Monarch Caterpillars

We have a swan plant at school and today we noticed all the caterpillars on it. There are at least 100! They have eaten lots of the leaves and some caterpillars are starting to make cocoons. Garth took this photo today on an iPad.

                                       

Libby had her Face Painted

The children finish the week with a programme called Chice and Challenge. Libby chose to have her face painted. Alaina is the artist who comes to help us with the programme. They both have talent, don't you think?

Discovery Time "Sowing the Seeds"

This term we have been learning about Nurturing and Nourishing seeds. We have learned what seeds need to grow and we have done some experiments to prove that they need light, water and soil.
Today we put our learning into practice and we went to the Secret Garden to plant seeds. One group made a popcorn garden, and another decided to make teepees for beans to grow up. Another group made hanging baskets for the fence while another group planted seeds to make a picture on the ground. The last group planted a welcome sign for Room 4 outside their classroom. When it grows you will be able to see what words they wrote!

Fun Day After the Power Cut

Today was the first day back at school since the strong winds that blew down the school boundary trees. We walked down to the domain for a day full of fun activities.

                                 

School open Friday

Congratulations on your A+ Adaptability as we struggle with the challenge of no power. We have no indication as yet when power will be restored to school. We plan to open school on Friday provided the weather is fine, regardless of the lack of power.

Some things you need to know: The back gate to school via the field and Secret Garden are both locked and closed until further notice. This is a safety issue because of tree damage and it is likely that these gates will be locked for the rest of Term 3.

On Friday afternoon we are planning a fun event at the Domain for the children to welcome them back to school. We will be leaving for a picnic lunch and activities at 12pm and welcome you to join us. Subway will run as normal. Icy-slicy will be postponed until next Friday.

Please note that with the power being out, we have no phones, heating or alarm systems. We will leave it to your discretion as to whether you send your children to school. If the weather should turn cold or wet, these plans will need to be reviewed. The school will open unless you are advised that it is closed by school websites, Facebook and the More 92 FM radio station.

School closed again - Thursday 12th September

Good morning whānau

Due to now power, phone and alarms at Springston School we will be closed again today...

Thursday 12th September

Thanks

Springston Staff 

School closure Wednesday 11th September

Kia ora whānau

Due to the extreme weather and wind during the night, the power is off at school. We also have a few trees down and damage to school property.

School will be closed today - Wednesday 11th September

If you and your children are on school property, then please be aware that there are a number of fallen trees on the field and the bike track. These are roped off, but we ask you to supervise your children at all times outside of the school day 9-3pm to ensure everyones safety.

Thank you

Springston Staff

Book Week

To complete the excitement of Book Week we had a "Dress Up As A Favourite Book Character Day" today. Look at all the wonderful characters we can read about. We had a great day and it was amazing to see everyone looking so different. Even QT dressed up as Pooh Bear!

  

Piper's Fotobable

Piper read her book called "Danger"so beautifully this morning that we recorded her on Fotobabble so her family can hear her.

PMP Perceptual Motor Programme

Twice each week we go to the Springston Hall and learn to do a lot of physical activities. We balance, climb, skip, jump, march, swing, bounce and catch. Every day there is something new to learn. We love it.

PMP Perceptual Motor Programme on PhotoPeach

Listen to Max Reading

Max came to school on the bus this morning and the first thing he did when he came in was read this story. We hope you enjoy it too.

Class Act

Fun at the Botanical Gardens

To begin our term's focus of Nurture and Nourish, we went to the gardens and Dean's Bush to study why it is important to nurture and nourish plants. We learnt how big plants grow, and why they are important to us, and to birds and bugs. We put blindfolds on so we could feel the plants. And we looked at bugs through a magnifying glass. We found worms, eggs, spiders, and beetles living in the leaf mulch under the trees. We found a stick insect and we heard the birds singing in the trees.
We had a lovely day.

Welcome Josh

It was Josh's first day at school yesterday. This is a photo of him waiting for the bus, because we were going on a trip to the gardens. Welcome to Springston School Josh.

Max's Story

Max wrote the words of the song we sang at the concert last night.

I am a pohutakawa tree.
Plant me in the ground and water me
and it will continue to grow so big.

The Pohutakawa Tree

WOW! Tonight we are going to perform in front of a huge audience. We are going to sing The Pohutakawa Tree and the Room 4 is going to dance all around us and be little fantails as we sing Cheeky Little Fantail. It will be part of our celebration of Kiwiana. Wish us all the best for tonight!!!

Maori Language Week

Listen to the fotobabble we made this morning of our class welcoming each other in the morning. Sometimes the children answer in various languages, but this week we are replying in Maori. We say "kia ora" which means "hello", and we ask "kei te pehea koe?". The answer is usually "kei te pai." which means we are fine.

Growing Beans

Today the Monkey Tails read a book called "Sally's Beans". They read the book to the whole class and then we all planted 3 beans in a special pottle. We are going to have a competition to see which beans grow the fastest and the tallest.

 

The pottle was just like cardboard when we first got it. It was hard and we couldn't plant the seeds in it. Then Mrs Rose put them all in a container and poured hot water all over them. They expanded and became soft and squishy. We planted the beans and put our name tags in so we can see who has the fastest growing beans. When they grow we can take them home.

Maui Catches the Sun

Mrs Rose read Maui to us. Maui is a book. The book is about the sun. We have it at Pre-school and school. Maui is my favourite book. Maui has a special jawbone.

By William

We hope you are coming!

Milk in Schools

On Friday we had our first "milk in schools". Our buddies showed us how to get the straw out without taking the wrapper off the side of the box. And after we had drunk the box dry we learnt how to fold the box so it can be recycled and made into roof tiles. It was a bit tricky and we will need a bit more practice to get it right.

Parachute Fun

At Springston School the New Entrants to the Year 1 class are invited to a party before they start their pre entry visits. On Friday six children were entertained by some senior class leaders and our class. In spite of the wintery weather we played games, read stories and played with the parachute. Then we got to eat yummy party food prepared by the catering team. They were given a starting school pack as a present to take home.

Kiwi Kai

This week we made a pavlova and covered it with cream and kiwi fruit. We ate it with hokey pokey ice cream.
YUM!

The recipe was:

 6 egg whites
1 1/2 cups of castor sugar
2 teaspoons of corn flour
2 teaspoons of vinegar
vanilla essence
2 tablespoons of hot water

Beat egg whites until light and fluffy. Then add the sugar and
the other ingredients. Beat for 15 minutes until disolved.

Cook on non stick paper for 1 1/2 hours on a moderate heat and then turn the oven off. Leave the pav in the oven until it is cold, or over night.

YUMMY


We made ANZAC biscuits too. We needed lots of Mums to help that day.

Kiwiana Kidpix

Today we used the laptops to write our names and draw a picture. We had to draw something that reminded us of why we are special in New Zealand. You might have to look sideways at this, sorry!

 Kidpix Kiwiana on PhotoPeach

Shape Explorers

This week we are being "Shape Explorers" in our class. We are learning to find shapes around our school and to follow directions to get to them. Here we are beginning to find some shapes that will be useful when we go exploring!

William's Fotobabble

William writes wonderful stories. Please listen to him reading his story about QT's sleepover at William's house. QT goes home with someone in our class every night. He has had some amazing adventures including a trip to Australia, and a ride on a horse. William had a picnic with QT.

Buddies

All the Year 1 children have a Buddy from the senior classes. They are sent a letter at home welcoming them to our school and include some of their interests or hobbies. The buddies become a friendly face in the playground, and they listen to reading, make special occasion cards and help the younger children at sports events such as the triathlon or the upcoming Fun Run.
Merrick is reading to his new buddy Hamish.


Jackson and Toby find a common interest in books.

Katie's Fotobabble

Katie has written a really long story today. If you listen carefully she will read it to you. We recorded this on Fotobabble on the iPad today. Watch this space for our other great authors reading their work.

Max's Great Reading

We were learning how to use the camera on the ipads and decided to take a video of our reading. We learned to keep the iPad steady by resting it on the table or our knees. We learned that we have to speak clearly when we read and that we have to be quiet when someone else is recording! And just listen to our great reading.

Katie's First Reading Movie

Boat Day

Recently Room 8 and Room 4 celebrated the end of a wonderful swimming season with a day where the children could bring bath toys, flippers, life jackets, floating aids and boats. As you can see from these photos we all had a lot of fun, with a serious message of water safety as well.

Boat Day on PhotoPeach

Our First iPad Movies

The children in Room 8 are learning to use the movie camera on the iPads. We worked in pairs and one child read their favourite book while the other one recorded them using the iPad. We had to think about lots of things, like keeping the iPad still, and not chopping off the book.

  

Aren't we great readers?

Beach Stories

Look at the great stories we wrote about the beach today.
Some of us are learning to write our name, and some of us can copy words to write a story. Some of us can write some good words by ourselves and we are trying to write the sounds we hear in new words.
We have some really good artists in our class.

More Beach Photos

We made faboulous sandcastles when we went to the beach. Georgie, Piper and William worked very hard. When we went for our swim the waves came right up and washed our sandcastles away.