Christmas is on it's way!!!!

                                                    'Christmas is a time for love,

                                            A time for being with the people you really love,

                                           So open your hearts 

                                            And let the giving begin

                                            Cause then you will know the true meaning of                   

                                                                    Christmas.

We have been practising this song and many others as next week we are off to entertain the residents at Wesley Care Rest Home.

So to get us in the real spirit of Christmas we put up our tree and decorated it!!

First we had to assemble the tree

Right!!! Now for the decorations….

Now to get the decorations out of the cupboard….

Mmm….I think I will find a special place for this

                    We sang Christmas songs as we decorated the tree. It was so much fun!!

I think this tree is looking very beautiful..

Luke was so busy…he found the box with all the window decorations and  decorated the window all by himself!!

After we had finished decorating the tree we got very creative with the box that the tree was in.

We all had such a fun afternoon working together as a team to make Learning Support look so amazing with all of the decorations. We were all very pleased with our work!

Now for decorations for the table….

We are wondering if Luke B is going to go to Design school as he was very creative with the decorations. WE all helped with the table but Luke did the final tweaking.

'Lets join hands around the world

And be together in peace and harmony

We will open our hearts 

And let the giving begin

And then we will  know the true meaning of Christmas'.

Yes Christmas is about giving but it doesn't have to be just giving gifts…..

That is why we are going on Monday to entertain the elderly as we think they will love us coming to see the.

We will let you know next week how it went.

                         

Week 7

Have you ever tried listening to sounds being made that you cant see?

That is what we did this week for the final of our senses.

It was the sense of hearing.

We sat looking one way while Gayle made different sounds behind us.

You should try this....it is quite a hard thing to do because you cant see what is going on!!!

We all knew what this was...water being poured into a bowl.

Thinking, thinking.....some were quite hard to work out.

Aieshar knew this one!

Yes! We all know what that is.

Ive got it....

Spoons banging together.

Rakau sticks ...what a noise they make!

We got this one....it was air  freshener being sprayed

We know this...the sound of a tambourine.

 After listening to all of the different sounds we all sat very quietly and listened to the sounds that we could hear in our room.

You should try sitting very still for a short time and see what you can hear around you.

You hear so many sounds that you wouldn't  normally hear if you were in a busy room.
We found that Learning Support makes a lot of creaky sounds.....we hadn't heard these until we sat very quietly.

Enjoy your weekend....it looks like it is going to be very windy so be careful out there.

Week 6!!

The weeks are passing by so quickly so we have been busy practising our Christmas songs as we are planning a trip to visit the elderly at Wesley Care Rest Home.

One of the songs that we have been practising needs some props so on Wednesday we all went to Northlands Mall to search for them.

It was fun looking for an angel, candy cane, a light and a star.
We managed to get them all except for the angel…Gayle is going to look in her Christmas decorations this weekend to see if she has one for us.


Our senses…as you know we have five senses….touch, taste, hearing, smell and seeing.

This week we explored the two t's…touch and taste.

We put our hand into the feely bag and felt around for something to pull out…then we had to describe what it felt like.
Some of the objects in the bags felt smooth, bumpy, hard, soft, rough and bendy.
We also talked about what things we could touch that were wet and slimy.
We weren't all that keen on the slimy things!!!!

This is hard and cold

 Now to taste…. 

For part of this we had to put on the blindfold, taste the product , then guess what it was.

This is quite a difficult thing to do when you can't see!!!

Mmm….I think that this is chilli sauce!    I like it!
Yes Luke you were right!!!!

This is very hot…can I please have a drink?

Is that kiwi fruit?

Then we had a plate that had different foods on it and we had to try them all and guess what they were.

No blindfold this time so we were on the button with most of them.
The coconut stumped some of us!

Gabby trying this…yes you are right…soya sauce.

Let's hope that the sun is going to shine this weekend so that we can all get out side and play in it.

Just remember to wear your sun hat and put sun block on!

Farewell to a special lady and Show Day….

On Tuesday we went over to the office to farewell our gorgeous Sue who is retiring.

We changed the words to Ka Kite and sang them to her.

We are going to miss her as she is so kind to us and helps everyone .

Gabby giving Sue the card that we made…..

Looking at the card together….

A group hug for our Sue.

Today we all went to the A and P Show.
It was VERY cold…in fact at one part of the morning it hailed!!!!!
Despite the weather we all had a very enjoyable time looking and holding the animals, climbing on the tractors,watching motor bikes do tricks and lots more.

Boys and their toys...

And girls….

Holding a turkey chick...

Learning about bees…..

Connections were made…..

And here is Gabby's Granddads calf…..

Gabby was so excited to find the Willowbank exhibition and see the animals from there.

We were all very tired by the time we got back to the bus so this afternoon we had a lovely calm  afternoon with some learning choices and stories.

Week 4

Trying something new is one of the many things that we are working on as part of our Winning Ways to Wellbeing.

Today we had the opportunity to do that.

Burnie came to visit some of the children in Te Puna and Mel  asked us if we would like to join them,

Burnie is Gemma's pony and we all had to decide if we wanted to have a pat or get on Burnie for a ride.

A few of us were just a little nervous about making the decision to go for a ride so instead we gave Burnie a pat and felt how warm he was. Also we could feel his breath on our hands…it was warm too.

This is so exciting….

I think I will just have a pat….

Me too….

I feel like a cowboy!

This afternoon we talked about all the different emotions that we had when we went to see Burnie.
We were a bit nervous when we first saw him but then we were excited about patting and having a ride on him.
Thank you Mel for thinking of us.

Another part of Our Winning Ways to Wellbeing is keeping fit .

You can keep fit and active by doing heaps of things like swimming, walking, biking, playing rugby, being on a scooter and playing tag.

Have you ever thought of having sack race to keep fit?

We all did this on Tuesday. It was so much fun, but it isn't easy. We kept on falling over until we got the hang of it.

We farewelled Aieshar on Thursday as she is away for two weeks holiday with her Nanna.
We hope that she has an awesome holiday. We wished that we could have gone with her!!!!