Tasman

I am going on a unicorn to the North Pole.

Taylor

We are in jail because we were being mean. We can write on the walls.

Shawn

I see caterpillars on the swan plants.

Sabrina

I like monsters. They have big arms.

Jessica

I have a monster. It has claws and it is sad.

Jeherson

I have a monster toy and it has hair. It has feet and hands.

Hailey

I am watching a butterfly.

Finn

I have a super robot.

Alex

I see a rabbit on a speed boat.

Friday 11th June

This is a story composed with the children about our trip to the museum and what stood out about the trip for them.
On Friday we went to the museum. Before we left school we put on our safety vests and packed our lunch boxes and drink bottles into our school bags. We went in parents cars to the museum, we parked by the gardens. We walked over a bridge and on a path through the gardens. We saw lots of big trees, fantails, monarch butterflies and gum nuts. When we got to the museum we looked at the old street with the old shops. We saw an old dolls house, guns, bikes and pretend people. Then Anthony came and got us and took us to the Discovery Room. He had a giant bee, it was a girl because it had a stinger. When girl bees sting something they die. He told us about how they have 3 body parts and 6 legs. The bee had eyes on top of its head so that it could see things coming. Insects can’t walk in a straight line, they zigzag. We then talked about spiders. A spiders brain is where our tummies are and his tummy is in his head, cephalothoraxes. When his tummy gets full the food starts filling up his legs. Spiders can have 2,4,6,8 or 0 eyes. Spiders that have no eyes live in dark places like caves. Even though spiders and insects can have lots of eyes they can not see very well. We got to look at some tarantulas we saw Rod Nee the red kneed tarantula walking around his home and we also saw Coco, a Costa Rican striped knee tarantula, she was 16yrs old and could live to be 30.
King Kong was a Goliath Tarantula, he will grow as big as a dinner plate, he was hiding and he was hard to see. Anthony showed us Coco’s exoskeleton from when she had moulted. We went into a room and all the walls were butterflies. There were draws full of insects and spiders that we could have a look at. We played on the computers and looked at bugs under a microscope. When we had finished we looked at a mummy, she was wrapped in bandages and in a box, there were lots of little pictures painted on the box the pictures told her story instead of using letters and words. There was an

x-ray of her and we could see her skeleton. Then we went through the moa cave. We left the museum and had a picnic lunch at the playground, we got to play on the playground and then we went back to school.

Wednesday 9th June

Today we had a large whitetail spider delivered to our classroom.
Jessica: They can eat your skin.
Sabrina: If it eats all your skin, you’ll be dead.
Jessica: You’ll be just like me and it will be red.
Jeherson: I see his eyes.
Shawn: It’s a girl it has a long back.
Jessica: It has red on its legs. (Further justification it is a girl)
Jeherson: It’s a boy, I see some stripes on his legs.
Taylor: He’s pretending he’s dead.

Later in the day some workmen began digging a large channel outside our classroom using small diggers. The children spent sometime watching them, trying to decide what they were doing.
Jessica: I think they might be fixing pipes.
Jeherson: Maybe they’re looking for ants.
We then imagined how many ants we would have found if we had, had a digger to search rather than just our little trowel.

Friday 4th June

Today Daniel, Caitlin, Nicole and Tim from 8B7 came to take the children ant hunting. The children went out with collecting containers and card to pick the ants up with. They ended up hunting down behind our classroom and when digging in some soft soil they managed to find some ants busy scurrying around. They brought the ants inside and carefully using a spoon, picked them up and poured them into the prepared ant farm. They found 7 ants in total. Now the children need to keep the ants covered and feed them small bits of fruit and wait to see if they dig any tunnel for us to look at. Thanks for your help 8B7.

Thursday 3rd June

Today during reading, a child from Room 1 came to our class with a sealed ice-cream container. I asked him what it was and he told us that it was a speedy spider and that it had been running over the desk, so Mrs Gleeson caught the spider and sent it for us to have a look at. We opened the container and looked at the spider with a magnifying glass, we could see the hairs on its legs. It had white spots and stripes all over its body and orangey-brown front legs. Because it was a house spider and lived inside we let it go inside and watched it scurry about the floor, it disappeared under the teachers whiteboard where it was nice and dark.
Later in the day Jeherson brought in a plastic bag for us to look at inside was a dead ladybug and a beetle. We took them out of the bag and put them into a bug keeping container. We continued packing our bags until we noticed that the beetle was eating the ladybird. It was very hungry and ate very fast.
Taylor: When is it going to finish?
Jeherson: Look it is taking the wings off.
Miss Bell: Why do you think it did that?
Jessica: Because it doesn’t like them.
Sabrina: Poor little guy (ladybird)
Alex: Insects eat bugs, Do they eat Rhino Beetles?
Sabrina: Dragonflies
Jessica: Spiders can eat dragonflies.
Jessica then focussed on the beetle itself
Jessica: Is that its antennas they are very long.
So today we learn the insects and spiders both eat other insects, the children at this stage have not asked the question, do insects eat spiders?

Gymnastics- Tuesday 8th June

Today at Gym the children practiced forward and backward rolls, high bars, parallel bars, ropes and rings.