Kia ora and welcome to Mahoe in 2012.

This term our class grew and all the children have settled in and are all working really well together.

We have blasted off to space and have been busy learning all sorts of things about space. What are the planets? What is the sun? What is a star? Now we are moving onto the seasons and Matariki. We had a great visit to the Carter Observatory in week 5.

We have been trying to get out and learn some big balls skills. Depending on the weather!

The children have been writing explanations on space topic. They have started to write explanations about the life cycle of a butterfly and how clouds tell us the weather.

They have also been creating some fantastic space art work with Liz McLean and Caroline. You can see some on the walls outside the classroom where the children hang up their bags.

We are finding out how much things weigh and are enjoying using all the scales that we have in the classroom. We have learnt about ‘ty’ numbers from twenty – ninety and ‘teen’ numbers from eleven – nineteen. They are also learning how to add and subtract with numbers up to five using one hand and using materials to solve bigger problems in addition and subtraction.

It’s been fun having Dave come in and teach us some things on air and he has brought us in a new …

Another great term with a great group of children.

Lizzy Luman and the children of Mahoe.

  This term in Mahoe we have become researchers! We have been working hard in buddies and on our own to measure body parts using string.  We measured our height, hands, feet, around our heads, our pinkies and ears.  We have been estimating which body parts we think will be longer and then measuring and checking to see if we were right.  We found out that all the way around your head is a lot longer than we thought! We worked as a whole class and put the string showing our height into height order from shortest to tallest.  We realised that we may have made some mistakes with our measurements because some people’s string was a lot taller than they were! We also found out that your ear is about the same length as your pinky.

We have also been researching information about the human body.  We are working in groups and on our own to find out interesting information about different systems within the body.  Fortunately, we have had a parent expert come in and talk to us about bodies, x-rays and surgery!  In addition to that we have been using the laptops and searching on cool sites like Kidshealth and Scholastic Kids.  We have been finding information and keeping track of what we are learning with note-taking sheets and organised group research folders.  It’s been exciting to explore all the intricacies of the human body and to be real researchers asking questions, making predictions and hypotheses and gathering information to answer our questions! It’s been very fun and I can’t want to hear about all of the neat things Mahoe has learned about their topics!  Gillian Menaker