60 seconds in a minute!

On Friday we made our own sand timers!!!

With all our learning this week about time we now know that there are 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute.  

We used salt and water bottles that had a hole in them and we had to watch the second hand on the clock very closely to see how long it took the salt to come out of the little hole.

We also figured out that we could count to 60 and that also a minute!

Te Ao Maori with Whaea Toni

This week we were lucky to have Whaea Toni in Room 5.  She talked to us about the technology the Maori people used before there were things like microwaves and plastic bowls.  

We talked a lot about how important harakeke was and how it could be made into almost anything.

We then did our own weaving.

What's the time?

This term we are learning how to tell the time.  We have been talking lots about clocks and how long a minute is, how long a day is and how many days in the week.

This week we had to work together to make clock.  We had to make sure that the numbers were all in the right place.

We think we did a pretty good job.

Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles.

On Wednesday Ms. Bonsey and Mrs. Bedingfield took us outside and blew bubbles for us.

We watched them very carefully and when we went back inside we talked lots about the words we could use to describe the bubbles.

We wrote some wonderful stories using some great words to describe the bubbles.

On Friday we blew bubbles in a special paint mixture and then popped them on the paper to make great bubble art.

Term 4 has begun!

We can hardly believe we are into Term 4 already!   Where has the time gone?

We have begun our new topic of inquiry "Nurturing Nature" and as part of this we are exploring the harbours of Porirua and our part in keeping them clean and healthy.

We talked a lot about the nature around us which led us to talking about harakeke and how it was and still is used by many people in New Zealand.  We discussed its importance to the maori people and decided we would like to use it to create something special.

We used strips material to learn how to plait and over the next couple of weeks we will begin using harakeke to create some special pieces.

If you, or anyone in your whanau, can help us with harvesting of harakeke and work with us during the process we would love your help - please just let Ms. Bonsey know.