One of our visits to the TDC Library

About three times a term we head in to the Richmond TDC Library to enjoy the huge range of books and resources available there. We travel with Room 2 each time we go. We are so lucky to have these opportunities to get out into our local community and share these learning experiences with others .

Discovery Time Week 8

This week Discovery Time was full of squeals and shouts of delight. It would be one of the noisiest Discovery sessions we have ever had. There was just so much excitement and fun going on...just how we like it in Room 3. When it's fun we learn a lot!
Our activities were...Working with a pendulum, experimenting with colours, making a city, stacking plastic cups and plates, and just so we had something quiet to do...playing cards.
Our Life Skill focus was "taking turns".....another very important skill for life.

This week there is a slide show and a short movie showing all the learning going on. Keep a look out for the houses that became part of the city....I was quite impressed with the creativeness of the children.

Celebrating Cultures

Our unit on Cultures will be coming to an end soon but this week we had our last speaker in to talk to us. Alex spent most of her childhood in South Africa. The children were most interested in her snake stories. We were treated to her interactive life story of adventure.... a complete difference to our own.
Thanks Alex.

Discovery Time Week 7

This week we were again focusing on giving compliments as well as being nice to people...which isn't hard for us in room 3!
We could....make prints, dress up, do woodwork, play with the K'nex or the coloured rice.

              

Celebrating Cultures

This week we were treated to a talk from Dylan, Hunter and Zeb's grandma (Sue).
Sue told us all about life in Mongolia and Africa. She had lived in both these countries for many years. In Mongolia it gets very cold, actually it can be minus 40degrees!! So when you live there you need to wear lots of layers of clothing. Sue brought in some examples of the clothes they wear. In the part of Africa where Sue was it is the exact opposite, very hot, in fact 40degrees!! What an interesting life you have had Sue. Thankyou for sharing your experiences with us.

We also had a visit from Paul. Paul lived in Kenya when he was a young boy. Wow, life couldn't get much different from our own at Hope School. Paul told us that to get to school he had to walk or run  a distance similar to that from Hope School to Tahunanui and to get water he and his family had to walk with the empty containers as far as into Richmond and of course back again with the full containers. There would have been about 50 kids in his class and one teacher. They used to make balls out of plastic bags so they had something to play with. Their houses would have a grass roof so if it rained (and it did a lot sometimes) They would have lots of buckets to catch the water that fell inside. It was also very hot in Kenya. Thanks Paul, what a privilege it has been listening to you.

Celebrating Cultures

This week we heard from Vanessa and Jill and we learnt some facts about Germany and Scotland.
We tasted some German bread and some Scottish shortbread. We found out what haggis is and that in Germany there are lots and lots of garden gnomes.

  

Discovery Time Week 6

This weeks activities were:
Card threading, board games, nail polish, making stick people,  and stencil drawing. We were encouraged to use all of the 'Relating To Others' skills that we had been learning about over the last few weeks.
Room 3 children have got some very nice skills in this area! They are very good at sharing, giving compliments, working together, helping others... etc

Life Education with Harold

On Wednesday and Thursday this week Hope School were treated to a visit from Harold and his assistant Ingrid. We learnt all about being a good friend and were reminded to look after ourselves too. We talked about being a Bucket Filler and making sure we didn't do any Bucket Dipping.....You could ask your child what that means???
Harold sang us some songs, we played some games and watched some animations of Harold with his friends.

                

Discovery Time Week 5

This week we have been learning specifically about sharing...Sharing isn't just needed in our classroom. Sharing is a life skill that we will have to use in many places especially at home with our brothers and sisters. Many of our activities today required us to share different things. We were very good at it too!
Playing with the big blocks, making puppet shows, peeling and eating mandarins, making a milo then sharing in a conversation at the cafe, Playing musical instruments and creating clothes from newspaper.