Cascabel

Thanks so much to Andrea for introducing Room 7 to Christmas Carols that she taught us in Spanish. The children have been so lucky to have Andrea spend her valuable time teaching the children simple phrases, days of the week, numbers to 20 and two lovely carols. We have thoroughly enjoyed the experience and hope many continue to further their education in the future. I know I hope to.

Down The Back Paddock.

Today the children of Ashley School were lucky enough to have a number of excellent tutors talking to our children regarding 'Safety on the farm and roads as well as Civil Defence.  They talked with a policewoman, a rural fire officer, a dog safety officer, as well as personnel from C. D.

Here are some of the things the children learned:

Don't ever cross the road without a bigger person says Jordan. 

Before you touch a dog ask it's owner if it is ok says Charlotte.

When you go swimming in the river always check the currant and the depth of the water says Neve.

When dogs are eating stay well back until they have finished says Ollie.

Don't go into farm paddocks without asking the owner because the animals might be dangerous says Emily.

Check the Civil Defence page at the back of the phone book tonight says Jayden.

Check your smoke alarm to see if it is working says Neve

Pet Day 2010

Last Friday was Pet day at Ashley School. We had great fun making piggy faces on biscuits and animal masks to wear.

Check out some of the pets ...

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

and crafts that we brought along to school.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Neve's Narrative Published by Neve.

Mermaid

 World

Once upon a time there was a mermaid called Lucky. She is called Lucky because

she gets everything she wants. Like a pearl necklace and a seaweed bracelet.

Yesterday she went to the sea café and she ate chocolate seaweed and had a plum                   

smoothy. Today Lucky has stayed at home and is asleep in the coral under the sun.

One day Lucky wasn’t a mermaid she was a person. Lucky was so amazed! Then she saw five toes but Lucky didn’t know what they were. Lucky didn’t know she could walk. When she tried to walk she always fell on her back. Just then a little girl came and helped Lucky up. The little girl was called Rosie. “Emma”! called Rosie, look what I found on the sand asleep. Emma came rushing out of the house. “Where am I”? Lucky asked the two children. “You are in Waikuku”. “You can live with us if you like” said Emma. Lucky thought for a while and then said yes. “You can sleep with me if you like” said Emma, “I have got two beds.” “Come on” said Rosie “lets get something to eat”, and they all ran inside. 

When they were inside Rosie and Emma said together “we will show you our rooms” and so they did. First they went into Rosie’s room, then they went into Emma’s room. “You both have awesome rooms” said Lucky. Lucky, said Emma “do you have any pictures of mermaid world?” Lucky thought for a moment, and said “I left them at home.” Rosie said its time for lunch, mum had made their favourite lunch. After lunch they went outside to play duck duck goose. Then they saw something shining in the sun. “Look”! Shouted Emma in surprise. They all looked at the bright thing standing on the other side of the ocean. “How do we get there” asked Rosie. Lucky said “I will swim to the other side of the ocean.”

“But how” said Rosie, “you haven’t got a tail.” Lucky said I will go down to the bottom of the sea and find my mum, so she can turn me into a mermaid and I can see what that is. “But that means we can’t see what it is.” said Emma. “Please may we come too and see what it is like to be a mermaid.” said Rosie. “Yes.” said Lucky.

“My mum will turn you both into a mermaid so you can see what that thing is.” said Lucky. Just then, Emma said “but we can’t breathe under water and we weren’t born to be a mermaid.         

“I know” said Emma, “we can go to the underwater cave were we can breath”. But before they went Lucky saw the shiny thing was moving to them, Lucky looked a bit closer and saw her mum’s diamond chair, but there was nothing in it. Then Rosie saw a note stuck to the side it said,

 “Dear Lucky,

Please come and help me. I can make you and your friends a mermaid if you will sit in my chair. Ps please keep it a secret”

 

“I’ll go first” said Lucky,

So she got in and was turned into a mermaid, “me next” said Rosie as she climbed in, and turned into a mermaid.

Then it was Emma’s turn, she got in and was turned into a mermaid like the others.

When they were all mermaids they all swam to the castle in the under water land.

Then they saw a big grey shark which was asleep in front of the shiny blue castle.  

So they swam under the shark and saved the queen so she could rule the ocean again. So they all lived happily ever after.

Written by Neve Sewell

Fabulous Fish!

Today we used our creative skills to make fabulous fish for art with the children from Room 6! We worked in groups and had a round robin making and doing fishy things! Some of us played fish maths games while others looked in books and found fish that they would like to make using the Morphun blocks and foam shapes or draw on kidpix. It was lots of fun!We will be thinking about where fish live, what they do, what they eat and what they look like over the next couple of weeks. Can you tell us any interesting facts?

Peas Please!

Last week we were sad to farewell Mavis who had been coming to help the children of Room 7 for a number of years at reading time. She was always there to hear reading, help with writing , put books away and assist with related reading activities. Here is a photo of Celeste, Jaxon, Jordan and Charlotte standing beside their pot of newly planted peas. We are all looking forward to enjoying the 'fruits of their labour.'

Look in the window. Who do you see?

On Friday we learnt more about using adjectives (describing words). We decided that adjectives help make our sentences more interesting and help build better pictures of things in our head. Check out more of our pictures and rhymes about jungle animals in the classroom. We had to think of some words that described how our animals looked or behaved and use them in our rhyme.

The Gumby Shop

Today we really enjoyed reading the story The Gumby Shop by Joy Cowley. We thought that a shop where you could buy extra-ordinary things like cheese from bumble bees and bears with electric hair would be fun to visit! We were word detectives who hunted for rhyming pairs in the story and we practiced using different voices to make the story sound more interesting.

Printmaking

Last term our art focus was print-making. We used teddy bears as our motivation! The first part of the process was to learn how to make a cardboard printing block. We then made lots of prints using crayons and paint. We learnt that we needed to hold the paper very still and press firmly with the crayon or rollers to get good prints. We were pleased with our results.

Last day for Swimming Lessons.

This week was the last day for swimming lessons for the Ashley School at Dudley Park. It was great to see the increase in confidence and the progress made by many of our children.

At the end of the final lesson some of the lucky ones were allowed to experience the pool with the waterfall and the current.

The smiles on their faces show it all.

Teddy Bears Picnic

On Friday we had a Teddy bears picnic with Room 6 and the Stars. We made bear masks so we could go in disguise and shared lots of yummy bear food, including honey! We had lots of fun making houses, jewelery and vehicles for our bears too! Next week we hope to go on a bear hunt if the weather is fine!

Science Day

This morning all the children at Ashley School worked with various science experiments. In the Junior School we looked at 'Bubbling Wizards Brew', making big bubbles, play dough, sherbet and slime to making butter. What a lot of new experiences the children had.

Here some of our children are enjoying the feel of 'slime'.

A big thank you to all our parent helps and to to the parents who came along to observe.

Teddy Bears Galore!

Over the next few weeks we will be inviting teddy bears to visit school on Fridays as part of our Language and Art units. Today we had fun making our own stuffed teddy bears!

Junior School Library Visit.

Today the Junior School classes made a visit to the Waimakariri Library in Rangiora. How cool they all looked in their fluro vests. The librarians were fantastic and explained how useful their website was for finding out on-line information. All you needed was your library card and a pin number. Make sure that next time you go into the library ask at the desk to have a pin number attached to your card. Then 'zap' you or your children can access a child friendly site for all levels

to discover interesting facts about, 'well' almost anything. Give it a go.

Here we see the look of concentration of some of our children listening intently to Joanne (a librarian) sharing the story of 'The Shark in the Park'. The looks tell it all!

Printmaking

Over the last few weeks we have been learning to make a variety of prints using both crayons and paint. We have made these frogs using potato prints for the body. We drew on the legs and faces with crayons and dyed the backgrounds. We are really pleased with how they turned out.

We were so interested in frogs we decided to use our white thinking hats to look on the internet and in books to find out more facts about frogs. We were amazed at some of the information! Did you know that some big frogs can eat small snakes?

Frog Facts!

We are using our white hats to find facts out about frogs? Can you help us?

Developmental Fun!

On Fridays we make and do lots of things at Developmental. Developmental encourages the development of our fine motor coordination and provides important opportunities for us to develop our oral language,creative talents, listening skills and ability to follow instructions.

We encourage children to bring along ideas for other children to make.

This week Jaya from Room 6, with the help of her mum Anna brought along money boxes for us to make for our pocket money.

Georgia- Mae and Samantha from the senior classes also came along to help us make rain makers. We hammered nails into cylinders and put macaroni and rice inside to slide pass the nails and make the sound of the rain.

Another narrative. Written by Neve

                                      The Little Bike

Today Monkey and Little Teddy are going to the toy shop . "How are we going to get there"? asked Little Teddy to monkey." We are going by horse" said monkey. Little Teddy looked scared. 

"What's wrong little Teddy". said monkey. "I don't know how to ride a horse" said Little Teddy.     At nine o clock they were looking at the toys. "Look"! shouted Monkey. There were two bikes. One was blue and the other was red. Little Teddy began to cry. 

"Why are you crying little Teddy,"asked monkey. 

"I don't know how you ride a  bike" said little Teddy.

 I'll show you how" said monkey with a grin. So they bought the bikes and went to the park.

First put your foot on the pedal then sit on the seat,next start to pedal fast and don't stop. So Little Teddy did what monkey had said with monkey by his side.

" I'm doing it" said Little Teddy. He was so pleased he was doing it that he went home to tell mum.  

Week 3

This week the children have been learning how to write a narrative in their draft writing books.

We began by looking at a series of pictures and discussed what was happening. I was delighted with the story language that the children came up with.

                               

                                           The Yellow Bus      

At home Lily and Josh painted a box yellow, and black for the wheels.

 It was too small so they painted another box then it was just right for the two kids.

                                                                                                                              Emily.

                                          The Yellow Bus

Josh painted a big box. He painted it yellow with black wheels. It looked like a bus.

Lily got into the box. She broke the box. Lily got a bigger box. She painted it yellow

 with  black wheels. Josh and Lily got into the box and they went for a ride in the

           yellow bus.              Alexis.

                    

                                         The Yellow Bus.

       

Lily and Josh painted a box and thet had to wait for the bus to dry. The box was too 

little so Lily and Josh had to find another box. Josh painted the box again. They got

into the box and it was just right for the two kids to play in.

                                                              Jaxon

Term 3

Thank you to everyone for all their hugs and well wishes as I returned to school this week.  That, along with being with your wonderful children helped me get through the week.

This week has seemed to have flown by. It was my first visit to Dudley pool but the children seemed quite at home there. I'm looking forward to seeing great progress made. 

White Out Day.

OLE  OLE  OLE

All the children at Ashley school were invited to support our wonderful Soccer Team at the WORLD CUP by dressing in white in preparation for their Friday morning game. Here is our happy team of Room 7 children. Psst ! It was also noted that a number of teachers showed their support too. This was seen by dressing gowns, turbans, aprons, surgical stockings and jodhpurs- all in white. What ever were they thinking of ????

What an evening!!!

WOW! WOW! WOW!

What an amazing evening Friday night was! It was a marvelous opportunity for our community to come together and celebrate the enormous efforts put in by our children, our families, friends and staff in an event that will be remembered by many for a very long time!

The huge marque with a run way lit up by fairy lights and surrounded by beautifully set up tables and an audience who was buzzing with excitement provided a fantastic setting for us to show case our Creepy Crawlies garments that we have been working so hard on all term.

Check out the slideshow below with just a few of the many images captured on the evening of our Creepy Crawlies. Enjoy!

We are so proud of all the children in Rooms 6 & 7 . It was a huge night for you all and you showed great courage and pride in sharing your creations with our community! You are fantastic!

Thank you once again to everyone who helped us along the way. Your efforts were truly amazing and enabled a small school like Ashley to put on a top class extravaganza.

Our ' Inquiry' on worms.

As you may have already heard by now we are studying worms as part of our Inquiry. After making a multi-layered worm farm (beside the school garden) we proceeded to make a Vivarium 'a home for worms'. Pictured below is our class vivarium . The  layers began with damp  newspaper, followed by dirt, flour, sand and more dirt. Finally leaves and scraps went on the top. Several big fat Tiger worms were selected to live in our vivarium. Already the children can see how active the worms have been.

 It has been great to see the knowledge that children are bringing to this' Inquiry' and the things that we are learning on the way

Only one week to go before we walk down the run way for Wearable Arts! We are getting very excited. We hope you are too!

Language Experience

Today we read "Mr Fox" by Gavin Bishop and had fun creating animals from the story using playdough and rods!

We worked so well today that we had parachute fun before home time!

Friday

This week the Enviro group helped Room 6 & 7 children plant strawberries in our new gardens.

We are now in the final stages of preparation for the Wearable Arts show. The creepy crawlies are looking fabulous. Here are just a couple of the creations that you can look forward to seeing on the catwalk! Again we must say a big thank you for all your support both at school and home to help us.

Another busy Friday with yet more progress on our wearable arts.

We are working well as a team to make many of our creations and

lots are now onto the final touches.

Next week we will begin practicing walking down the catwalk in

preparation for the big night in only 3 weeks time!

Thanks again to all our wonderful parent helpers!

Week 6 REACH Bubble.

Todays REACH bubble was chosen by Mrs O,Loughlin as she was impressed by Emilys and Jaxons creativity on Friday.
Well done to you both.

Wearable Arts Update

We continue working very hard making our wearable arts. Thank you again for all your support. Not long to go now until the big night where our creations will be on show!