Flat Bush

Tena koutou katoa,

Greetings to my Tiny Teddies and whanau!

I am so glad to be able to reach out and communicate with you all via the Flat Bush school website.

Hoping you are all keeping well in your bubble?

Welcome to Term 4:

We have managed to have CRT with Ms Young and Moiho during week 1.

Room 2, has had the opportunity to learn new skills using two different shaped balls by having a go at Tag on Wednesday mornings and Basketball on Friday mornings.

Week 2:

We had fun on our school trip to the MOTAT on Thursday 22/10 we enjoyed our trip as it was a nice way to celebrate our learning that took place in the classroom last term 'force and motion'.

We sure had a blast at the MOTAT and learnt so much from our MOTAT educator  - Katherine.

I explained to my students that the holes in the desks were for 'ink pots' as back in the day they didn't have the luxury of easy to use pens!!!

This term we are going to be learning about different types of celebrations for our student inquiry.

We were so fortunate to be able to celebrate Daniels 6th Birthday at school today.

Thank you to Daniel and his family for supplying a yummy Birthday cake for us to enjoy! 

This was such a lovely way to end week 2.

Have a happy but safe long weekend and I will see you all on Tuesday week 3...

Some reminders:

Please get a hat if you haven't already got a hat for outdoor play, the sun is out in full force lately and we need to be sun smart.

Week 4:

Some exciting activities and events have taken place in Room 2 at FBS this week!

We were very fortunate to be able to go to the Greedy Cat show with the rest of the junior school on Tuesday, we came back to school and we were so excited we wrote about Greedy cat.  We also did some Greedy cat art work to display inside our classroom.

This term our student inquiry is based around celebration and all types of celebrations that we are able to enjoy with our whanau. This week we are working hard on our alphabet letter sounds and the letter names. We created cakes on weaved mats using our alphabet knowledge to join the dots.

We were lucky enough to have our basketball coaches come in to school to teach us some skills on Friday. This week I have noticed that most of my students have improved with their hand eye coordination. They have been working on their cross over dribble skill.

On Friday, we were so lucky as a school to enjoy the wonderful opportunity that allowed us to be together again. We were able to watch and laugh while we enjoyed  Duffy Theatre that took place in our school hall!

A few reminders: Please ensure your child has a hat for outdoor play as the sun is getting warmer and we need to protect our head and face from the Sun.

I will have sunblock available for students to use for outdoor activities that take place at school.

Enjoy your weekend and Remember teacher only day on Monday - week 5!

Week 6&7: Wow so much has happened in the past two weeks... Check out some snaps of Room 2 Students in action.

PMP fun with Ms Awhi on Mondays- Wednesdays from 9 - 9:30 in the school hall.

Mr Joseph Parker.....

We were so luck to have had the opportunity to have a Duffy role model assembly with a very  special 'role model' being the man himself Mr Joseph Parker!!!!!

Bike Safety session....

We had the opportunity to learn how to be safe on a bike. We learnt how to fit a helmet on correctly as well as how to balance on two wheels!

Christmas Crafts time....

I love this time of the year where we can enjoy our creative side and have some fun in class together before we move on at the end of the term.

Check out our Elves - we had some time to work on our cutting technique using scissors.

Christmas decorations:

Water Paint and Salt Christmas Art!

Play Time!!

But amongst all of this busy hands on work that we have been doing lately... We still like to use our imagination and have fun playing!!

Have a great weekend guys and I will see you all next week (Week 8).

Week 8:

This week has been an amazing week...

We have pulled out our creative skills and created some amazing crafts...

Check out our work!

Mrs Boyd was kind enough to ask Mr Boyd to make us a wooden Christmas tree - check out our cool wooden Christmas tree in class. We sure had fun decorating our decorations as well as painting our tree green.

We also painted and designed balloons for our celebration wall - check it out.

Check out our cool Christmas socks...

Thank you all of the families that made it to our celebration of success learning conferences, I truly appreciate your time and efforts.

Not long to go now..

We still have one more full week of school left as we finish for the year on the 14th December!

Next week will be another busy week with our prizegiving and the graduation assembly for the year 6 students please make sure to check the notice board out by the school gate for dates and times and check the notices on the website.

Week 10

Well as we wrap up another term, I just wanted to take this moment to thank my little 'Tiny Teddies' and their whanau. We have had to work really hard these past 4 weeks trying to catch up for lost learning time in the classroom.

I am super proud of their efforts!

I also, wanted to say a shout out to the parents for ensuring your child came to school with their bookbags, this helped them to read daily at school as well as at home.

Hope you all have a lovely break, keep safe and I will see you all in Term 4 with SUNHATS!!! 

Friday excitement:

As a class we worked on the Superhero stories together and used our creative minds to build on our characters throughout weeks 8 & 9.

Here are some pictures of our work and art to go with our stories.

The winners from our class were announce on Friday week 10 and congratulations to T-Jay & Florida (was absent today).

Some of our cool artwork!!!

Check out our Superhero stars......

Week 9

Tena koutou katoa 

This week we have been embracing and celebrating Te Reo Maori Language week at school.

We have been lucky enough to have several teachers with a wealth of Maori language, knowledge and culture to share with all the FBS students and staff at FBS...

Today we had a massive expo set up in the hall where our Tamariki were able to explore and participate in a range of activities such as poi making with Mrs Tupou, flax weaving with Ms Awhi, Ta moko face tattooing done by Ms Maggy these are just a few I have mentioned!

Our students even got to taste the traditional Maori fried bread!

We also managed to organise a three class rotation where we were able to create as well as have fun with our Tamariki doing and creating different tasks based around the Maori culture!

Check out some of our Room 2 photos...

Some information around the 'Ta moko' it is known as the traditional Māori tattooing, often on the face. It is a taonga (treasure) to Māori for which the purpose and applications are sacred. Moko (tattoos) were traditionally applied to the face and body. 

The Maori culture consider the head to be the most sacred part of the body, the most popular kind of Maori tattoo was the facial tattoo, which was composed of curved shapes and spiral like patterns of significance meaning. Often this tattoo covered the whole face and was a symbol of rank, social status, power and prestige.

Greetings to you all!

I hope you are all keeping well and thought it would be nice to share an insight of what we have been up to in class during week 7 & 8 check it out...

As we continue our learning these past two weeks we have resumed our student inquiry topic - Force and Motion!

This week we looked at force with the big idea being that the action I make creates a force which leads to a range of motions...

Rolling Marble Art...

FMS is back up and running - we are doing different motions during these physical education opportunities on Friday afternoons.

We are learning to work collaboratively as a team,  working on our fundamental skills such as developing our technique when we jump, hop, and skip..

iPad Fun:

Room 2 students have also recently had the pleasure of working on their number knowledge by playing Duck, duck, moose game on the iPads.

Another way to make learning fun!

CRT - Kia Ora Rm 2.      Let the games begin      24/8/20

I hope you are all doing well during this lock down. Unfortunately we will not get the chance to catch up today for CRT so instead Mr Moiho and myself have decided to put forward a challenge for your class. Your class will be challenging Rm 1 in a star jump challenge. When we are back at school we will get together and see who can do the most star jumps in 1 minute. If you think you can master this, then you may just win the challenge for your class. If you can make a video and send it to your teacher even better: Check the video below for details.

Updates:

Greetings whanau,

I have created some home learning activities for you to do and refer to for daily home 'learning' tasks!

Week 5 & 6 writing competition:

Welcome to week 5 & 6 home learning activities:

Mrs Mayerhofler has created a cool writing competition see poster below for details.

This is a cool writing activity you could work on at home adding to your story daily...

‘Remembering what we need to think about when we write to be good writers’ 

*Think about being creative with your stories….

*Just have a think and plan your superhero character.

*If you could be a superhero what would your superpower look like, smell like, what is your superpower?

*Think about a problem for your story and how will you save the day?

.........................................................................................................................................................................

Reading Activities for week 5 & 6:

Ask a sibling or a parent to read with you if you have story books at home.

Read a story together in your local newspaper and see if you can spot some high frequency words from your word card and circle them with a pen or pencil - see picture for an example!

See how many times the author uses these words:

-Coronavirus

-Virus

-Auckland

-Cases

-Test / tests/ testing

Count how many times they use these words in the article:

You can also learn your Emergent, Red, Yellow & Blue High Frequency words located in your learning packs/book bags

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Greetings all,

Hope you all had a lovely weekend?

A few things to remember for Week 5!!

Monday 17th (Today) Flat Bush school will be open from 9AM to 3PM to hand out home learning packs!

You will need to use the Flat Bush Rd school gate to enter the school grounds. We are also going to be contact tracing so please have the app downloaded so help speed the process of 'track and trace' LOL.

Junior school home learning packs will be handed out from Room 1 - Mrs Boyds classroom!

I will reaching out to you all this week again to touch base with everyone, if you haven't heard from me or seen my txts please email me an updated contact number.

Home learning may seem a bit of a struggle for some of you,  so some suggestions would be to:

-keep it real (bake or prepare meals together)

-Make it fun to help take the stress out of the 'learning'.

-Read books together

-Play games together 

-Draw pictures and create a story to go with it  could be about your daily life happenings during level 3 lock down!

-Count how many dolls you have or how many toy cars you have.

If you need any help understanding the tasks in the pack please give me a txt or email me and I will call you to help clarify anything.

Please send me an email if you have yet to hear from me - it means I don't have an updated contact number for you..

Caitlinh@flatbush.school.nz 

Stay safe everyone and hopefully we will be back together in 2 weeks or so...

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We knew the second wave of COVID 19 was a possibility, I guess it was the unknown of 'when' it would happen and to be honest with you I personally thought we would get through Term 3 at least before we hit the second wave!

Unfortunately Auckland was alerted on Tuesday evening that we were moving into Level 3 by midday on Wednesday.

I will be making contact with you all sometime this week to reconnect and touch base with you all, please charge your phones.. I will txt first to arrange a time and to let you know it is me and not some random person phoning you! 

Keep well and keep safe - speak to you all soon and please let me know if you are in need of anything during this tough time ahead.

You can email me or send me a txt..

caitlinh@flatbush.school.nz 

Welcome Back..

Term 3

Week 4 Term 3:

This week we started to dig deeper with our student inquiry these are our guiding questions...

 What is force?

How do we make things move?

We managed to do a few experiments luckily for the children to see that by our actions we can create movement known as motion....

We used straws to push air through to make balls move as well as making paint move so that we could physically see the motion that we are able to create using force (air) being blown down the straw pushing the object away!

Check out our photos!

Ball pushing

Paint Pushing

CRT

Matariki - makarena

Building the hauora - well being whare

We had a special visit from Jen at CLM sports. She helped us learn about whare tapa wha - Each of the four walls symbolises a different aspect of Hauora. Rm 2 also learnt about why we need to be strong in these four areas and that each area supports our well being to be strong within our bodies. We talked about what we did during the lock down and what we enjoyed most.

"I am rolling along the mat"

"I am bouncing on the moon hopper"

"I am walking along the plank with my arms out"

"I am crawling through the box"

Garden to Tables with Ms Ann O & Vicki

During week 1, we were lucky enough to have Garden to Tables with Ms Ann O...

We managed to make some yummy kai with Vicki and Ms Ann O on Thursday. 

What was on the menu?

Maori fried bread and seasonal vegetable soap - it was Yummy!!

This is a fantastic programme for our Tamariki, as they get to learn about the importance of helping out in the garden with Mrs Tupou at school.  As the vegetables grow in our school garden and it is time for harvesting the students get to learn basic meal preparing skills such as grating, chopping, slicing, whisking  to prepare yummy meals.  

During Maths we are currently learning about measurement and statistics..

For our warm up we are building on our addition and subtraction word problem knowledge using materials to help us with our basic facts to 10.

An example of a word problem we would work on with a buddy would be: 

Ms Haynes had 10 bouncy balls.

Ariki kicks 4 balls over the fence.

How many balls does Ms Haynes have left?

Ms Haynes has 6 bouncy balls.

Ariki finds 4 more bouncy balls.

How many bouncy balls does Ms Haynes have altogether now?

We discuss what is happening in the word problem together and identify the numbers we are working with from here, the students move beans around on their plates  or they just use their eyes to count the beans to help them with the visuals.

We use the same word problem context but change the numbers,  so that students can explore different number bonds to 10.

10-4=6        so        6+4=10

As we reach the end of our second term together, I wanted to share with you some of our learning that we have focused our student inquiry on (Kaitiakitanga - Guardianship)

Room 2 did some work on Tangaroa - God of the sea, we looked at what lives in the sea and learnt some simple rules that we can all do when we are near the beach or if we ever go fishing!

Lesson ideas:

-Take your rubbish home with you after your trips to the beach.

-Watch what your pour down the drain - some liquids can be toxic.

-Measure your fish when you go fishing (if the fish is too small or too big put it back into the water)

-Take what you need when you go fishing (Don't be greedy!)

-If you catch a fish make sure you handle the fish with a wet towel so that you can protect their scales and your hands...

Check out our Tangaroa Art/ inquiry display wall:

We watched an animated movie about different sea creatures called 'DEEP'

Tuesday: We have been learning about Kaitiakitanga - Guardianship...

Room 2 have decided to take a deeper look into Tangaroa - God of the sea...

We are now looking at different sea creatures this week, today we made cute little Jellyfish!

We discussed where you would find these little cuties and discussed their body features using everyday language.

"Ms Haynes you can find these in the deep blue sea"- Alexsen

"They have squishy bodies" -Hailey

Welcome to week 10, we have lots happening at school this week!

Wednesday Room 2 has CRT with Ms Young

In the beginning - a story retold by room 2

Walt: Make a video, retell a story, Use art work to create different pictures to match the words of the story, Use a loud clear voice, Change voices to be like the character.

We have learnt about the Matariki stars and have made some to hang in our room:

Ms Haynes will be testing Room 2 children on their number 'maths' knowledge this week and next week so attendance is important.. 

We have started our PMP programme again which is exciting as our children enjoy this time in the hall.

We have PMP in the hall from Monday through to Thursday for thirty minutes in the morning starting at 9, try not to be late otherwise you will miss out on the fun.

PMP is where our children learn fundamental skills that help their muscles develop to enhance future learning. It also allows the students to develop the ability concentrate and focus. They have the opportunity to develop hand eye co-ordination as well as patience and perseverance. 

Room two students - learnt to use their own body weight to balance on the balance board.

"Look Ms Haynes we are balancing" - Florida

Mrs Tito is one of three of our Treasures that we are lucky enough to have to help support some of our learners in class.

Mrs Tito helps us with our handwriting for 40 minutes everyday...

We are working on using our finger space every time we write a letter in our books.

Maths Play:

On Monday afternoon Elizabeth, Alexsen, T-Jay and Ariki decided to connect blocks during maths play time, they spoke about their intentions when I asked what they were getting up to..

"what are you making?" - Ms Haynes

" We are making a long as tower" - Elizabeth

"Wow, that is cool" - T-Jay (this captured his attention.

 "See how long you can make it" - Ms Haynes

Next thing, I observed them measuring who was taller using their creation as (non standard) measuring tool.

The vocab that I heard was pretty cool - who is the tallest? who is shorter out of us etc.

Well we are fast approaching the weekend...

Just wanted to share all the awesome activities and tasks we have been up to during our learning time in room 2!

During reading time 9:30-10:30 daily we get to 'play' that is play with letters and  words..... 

We are focusing on letter sounds lately, so that we can identify alphabet letter sounds in unknown words for reading and writing!

"Look Ms Haynes I made a bus" - Uriah

"I made a patterned necklace with green and red beads" - Mercayis

Drumming:

Drumming is so much fun with Mr D!!!

Every Thursday we get half an hour to bang on some drums to make some pretty cool beats together 'mahi  ngatahi' (working as a team).

Magnetic shapes:

Room 2 students have been doing some real creative learning through play...

In class we have a bucket of magnetic shapes and everyone loves to play with them we can turn a 2D shape into a 3D shape connecting the shapes.

We have some great discussions around their creations.

Emmanuel loves to build castles!

On Friday the 12 June - We were lucky enough to celebrate Elizabeth turning 6 years old!!

Elizabeth came into class and walked straight over to me with her arms open for a big hug.....

"Today is my birthday Ms Haynes" - Elizabeth

"Happy birthday Elizabeth, how old are you today?" - Ms Haynes

"I am 6 today!" - Elizabeth

I spent a few minutes making her a birthday crown!!

She loved it and was so surprised when I placed it onto her head.

Welcome to week 8 hope you all had a lovely day on Monday celebrating the Queen's birthday long weekend. This week is a 4 day week and we have so much happening this week Wednesday is CRT with Ms Young, Thursday we have Mr D for drumming and Ms Haynes needs to start assessing Reading and writing to check in with where we are at and where to next for our learning journey.

Focus is the key to success - we need to keep our focus during our handwriting sessions so that we are able to do the correct letter formation, making sure our letters sit on the line and we also need to remember to use our finger spaces....

We have been working hard at remembering our sentence ideas when we write our stories.

A learning technique we have been using to help us is (sentence cut ups) this is when we say our sentence idea to Ms Haynes and she writes it on a strip of paper or card. We then have to read it several times to help us remember the sentence. Ms Haynes then cuts up the strip into words and jumbles up the words and we have to place the words into the correct order so that it makes sense. We also talk about what clues help us for example we start our sentences with a capital letter and end with a full stop. 

Check us out in action below.

Geometry:

In room 2, we are spending time on geometry learning about shapes. We learning through exploring and play. We will cover shape names and the features of different shapes through different activities using shapes this will help us understand the vocab such as 2D shapes, 3D shapes, sides, corners, faces and edges.

"Ms Haynes if you turn your square like this it becomes a diamond" - Hailey

"Hailey you are so clever, can you count how many sides that square has?" - Ms Haynes

"1, 2, 3, 4" - Hailey

Check out some of our shape art exploration: We are being creative today with our shapes..

Daniel, Emmanuel, T-Jay and Ariki had fun making shape stories on the white board with the magnetic shapes.... They started creating shape images on the table and through curiosity they realised that the magnetic shapes will stick on the white board... They progressed their knowledge of 2D shapes to creating 3D shape images on the whiteboard... Uriah had fun playing with the big shape blocks on the mat and created a shopping mall - He was so proud of his shopping mall. 

"Look Ms Haynes, look at my shopping mall" - Uriah 

"Yes Uriah we can see shapes all around us - you are very clever creating your shopping mall" - Ms Haynes.

check out their learning through play and curiosity below...

Today we spent time learning a Samoan song as well as spending time creating some Siapo art together. This required us to use our scissor cutting skills and we had a discussion about lines of symmetry!

We also learnt how to count to 10 in Samoan... 

Check out our hibiscus flowers below...

Check it out!!

Talofa lava everyone!

This week Room 2 students spent time learning a song as well as some simple phrases, colours and numbers. The song helped us identify body parts as we sang the lyrics of the song. The song we learnt is called Ulu, Tauau which is the Samoan version of (head, shoulders, knees and toes) Check us out..... 

Welcome to our first day back in Room 2, we had a great first day back and managed to complete a few activities together which were fun and a great way to re-connect back in the classroom.

-Discussed some of the fun activities/adventures we got to do during 'LOCKDOWN'

-Drew pictures of our 'LOCKDOWN' bubbles.

-Do a class drawing of what we did during 'LOCKDOWN'.

-Blew paint bubbles and created bubble art

- Classroom play

Tuesday - week 6

Today went by super fast, we were really busy creating our families and discussed the meaning of 'family bubble' and how we will keep ourselves and our family safe in our bubbles.

We managed to fit in some 'Bubble -meditation'... zzzzzzz  zz zzzz!!

"I feel sleepy Ms Haynes" - Delijah

Friday - week 6:

Today has been a great day as we ended our first week together knowing we have had fun bursting our bubbles!

We have had so much fun together this week and making connections again with our friends - check out our LEGO building skills!

On the School website on the home page you would of seen that there is a timetable just to help with structure and routine, obviously life happens and sometimes we need to be kind to ourselves, if you don't get through the full day of activities - DON'T STRESS!

Distance learning activities (click on link)

This week we would like to make things easier for you with regards to our home learning tasks - you have the freedom to choose what you would like to do on the Distance Learning activities 'chart' located on the home page below the big daily timetable.

Pick a few activities that would suit you and your family.

If you would like to read stories read with someone in your bubble (no pressure, read for enjoyment).

Remember I am here to help you where I can, if you need assistance with learning activities or in need of food please let me know and I will see what I can do to support your needs during this time!

Some learning ideas to work on at home!

	Learning the Alphabets Have you been practising the alphabet? Do you know all the letters and the letters sounds?  If you have forgotten here is a link learning the ABC you'll be learning the ABC with the lovely Mrs Boyd Crofskey - check her out, she is awesome.
	Sight Word Sentences For this activity, select 4 words from your sight word list and put each word into a simple sentence. Remember it has to be words that have been ticked off, as these are the words you already know.  I have selected the words away, asleep, big and school. 1. Please go away from me. 2. My baby brother is asleep in his cot.  3. I have a big fluffy cat. 4. I miss my friends from school. Now you have a go!
Reading Comprehension How are you going with your reading?  Here are a few reading links that some of the amazing staff at Flat Bush have put together.  LISTEN to them READ and SEE if you can answer these questions on your own?  Questions to ask yourself, while listening to the stories. Who is your favourite character in the story and why? Can you describe what the character looks like? What part of the story did you enjoy and why? What part of the story did you not enjoy and why?  What do you think the author is trying to tell you?  Have a go!  Reading with Ms Young & Ms Heather Story Time

Extra activities you can do

1. Go outside and observe how many different birds you can see - draw a picture of a bird and label parts of the bird (ask an adult for some help).

2. Go for a walk with your family and count how many cars are parked along the side of the road.

3. Use the chalk from your junior learning packs to go outside a write your name and the letters of the alphabet. 

4. Learn math facts up to 10 using objects around the house to help you count.

5. Read a book of your choice with an older sibling or adult.

6. If you have a puzzle - build a puzzle with your siblings.

Keep busy and stay safe...

Room 2 Mother's Day card competition:

You could win yourself a hamper to gift to that special 'mum or carer' all you have to do is make mum or someone that looks after you a mother's day card and take a picture of your card and email me the pictures of what your card looks like and the message inside your card and I will pick the winner on Thursday - 7th May.

Runner up will get some soaps!

My email address is: Caitlinh@flatbush.school.nz

Or you can PXT me your pictures of the mother's day card.

The winner for the Mother's Day card competition goes to Delijah!!!!!!

Whoop whoop - Will give you the hamper when we all reunite back at school - thank you for the effort you put into making the cards..

A special thank you for my card you made me, I loved reading it and seeing the pictures of it. xx

Please note: You can complete your work in your work books we sent home in your take home packs, you can also keep your work in a safe place and bring it all back to school when that time comes. Please feel free to take a photo of your work and send it to me by email - no pressure at all ONLY  if you would like to.

Keeping busy ideas:

Build puzzles - Cameron loves to build puzzles especially when he has been sent to his room for some (alone) time - I often go check on him and there he is lying on the ground building his puzzles.

Draw pictures and colour them in.

Make playdough (check out Room 1s page for an easy recipe) and make shapes, roll long snakes and create letters to make your name.

Clean your room....

Write a note to your friend and ask an adult to go with you to place it in their letterbox.

What my family and I have done during Week 4:

On Monday we heard a loud knock on the door and we were surprised as we weren't expecting any visitors due to lockdown, much to our surprise it was a package addressed to Cameron (my son).

He was super excited as this was his first ever package to come via the 'postman' as he likes to call the courier driver.

Thanks to his Daycare for organising this resource pack for home 'fun' during this unprecedented time and a huge shout out to the Ministry of Education for providing our NZ children with home learning packs.

We have been playing games together and the memory  game is our favourite game to play!

We have been reading books together today - Tuesday, as it has been raining!

Remember to chat about the pictures as you read as this help with understanding the story and exposes our children to new vocabulary!

We have also made more yummy choc chippie biscuits the recipe is below!

Check out these yummy cookies....

Shout Outs: 

Please email me more pictures of your work and some of your daily activities you enjoy doing at home!

I want to say a big shout out to Emmanuel and his family as they have grown vegetables spending time together in the garden as well as sharing some of his home learning with me.

I want say a big shout out to Delijah and his whanau for sharing photos of his awesome home learning efforts.

I am truly grateful for the correspondence I am receiving from Delijah and his family!

Check out his Week 2 Photos...

I would also like to say a shout out to Florida for completing some of her week 1 tasks and sharing them with me via email I am supper proud of your efforts!

We are also very lucky to have TV channels to help educate our children during the day throughout the week.

Home Learning | Papa Kāinga TV will be shown, free to air, on TVNZ channel 2+1 and on TVNZ on Demand as well as on Sky Channel 502.

It will run from 9am to 3pm on school days with programming for children and young people aged 0 to 15, as well as for parents. 

Home Learning TV will initially be on air for one month – with provision to extend beyond that depending on the COVID-19 situation.

What have my own children been up to during week 3:

Tuesday and Wednesday I went to school and did some school work - preparing take home learning packs.

Holly has been amusing herself with her school work and tik tok dancing, I have also asked her to help me prepare dinner a few nights and she baked us a yummy carrot cake!

Yummy Veggie Pasta!!!

Cameron has been showing an interest in shadows, so one night we decided to turn the lights off in the living room and we got the torch out and had fun making shadows on the wall.

Try making these shadow animals using your hands with your family if you can?

Please check the school website for home learning activities...

If you need help please don't hesitate to reach out, most of you have my number and email address I am always happy to help you.

I will be reaching out and making contact so please charge your phones and turn up the volume on your ring tone.

What have my own children been up to during week 2:

Well this past week has come and gone by so fast....

Holly has been keeping busy with her own school home learning.

Cam and I have been busy with craft by preparing and creating a home decoration for Anzac day, as well as just simply playing games and reading books together!

In between it all we have been keeping up to date with the COVID 19 news updates and watching the home learning TV which is pretty interesting!

We also made more cookies.... Yes that is right, more choc chip cookies they taste so good and my family love to eat them!

We found an easy but oh so yummy Choc chip cookie recipe - I thought I would share it with you all.

Ingredients:

1 cup caster Sugar (I just used normal sugar)

2 cups plain flour (sifted)

200g butter melted

1tsp vanilla essence

1tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1 egg

1/2 (half) cup of choc chips

Method: 

Please Note: Before you start, ask an adult to help you with the oven you will need to use the oven to bake your cookies the temperature will need to be turned on to 160 degrees fan bake and you will be baking your cookies for 15-20 minutes ask a grown up to help you put your cookies in and to help take them out.

1. Add the sugar and melted butter in a bowl and mix together - a wooden spoon works fine.

2. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt together into the bowl of sugar and butter.

3. Add the vanilla essence and egg into the bowl then add the chocolate chips.

4. Mix the ingredients altogether in the bowl until you get a cookie dough texture. 

5. Roll the cookie dough into $2 coin size balls and place them on a baking tray that has been lined with baking paper press them gently with a fork just to flatten them a little (not too hard).

TIP: Make sure they have plenty room to spread because these cookies spread out (I placed 6 balls the size of a $2 coin on one tray).

Bake them in the oven for 15 minutes at 160 degrees fan bake, if you like them a little bit crunchy leave them in the oven for 3 more minutes.

Stay safe whanau, keep working on those activities at home in your bubble - keep it real and most of all have fun doing them together!

Have a great week everyone - missing you all.

Speak to you all soon 

Nga mihi

Caitlin Haynes 

xx