Welcome Back Noa

Today we welcomed back Noa to the classroom. She has been away a long time and tomorrow will have her cast removed from her leg and should be walking again soon. All her friends wanted to play and talk to her and she looked really happy to be with them back at school. On the main table this morning there were lots of ‘Junk Art’ materials for us to make things with. On one end of the table there was a wooden covering, some large thick cardboard tubes, some large plastic cups and a saw. There was also a book about trains and on the cover was a picture of a steam train. The cardboard tubes were very thick and so we couldn’t use scissors or a knife to cut them and that is why we needed to saw. Darren explained to us about the difference between tools and toys. Tools we use to make or fix things and toys we play with. We don’t play with toys as they can hurt us or our friends. There were four of us who wanted to cut the tubes; Nile, Ava, Olivia and Noa. First we held the tube down over the wooden table covering and started to saw. Darren helped us hold the saw properly and move it back and forwards slowly until a piece fell off the end which looked like a wheel. We then all took turns to saw the cylinders to make wheels. We then took a card box each and cut the sides so that it could be folded up to make a cabin for our ‘train driver’. We managed to join the cup to the box using tape and will need to add the wheels we cut later. We enjoyed making lots of different things too with Ethan and Ryan making a telescope each, Jeremy made a car and Nile some more figures. It took us quite a long time to make our items and we will try and finish them ver the next few days. On the carpet the cars and wooden trains were also very popular and it was fun to see Noa in the middle of her friends having fun. There were two new areas set up in the classroom today, a new literacy table with lots of letters, whiteboards, markers and words as well as a new ‘free-art’ table with paper, markers, crayons, tape and other art materials. We can use these tables during our free play time in the mornings and make or write whatever we wish. After the park we all looked at a book titled ‘Binky’s first Car’ about a boy who gets a pedal car for his birthday but is not a careful driver. He makes lots of people angry and then his parents confine him to the garden when driving his pedal car. Unfortunately Binky has another accident and breaks a window. His father then takes the wheels off the car. Jeremy and Jessica told us how they have a pedal car too. When we were walking back from the park we decided to count how many means of transport we could see, we counted 11 different kinds including bicycles, cars, trucks, scooters, a helicopter, motorbikes, surfboards and vans. We then decided to see how many means of transport including walking, running etc we could come up with. We made a list on the class whiteboard and each called out transport methods. This was fun and we came up with a total of 29 different ones so far. I am sure we can think of more!! Have a great afternoon. All our love, Darren and Ayaka