Book Week

This week the Kowhai Syndicate celebrated Book Week by having a dress up day on Friday. We had to come dressed up as our favourite book characters. Check out our favourite book characters below!

Book Week on PhotoPeach

Our special visitor Mike!

Yesterday a man named Mike came and spoke to us about his disability. He is visually impaired because he can not see out of one eye and in the other eye he can only see 1/4 of what most other people can see. Mike uses a magnifying glass to help him see things. Even though Mike has a disability he has still managed to play lots of sport like running, sailing and even cricket. When he is playing cricket he uses a special ball which has a bell in it so he can hear the ball coming. We think that this would be very tricky!

Yesterday we were lucky enough to have Anne come and visit us. She brought along her special friend Peddie. Peddie is her guide dog. She is three years old. She has had Peddie for about 2 years. When she wants to turn she says to Peddie 'left' or 'right'. We think he is a pretty smart dog.

She doesn't know how to read braille, but instead she has talking books and she has a talking computer!

Maori Language Week

(Photo by Akira)

As part of Maori language week we were lucky enough to have Elmus come and read the story of Hohepa te Pura or Joseph The Bull in Te Reo. We all loved the great expression that he used when he read us the story. Elmus then taught us a Maori counting game. Thankyou Elmus!

Basketball

Today we were lucky enough to have Dallas from Nelson Basketball come along and do a session with us. She taught us some new skills like passing the ball around our body and how to bounce the ball properly. Check out what we thought below.

Sally's sister Amy visits

Today Sally's twin sister Amy came and visited us. She has a disability called Cerebral Palsy. It means that she can not walk or talk. She is in a wheelchair. Sally and Amy's Mum Robyn told us that she has Cerebral Palsy. She has Cerebral Palsy because when Sally and Amy were born Amy did not get enough oxygen and this meant that part of her brain died. We asked Robyn lot's of questions about Amy's disability. Robyn bought in some of the equipment which Amy uses. We all got to have a go using the wheelchair or walking frame.After this we explored Nelson Central looking at all the things that help people that have a disability like Amy. We found the disabled toilet and noticed the ramps. We also noticed that there are a lot of steps that Amy couldn't get up, a steep hill to get up to our classroom and a speed bump which all made it tricky for Amy to get around our school.

Visitors!

Last week we had some special visitors to our classroom. Our special visitors are visiting New Zealand learning all about sustainability. We showed them our movie that we made about all the different ways that we can help save the planet. We also had fun learning how to say "Hello" in their language and using google earth to explore where they come from. After this we had fun showing them what we do in music. We only showed off a little bit!!

Making toast!

How to Make Toast!

1. We first put the plug in the switch - Ta'a-Marie

2. Put the bread in to the toaster. Cassandra

3. Push the button down. Dillon

4. You wait until the toast cooks. Ali

5. We put what flavour we want on top of the toast. Joel

(We had margarine and marmite)

6. You cut it up. Finlay

If you want to cut the crusts off the side you can. Dillon

7. Eat it and say yum! Charlie and Lucy

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

In Maths we have been learning all about the days of the week. As part of this we read the story the Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Check out our retelling of the story through our movie.

On Friday to celebrate the end of term we each made a large marshmallow mouse and some baby mice. Sally decided that we would make them as we had been learning about the diagraph 'ou'. We had to use a skewer to make holes so we could poke in the licorice for their eyes and tail. They tasted yummy!

Check out the fun we had below!