A visit from Bob Kerr

We were very lucky to have Bob Kerr Visit our classroom! Bob Kerr is an illustrator and an author. Our favorite Bob Kerr stories are the ones about Mechanical Harry and all the crazy inventions that he creates!

Bob Kerr answered many of our questions. We found out that when he was a little boy, Bob Kerr used to invent things himself and that's where some of his ideas for Mechanical Harry came from.

Bob Kerr brought in examples to show us how drawings change into the pictures that we see in books. We learnt that many of his illustrations come from observing real life things! Like when Bob draws a picture of a little girl he would take a photo of a little girl and then make a drawing from that.

The small drawing that he makes are then enlarged or made bigger. Then Bob uses water colour paints to make his illustrations colourful.

In the end all of the words and illustrations are stapled together and a machine like a photo copier is used to make the books.

Bob Kerr showed us how to make observational drawing of each other. He drew pictures of Lizzie and Harper and then we all had a chance to draw a friend. We were so lucky to have such an amazing visitor! Thanks Bob!!

My Special Place

WALT (we are learning to):

1. Title
2. Start with an interesting beginning sentence
3. Use adjectives to describe our special place
4. Write about why it's our special place

Enjoy reading our wonderful stories!

Lollipop's Playland
By Sam

Lollipop's Playland has spinning things and they are fun.
And it smells like chocolate.
And it is fun because you can play with whatever you want.
Lollipop's PLayland is fun and it has a big ball pit.

The Zoo
By Kai-Matthew

My Favorite thing is to go to the Zoo.
The Zoo is so fun and good and good and good! And it has zebras and
tigers and lions.

My Cousin's House
By Angus

Their house is really big. They have two pigs and one dog. And one cat. And five or four Chicks. I have to sleep in my cousin's room. He is fourteen and my other cousin is twelve. It sounds like chicks. It smells like a pig's pen. It is hot and it is fun because I get to jump into their pool and then I will swim back to the other side of the pool. And I like feeding the chicks and the pigs. Then I go and swing on the swing and then I go and have a rest and then I wake up. Then I go watch tv then I go and play and then I go to sleep.

Some Colourful Poems

On Friday we had lots of fun writing poems about our favorite colours. Enjoy!

Pink is a party dress
Yellow is a lemon
Green is a grass hopper
Purple is grapes

By Esme

Yellow is my bedroom wall
Yellow is a bumble bee
Yellow is the hot sun
Yellow is a lemon

By Tai

White is a soft sheep
White is a soft fluffy cloud
White is freezing Ice

By Harper

Red is a big heart
Red is blood
Red is our table
Red is lava
Red is in a rainbow

By Evie

Blue is the sky
Blue is a white board pen
Blue is a nice flower
Blue is a table

By Angus

Red is blood
Red is my table
Red is a bike

By Baxter

Pink is a flower
Pink is a balloon
Pink is a t-shirt
Pink is a piece of pink paper

By Chelsea

Green is a piece of grass.
Red! Is... Some lava.
Black is a piece of black paper
Blue is a pencil

By Joshua

Indigo is the colour of the rainbow

By Pippa

Red is a Honda
Red is blood
Red is lava
Red is hearts

By Zane

Green is a green apple

By Rory

Blue is the sky

By Kai

Red is a volcano
Red is a red hat
red is a red table
Red is a star fish

By Erin

Flat Stanley Update

Last week we labeled the continents on our world maps. We talked about different maps and the reasons we have them. We decided that without maps we might get lost and not be able to find our way to wherever we are going! We then looked at where we are sending Flat Stanley. The continents that Flat Stanley will be traveling to are:

Europe
North America
Australasia
Canada
Africa

We talked about the ways that mail can travel. We came up with:

1. Planes
2. Helicopters
3. Trains
4. Cars
5. Buses
6. Trucks
7. Ships

We found out that when you put something in the post you need to put a stamp on it. After looking at a variety of examples we designed our own stamps. We made sure that we included:

1. The country that the stamp was coming from (New Zealand)
2. The cost of the stamp
3. A picture of something that represents New Zealand

Next week we are going to address our envelopes and glue our creative stamps on them. The sealed envelopes will be sent home so that we can post them with our mums and dads.

We can't wait to start receiving mail so that we can learn about all the different places that Flat Stanley will travel to!

Flat Stanley

On Friday we looked at a map of the world. We then counted the different continents and found out that there are 7 continents in the world. We played a fun game to help us remember the different continents. You can practice with this game at home, just click on the link. We talked about some of the places that we are sending our Flat Stanley letters. Next week we are going to write our letters and practice addressing envelopes. We can't wait to post them!

INQUIRY

A VISIT FROM STAMFORD!

We were very lucky to have a special visitor on Friday... Stamford, Mrs Sullivan's new puppy.
Mrs Sullivan is going to bring Stamford in for another visit in one month so that we can see how he changes. We noticed his big paws so we think he is going to come back much bigger!

Here are some of the questions that we asked Mrs Sullivan:

Where did you get Stamford from (Esme)
From a breeder in Christchurch. He came in a special puppy crate in a plane!

When did you get your puppy? (Rory)
We got our puppy when he was 8 weeks old and we got him one month ago.

How do puppies Grow? (Sam)
Puppies grow by eating good healthy food.

What do puppies eat? (Evie)
Puppies eat meat and vegetables. And they have special puppy food just for puppies. Stamford eats Weet-Bix for breakfast. They drink fresh water and goat’s milk.

When do puppies bark? (Harper)
When they are happy, or scared or excited. When somebody comes to the house.

Why do they chew everything? (Holly)
Because their teeth are coming through and they need something to help their teeth push through the gums.

Blending Colours

We looked closely at some of Van Gogh's paintings. We then decided to create some of our own paintings of flowers in a vase. We blended primary colours to make secondary colours and we added white to our paints to make a lighter shade. These paintings took several sessions. First we drew outlines of our pictures in chalk, then we painted our flowers, the vase, and the table top. In the last session we painted the backgrouds a contrasting colour and made some finishing touches with pastel. Come and visit our classroom to see the finished paintings!

Flowers everywhere!

We have been learning how to make sketches of flowers. We looked closely at different types of flowers. We saw that flowers have different sized petals. Some flowers only have four of five petals while others have more then ten! We transferred our sketches onto another piece of paper and used pastels to make our flowers vibrant and colourful. We then dyed the backgrounds of our flowers with a contrasting colour. Our next project will be to study the work of Van Gogh, we are going to create our own paintings of flowers in a vase. Come and visit our classroom to see our beautiful work.

Exploding Volcano!

Room 2 and Room 4 put on their green hats (creative thinking) and became scientists!

We made our own volcano and created a chemical reaction (chemical change) by adding food colouring, liquid detergent, baking soda, vinegar and water. After mixing the baking soda and vinegar we watched the chemical reaction, green lava fizzed and bubbled out the top!!

We are interested in finding out how baking soda and vinegar CHANGE when they are mixed together.

WATCH OUR VOLCANO BUBBLE!

The Flat Stanley Project

On Friday we started a Flat Stanley project. Flat Stanley is a book by Jeff Brown about a boy named Stanley who is flattened by a bulletin board and becomes as flat as a pancake. Because he is flat he is able to fold up and travel in an envelope, and in this way he travels around the world on lots of adventures. We are each making our own Flat Stanley to post away in an envelope to someone we know in a different city/country. We are looking forward to hearing about the adventures our Flat Stanley will go on and seeing photos of him travelling in a different city. Flat Stanley will help us learn all about interesting places all around the world.

Don't forget to bring in an address of someone you know who lives in another country or in another town in New Zealand.