Now we're going to make posters about the material toys are made from.
This is what we learned when we talked about our charts:
Most of our class's favourite toys are made of fabric. We think this might be because they are cuddly and soft. Some of us have had these toys since we were little.

Our Favourite Toys

Favourite Toy Day

Here is Kohuki. He is our special learner in our class. He helps us to be good learners too.
Tomorrow Ms Donnell would like everyone to bring a favourite toy to school. It should be something really special to you.
We are going to think about these questions:
Why is this a favourite toy? What makes it special? How does it make you feel?
How do you play with it?
How does this toy work?
What is this toy made of?

Welcome to our News Blog!

We are going to be writing about exciting news that happens in our classroom and school.