Operetta

Autumn Days

We have been so lucky this week for the start of Term 2 with beautiful days continuing.  
Although the colder weather is coming we have made sure to get out and about.

This week we have been exploring leaves.  
With our gorgeous school grounds filled with mature trees, we have had no problem finding beautiful autumn leaves.

We went on a leaf hunt to gather up our leaves.  
We noticed the different shapes, sizes, and colours of the leaves.

Leaf hunt

We saw beautiful colours

We took our leaves and sticks (some children had gathered up sticks) back to the class.  We used these leaves to inspire our leaf art.  

Tracing around the leaf...

...is very tricky and requires concentration! 

Ready to start detail

Adding detail

A delicate piece of work

Artists busy working

Cutting all the points
requires more focus

Thinking about autumn leaf colour 

Starting the colouring 

Colouring takes time and focus

This type of work is often referred to as process art.  It has many steps in it which the children have to follow to reach the desired outcome.  

There was such commitment to the process and each step taken the children could see their work unfolding.  

This takes a lot of perseverance so it great to see this learning disposition being strengthened.

Teddy Bears Picnic

On Friday the last day of term the Kiwi Hub had a Teddy Bears Picnic.  Unfortunately, the weather was against us, but we managed to have a great play with our special toys at Putkitiki, before having our lunch together in Room 5. 

Putikitiki Playground

The children love playing
on the monkey bars

Climbing and swinging

A special police dog

A very lucky grey bunny who
had been lost but then found

Elephant

Some tired toys resting 

Fun on the big slide

Talking about our toys

Investigating a rabbit hole!  

A very busy jungle gym!

We found a vacuum cleaner!

Some grandparents joined us which was special

Hurray!! Teddy Bears Picnic!

Kai Time...

...with our friends 

Butterflies, Butterflies

We have been so lucky to watch butterflies hatch this week.  Thank you to Zoe who brought in 5 chrysalis for us.
We managed to watch a butterfly hatch only after a few seconds of it starting to emerge.  

Look how big the abdomen is and how small the wings are when it first comes out.

Then another one hatched, and this time Edie came to tag it as part of our monarch butterfly tagging programme.

Holding the butterfly carefully to apply the tag

Tag on!

Edie talking to the children about why we tag the butterflies:

All ready to fly away!  I wonder where the butterfly will fly away to?

Harvest Festival

We had a lovely time this week preparing for and then holding our Harvest Festival.
First, we foraged in our Kitchen garden for yummy things to put on our pizza.

We found cucumber, silverbeet, lots of basil, tomatoes, purple peppers, and marjoram. 

Next we made our pizza!

Rolling the dough

Hmm? What shall we put on?

Spreading the delicious tomato sauce

Sprinkling the toppings

Ta da!  Our yummy pizza!

Then it was time for our shared kai and our Harvest Festival.

This experience allowed children to see food made from the beginning, and to use food from our garden - a garden to plate experience.  

Sharing food is a lovely thing to do, and there were conversations about how the food had been made, as well as how yummy it was.  

This links to our toolkit:

Curious: I am learning to think:

I use a range of thinking tools, am curious about the world around us, asks questions, and reflects on learning

Connected: I am learning to participate and contribute:

I learn in for and about the environment and celebrate cultural diversity.