Flower Power

Spring has sprung and lots of beautiful flowers and foliage are appearing in the garden. Today we made our own flower arrangements. We had lots of different flowers and foliage most of them had their own unique fragrance and feel too, fennel which is soft and fluffy and smells like aniseed, rosemary, lavender fern and nasturtium. As well as the beauty of the flowers making us happy this was a great way to practice our fine motor skills, cutting skills and to explore with all of our senses. 

 

The slater

 This morning we were weeding the garden and found a slater bug. We were very intrigued with this little guy so we put him in a yoghurt pot for a closer look. We got our insect book out but could not find him in there. We discovered that he is not an insect but a bug as insects have 6 legs but this bug had lots of legs. We used the ipad to investigate more. He's now happily back in the garden. 

A visit from the police

With so much creative play going on the children have been using their imaginations to be police, officers, doctors and fire fighters. 

Today we had a special visit from two police officers, Constable Steve and Constable Paul from the Howick Police station.  

They came to visit to tell us all about what they do for their important job in our community. 

They showed us their uniform, their hat and the things that they carry on their vest including their baton, handcuffs, radio and tazer. 

We all got to try the police hat on and some of us wanted to try the handcuffs on too. 

Maybe one day some of us will be real officers and help serve our community

! 

The New Potting Table

While we were in the community garden picking vegetables for our noodles we got to check out an exciting new addition. This beautiful decorated table has been put here to be used as a potting station for our tamariki. We will be able to visit it and plant seeds to be cultivated and grown. What a great opportunity for us to be more involved in the community garden and to learn more about garden to table.  We are very grateful to Taini and Margaret for helping to make this happen and are looking forward to lots of seed raising in the future!

 

From Garden To Table

It was harvest time today at Uxbridge, the garden was overflowing with delicious vegetables just waiting to be eaten. We have some great kaitiaki here who helped to look after our garden from seed to plant, how wonderful for the tamariki to be able to see and enjoy the fruits of their labour (or vegetables for that matter)!

 

We had broccoli, leek, spinach, silverbeet and some very interesting looking carrots. With a quick peek over to the community garden next door, we noticed some more vegetables to add; purple chard, celery and kale. What a selection!

We washed them up and enjoyed looking at all the different variety of vegetables in front of us! Teacher Laura thought the broccoli were flowers but the tamariki quickly corrected here and knew the names of some of the vegetables.

Roman held up a carrot and said " It looks like a crab." before pulling out another, "this is a teeny one." and sure enough it was, we agreed that it must have been from a fairy garden.

Now it was time for the chefs to join in. Chopping, grating, peeling and tearing we set to work to get the job done. We took turns and helped each other out. "This is hard!" Tristan said as he tried to chop the carrots. Zac was happy with himself " Look, I put this into pieces!" he held up his two pieces of carrot proudly. "I can do it!" Otto added.

Luckily, when it came time to cook, there was still lots of helpers ready to help add vegetables and stir. We were ready to make a restaurant and it sure smelt like one, beautiful aromas filled the centre! The Uxbridge noodle and broccoli house was nearly ready.

 A few final touches to the table and we were ready to EAT!

Many gave the chopsticks a good go. Josh enjoyed two bowls because his Dad makes delicious noodles at home too. Ava G said "It is yummy!" And then... there were slurping and sucking sounds. Some of the children were expertly dodging the vegetables whilst others slurped up the whole lot!

And voila, there we have it from garden to table!

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, who do you see?

 The story Brown Bear, Brown Bear has been a popular one lately, so we decided to make it into an interactive story that allows the children to be the animals in the books. 

The story starts with Brown Bear up the front and everyone together calls out "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, who do you see? and then Brown bear chooses who he sees sitting on the mat. and has to say, "I see a Blue horse looking at me" and so on. 

Each time the child with that animal gets to stand up the front and respond to what animals they see. 

This is a simple yet effective way of getting children confident and competent in standing up the front of the class, having a role to play and lines to recite. 

We have also added the names and colours of the animals in Te reo on the back so once we are confident and familiar with this process we will challenge ourselves in another language. 

Brown Bear. brown bear who do you see?

"I see a blue horse looking at me!"

                                                 Blue horse, blue horse, who do you see?

                                                        "I see a white dog looking at me!"

                                               "White dog, white dog, who do you see?

                                                      "I see a Black sheep looking at me!"
                                               "Black sheep, Black sheep, who do you see?

                                                    "I see a Green Frog looking at me!"
                                               "Green Frog, Green frog, who do you see?

                                                     "I see a Brown Monkey looking at me!"
                                               "Brown Monkey, Brown Monkey, who do you see?"

                                                     "I see a Gold Fish looking at me!"
                                               "Gold Fish, Gold Fish, who do you see?

                                                       "I see a Yellow Duck looking at me!"
                                              "Yellow Duck Yellow Duck, who do you see?

                                                       "I see a Purple Cat looking at me!"
                                              "Purple cat Purple cat, who do you see?

                                                           "I see a Red Bird looking at me!"
                                                       "Red bird, red bird who do you see?

                                            Lot's of our friend's had turns at this fun story!!!!