Uxbridge Cafe - Opening soon!

Our play Cafe is getting closer to opening.... we have an eftpos machine on the way and when we have everything together we will be having a grand opening.

Thank you to Zac and Renee for helping to put the C A F E letters up today with the drill.

Happy Birthday Anu!!

Running Man Uxbridge Styles!!

Making musical Instruments!!

The Uxbridge Cafe

Teamwork was on display at Uxbridge today.  Just before lunchtime, the children decided to open a cafe in the messy garden.  They served cappuccinos and muffins mostly - and fluffys of course.

An order of coffee was placed - with a muffin on the side.

The Barista served Cappuccinos 

We measured the outside of the building to begin renovations

Together we used a handsaw to cut the wood down to size

We found it quite challenging to keep the saw straight as we followed the pencil line

Jacob, Zac Renee and Ayla helped to put the boards on the shopfront

We all worked on the exterior paint job.

Two coats of Red paint and I think it is looking really smart. I look forward to showing you some more photos soon.  - Jo

Cheese & silverbeet scones!!

Our vege garden is looking very lush, it is just growing and growing, such a beautiful sunny spot. Today we picked, washed and added some silver beet from our garden to add to our scone mixture.  Mmmn Mmmn delicious!!!  I wonder what other goodies we will make from our garden produce.  Claire has suggested a healthy vegetable smoothie, maybe soup too??  If you have any idea's or recipes that contain carrots, silverbeet or brocolli we would love you to share :-)

NZ Sign Language Week 9-15th May 2016

We have been learning to sign hello, the first letter in our name and some basic colours. Congratulations to Matthew who was our sign Ninja champ, well done buddy!!

Bikes and Scooters!!

We are so thankful to our committee, in particular Sarah our fundraiser who helped us raise enough funds for 2 balance bikes and 4 scooter boards.  It is always sooo exciting for us when the courier man comes through the gate with a rather large box!!

How awesome to think we only placed our order yesterday and here they are today, that's pretty super speedy delivery.  The box was opened, Jo got out her handy allen key and put them together and then it was time to hop on, give it a go and start zooming.  As we only had 2 bikes and 4 boards we set up a riding list for bikes and scooters.  The children were more than happy to wait their turn and kept checking the list regularly to see when they were next.  Our scooter boards came with connectors too, so we could put more than one board together.  We started at one, then two, then Nate suggested putting all of them together, I wonder how that's going to go!!

 

Music all around us!!

What a fun filled afternoon of musical discovery we had today. We hung up some of our pots and pans, muffin trays and tea pots from the bridge in the playground and went on a journey into the world of music and found out how we can make music with the things around us.
It started off by everyone coming up and choosing something to play. Our new instruments didn't really look like the instruments we have inside, but boy did they make a cool sound!
Tap tap tap, clang clang clang, bang bang bang, bong bong bong .........
We found out that they all sounded different and the sound changed when you used a different drum stick. The sound was also different if you banged on the inside of the pot versus the outside of the pot.
Our journey then took its next turn by the children realising that other things in the playground could make music to. We realised when you start to look around you, every thing can make music! The balustrades, the slides, the metal bars, pieces of wood ...... the list goes on.
The piece to resistance came next .... Every one played a newly discovered instrument all together. Once we had all chosen something to play the count down was one.
ONE, TWO, THREE ..... GO!!!!!!
You wouldn't believe how amazing the sound was that came from these instruments when they were played altogether. Every one was very impressed with big smiles all around at how awesome we all sounded playing our instruments.

Body Percussion!!

An adventure over the seas

A story of imagination, problem solving, literacy and math, working together and most importantly, fun.

We went on an overseas adventure today. The playground structure became a ship.  Mathew, Finn and Nate loaded the cargo— Mathew and I wrote a manifest to document the quantities of cargo and matched it with Nate’s.

When I found out they were travelling to Africa, America and Antarctica, with all that cargo and crew I thought I would bring out the globe to show them how far they would be travelling.  Unperturbed, they simply decided they needed scuba diving equipment so they could catch fish, and made some fish bait to take on board. 

Leo also went scuba diving and fishing—however he was the only one to see a penguin when he looked through the telescope.

 Ayla captained the ship when Mathew, Nate, Finn and Leo were off scuba diving.  Other crew members included Mia, Renee, Noah and Kuan Hai.

Building Apprentices

Our Carpentry area was very popular today.  The addition of the vice to our table allowed us to use the handsaw and hacksaw easily.  Tool belts were handy for holding our builders pencil and tape measures too.  The hand drill was of particular interest to Nate - however we managed to bend the drill bit!  Perhaps I hadn't installed it properly.  Wood was measured and cut - "measure twice and cut once".  Blake, Nate and Mathew even painted their work.  Learning how to use the tools safely is part of the process in becoming a builder/carpenter.  Well done team.