Welcome to Theatreland!

A warm welcome to our newest class member, Melissa!

And then a theatre was born....!

The children came up with an idea of what we could make using simple machines.  They designed a stage, and then grew it into a theatre!  They had to work out what was needed, how to make it moveable around the classroom, and how to hang curtains without putting holes in our ceiling.  Here is their planning:

They then built a model theatre each to test their planning:

Rafaella

Abel

 Finished models.

How to build a theatre at your place!

Kind Mr Taylor set to work on a real size theatre for us, using our design:

  

Mr Taylor covered a pallet crate with Nana's spare carpet, to make the stage.

The children then worked out during the week that the stage needed wheels on it, with a lever brake for safety.

The front posts were put on using bolts and nuts.

Mr Taylor loves his special drill!  He made these holes for the curtain rail.

      

He is using the special drill to drill holes into the posts for the curtain rail.  The drill then helped him to screw the curtain rail onto the posts.

A theatre is born...

   

just like our design!

We have been making peg puppets for our home theatres:

Iris teaching Rafaella how to make peg puppets.

Tanushi teaching Mia-Leigh how to make peg puppets.

Riana teaching Kendall how to make peg puppets.

Sana with her stage and peg puppets, ready for play at home!

Roll up! roll up! come and see the performers!

Ordering pizza:

"Hello? Paea's Pizza! What would you like?"  

"Two pepperoni pizzas please" said Robert.

Play:  Going through the drive-through at McDonalds

Act 1:  Riana is taking Kendall's order at the drive-through.

Act 2: Mia-Leigh and Tanushi are making two happy meals.

Act 3:  Riana is delivering the happy meals and drinks to Kendall's car.

The performers learning how to take a bow at the end of their play!

Spiderman (Isaac) and Mr Policeman (Abel) also went through

 the drive-through!

The Policeman is calling "McDonalds" to make his order from his 'Police Station'.

The stage is also used for our "news" sessions.  Kendall is telling us about her gumball toy.

Abel is telling us about his pokemon toy.

Criston and Paea

The stage is also used as an 'office' for students to use - like practising their ring words together.

Helping each other with their ring words:

Rosie being helped by Riana.

Abel being helped by Isaac.

Stanley helping Ramon.

Sometimes we put maths, writing, spelling and art all together at once!

This is our roll-a-dice activity that we practise once a week.

This really helps us with recognising words, symbols and writing neatly - well done Radeesh!

William, Oliver, Rosie, Ramon, Liam, Rafaella and Robert have been learning about what comes before and after when working with numbers, colours and shapes.

Sometimes we make MART (maths art).  Here is what Mia-Leigh decided to do after she had completed the "join-the-dots" activity (practising the order of numbers) - she coloured in the ponies, cut them out, and made a new picture out of them!  Ka pai!

Future engineer: Abel

Maybe our future engineer Abel is working out a way to fix Auckland's carparking problem?  This is his design.  He wanted to use all of the square pieces (big and small) to make something big!  Awesome!

Scooter time!

We had scooter lessons!  Here is Matt talking to us about the scooter course.

The pretend pedestrian crossing - we learned to walk our scooters over this.

This is Criston walking over the pretend driveway - see the car parked up the driveway?

Liam is practising walking over the pedestrian crossing.

At morning tea time, the juniors had a scooter rink!  

"It was such awesome fun!" said Abel.

Book Fair in the library!

It is book week next week (25-29 June), and after our scooter lesson, we had a sneak peak in the library at the Book Fair and made a list of the books we liked!

Teacher:  Miss Mia-Leigh

Mia-Leigh took a science lesson with the help of her mermaid.  We were seeing if the mermaid's tail would change colour if it taken was out of cold water and put into warm water.  We think the mermaid got a bit tired of changing colour, because she wouldn't change her colour tail for us that day... but we had fun trying!

The Family Room

Life in the family room can get pretty hectic!

There are phonecalls to make...   (Criston and Ramon)

food to prepare for baby... (Paea and baby)

banquets to prepare....

(phew! Criston, Preston, Stanley, Riana and Kendall)

special cakes to organise...

(this was a prop needed for a performance!)

and sometimes a good ol' girls together!

(Iris, Kendall, Tanushi, Rafaella and Riana)

Hey! have you heard about the inclined plane?

We have been looking at another simple machine: the inclined plane.  We are transfixed by it!  The children found ramps, rooves and inclined plane shapes all week!  We decided to make a marble run.  They got into teams, drew their plan, and made it happen.  We then all took turns at each others marble runs!

Planning what our marble runs might look like.

Tanushi testing out one marbel run.

Marble run with plan beside it.

Preston experimenting with an inclined plane for a ramp, a double ramp!    Paea, Preston, Stanley and Criston testing out the longest ramps, and which car goes the fastest!

Stanley, Robert and Isaac went outside to look for inclined planes and discovered, the ramp, but more importantly this rainbow! - "Quick Mrs Taylor, you have to come and take a photo of the rainbow!" said Robert.

And after everything we do, every day ... there is ALWAYS time for construction fun!

Thanks for visiting our blog!

mā te wā!  

(see you later!)

Mrs Taylor