Room 3 Learners: June 2013

New Class member

This week we had a new class member join our class. Sophie is with us for 3 weeks from Singapore to experience the New Zealand classroom. We hope she enjoys her stay with us. Sophie made her own tapa cloth.

Tapa Cloth Patterns

On Friday 21st June when it began to snow, we had only half of the class present. We had a Discovery time of our own because the normal Kākano Discovery was cancelled. We made these tapa cloth designs based on flowers. First we screwed up brown paper until it became soft. We drew our design in brown crayon, outlined it with a black vivid marker, then used Indian ink to fill in some of the spaces.

We are very proud of the results.

Discovery 14.06.13

Every Friday the Kakano team have a Discovery time where the students can choose a variety of activities to opt into. Mrs Small chose to do some sewing on cardboard with wool. First the children sewed around the shape of either a leaf, tree or flower and then chose a second colour to fill in the spaces left. Mrs Small and Mrs Kidgell were kept busy re-threading needles when the wool came out and untangling mistakes in the sewing when the children put it through from the wrong side. Some children chose to colour inside their sewing when they had finished the outline.

Sorting seeds and leaves

After out trip to the Botanical Gardens we sorted our seeds that we gathered into a variety of categories. This was hard to do as many of the seeds looked very similar.

We also sorted the leaves we had collected and tried to put them into a Venn diagram that shows similar, different and things that belong to both categories. We had quite a discussion as to where things would go and why.

As you can see almost every group sorted theirs in different ways.

Botanic Gardens Trip

Today we went to the Botanic Gardens and found some fascinating plants and trees. The students took some artistic photos and here are some of them.

A type of fungus on a tree branch.

The Anchor Plant got its name because of its unusual spines.

This tree was so big it took 10 children to circle the trunk.

Kynan and Maxim doing some bark rubbings

This was the Kauri tree in the New Zealand Icon Garden.

The spores of a fern frond.

Our Bean Plants

Room 3 children all planted a bean seed and had to look after it by putting it in light and keeping it watered. As you can see, some children have had more success than others.

Growing seeds

The roots coming out

The leaves are emerging

We Put some beans in a container with a twisted paper towel to act as a wick. This was placed on the windowsill to get light. The beans have sprouted, and the one that was facing the light has the shoot appearing.

We also put some beans just in a jar of water. We have changed the water every second day to keep it fresh. Some of the beans have split but there are no roots showing.