A busy Friday!

Today we had lots of fun planting flowers and making bird feeders.  We want to attract more nature, especially birdlife to our school so we can observe them.  We also thought that as it gets colder it will get harder for birds to find food!  A big thank you to Deacon and Jo for giving us some pinecones to do this!  We have already seen lots of birds come to our classroom window to have a taste!

Worms and Compost

We have been busy making some labelled containers to help the children at our school learn the correct places where our food scraps should go.  These will be kept by the recycling station and one set by Korimako.

In the worm farm we can put things like apple cores,  banana peel , tea bags and most vegetable scraps.  They don’t like anything acidic like oranges, pineapple or tomatoes. They also don't like bread, meat or dairy products.

In the compost we can put the orange peels and pineapple skin that the worms don't like.  

We definitely can’t put any plastic, glad wrap, chip packets or snap lock bags in these. These would hurt the worms and won’t grow very tasty plants!

We think that we should really try hard not to waste food either. Most of our food should be going in our tummies or be taken home if we don't eat it.

Camp to Pudding Hill- The highlights

We recently returned from a fantastic camp at Pudding Hill.  The aim of our camp was to develop our relationships with each other and develop our  team building skills. We certainly did this and had lots of fun along the way!

Here are a just a few photos and highlights from the children.... If you would like to see more we have a slideshow in our classroom. 

The best thing about camp was walking up the Te Awa Awa Reserve as it was my first time on a mountain walk.  It was fun and challenging. We had to be careful of the big tree roots that were very slippery.  I am proud of myself  for getting all the way to the end. I hope I do it again.    Maisy.

I loved doing the archery and shooting best.  It was lots of fun trying to hit the targets. It wasn't so good though when I hit myself in the face with the scope!  James
Spotlight was awesome because I had never done it with such a big group. It was fun playing it in the dark with my friends without a torch.  Emily.

Archery and shooting were the most fun activities on camp because I had never tried them before.  I managed to hit all the bottles in the shooting but I didn't get any of the targets with archery.  I was so exhausted after camp I slept well.   Lewis.

The best thing about camp was playing spotlight at night.  It was really cool and exciting being in the dark and hiding in lots of different places with my friends.  At first we hid in an obvious place so we moved and eventually Blake found us! Ciara.

The best thing about camp was getting to sleep on the last night! We all started screaming when the lights were turned off and we couldn't see anything.  I also loved outdoor cooking because we got to light a fire and toasted marshmallows!  Carter.

The best thing about camp was toasting marshmallows on the outdoor fire .  Olivia

The scariest thing about camp was when the swings were squeaking when we were playing Spotlight in the dark.  Ceire.
I really enjoyed outdoor cooking because we got to roast marshmallows on a real fire.  They went all sticky and gooey- delicious!  Sophie.

Once again a huge thank you to all the parents who came along and supported us on the camp as "Camp parents" . We really appreciate everything you did to help make this a successful camp for everyone. You rock! 

  Another  massive thank you to the parents who helped get us there and back by providing us with transport! 

And finally a big thank you to everyone for supporting our children and enabling them to come along with us on camp. 

An eggcellent challenge!

As part of our unit on Keeping Ourselves Safe we took on the egg challenge. 

We became the chief babysitters of an egg (we weren't allowed to boil it either! ). We named our eggs and even created safe beds for them!  We had to look after them all the time or find someone to "eggsit" if we couldn't.

The aim of this challenge was for us to learn to look after ourselves and others. We have had to think very carefully about how to keep them safe  and make decisions about how we can do this.   

We have taken this job very seriously as you can see by the photos below.  We understand that we are all very important and need to take good care of ourselves and others. We need to make decisions to keep us safe and to ask for help if we need it.  

It has also hopefully given them an appreciation of the hard work we do as parents.  

We have had lots of fun with this challenge,  not to mention the "eggcellent" jokes and puns that we have had along the way!  Just ask 'Eggbert!

Our hubcap art is almost ready....

This is an upcycling project that began last year and is almost ready to be displayed as a colourful addition to our garden sheds.We can't wait to see the final result!

Our next challenge is going to be to create a new classroom sign to replace the number 3 and represent Kowhai! I wonder if it will have yellow in it by any chance!

Poetry

On Thursdays we have been listening to a variety of poems and also creating our very own poetry with Mrs Standen.

Check out some of these fabulous colour poems.

If you enjoyed these there are more to read in our classroom.

We are very proud of the descriptive language we have used.

Welcome to 2017!

Welcome back to another very busy year at Ashley School in Kowhai.  

We have had an extremely busy beginning to the term which all began on the first day when Pedalmania came to visit our school.  We had lots of laughs and showed lots of determination, cooperation and perseverance as we figured out how to get these crazy bikes successfully pedalling. This has  also formed some excellent motivation for some early writing.

I heard the chains rattling when I stopped pedalling.

I felt the grips peeling into my hands as a I rode.

I saw people fall off as people tried to stop.

I wondered if the brakes worked or if I'd crash into the fence!

By Riley

I felt the wind blowing in my face when I went really fast.

I heard the chains rattling beneath me as I kept on pedalling to keep going.

I wondered if the bike was going to fall apart.

I saw my friends having lots of fun together. 

By Emily

I felt the chains underneath me rattling.  

I felt the clammy grips of the bikes on my sweaty hands.

I heard people screaming with joy. 

I saw the bikes rusting and the  paint peeling off slowly.

I wondered if I was going to crash out on these very weird and wonderful bikes.

By Lewis

I heard my friend saying" You can do it!" in loud tones.

I felt the nice, cool and refreshing breeze on my face. 

I saw Emily by my side the whole time.

I wondered if I would fall off when I was out of control.

I heard the bikes gears rattling as I turned the pedals.

I felt my luck rising.

I saw people having so much fun as they went on the bikes. 

I wondered if I could go on all the bikes.

By Maddy.

I heard the wind whistling as I pedalled across the ground.

I felt the dust going in my eyes as I cycled around in circles.

I saw my wheels lifting off the ground when I was doing donuts.

I wondered where the brakes were as I went straight into the ropes.

By Rocco

I heard the crazy bikes squeaking as I rode around the corner.

I felt a soft breeze against my face as I rode on the crazy bikes.

I smelt the fresh air.

I saw lots of people on the sideline cheering me on.

I wondered if I would fall off the bikes because they looked so crazy, but I didn't.

By Olivia

I can feel the pain going through my legs as I was pedalling around.

I could feel the sweat run down my forehead. It tasted salty.

I wondered whether my legs were going to fall off. I could feel my heart racing.

I could hear the chains rattling when I was pedalling fast. 

By Carter

I felt the pedals going round very quickly while I was on the bike. 

I heard the bikes rattles while we were on the bikes.

I saw all of the cool bikes like the drift bike.  It was my favourite because if you were going fast and you went around a corner you span out!

I wondered how they made the bikes. I think they made the bikes by welding old ones together.  

By James

I heard the wheels squeaking when they turned the corners.

I saw heaps of different bikes in the circle.

The wheels sounded strange.

I felt so tired pushing people around. 

I felt my legs were burning .

If was a very hot day.

I heard the birds singing in the tress while were were riding.

I smelt the fresh air all around us.

I could see the wind blowing in everyone's faces.

I saw people falling off the bikes because they couldn't keep the bikes balanced!

By Olive

We have also had lots of enjoyment learning how to skip with long and short ropes!

We had great fun getting to know a little bit more about each other and learnt some new computer skills when we made these taguls about ourselves. Here are just a few...