Mercury, Venus and New Year Sheep

This morning the classroom was all dark at the end when we arrived at school. There was a bright light from the table at the end of the room from the projector. On the projector was a black piece of paper with lots of holes in it. When we set the projector to display on the ceiling we saw that the holes made a picture of a sheep. There was a light box on the table with some black paper next to it along with some sharp pencils and some Styrofoam trays. To make our own picture we first needed to tape a small sheep picture onto the black paper. We then put the black paper on top of the Styrofoam tray and used the sharp pencil to punch holes through the picture and also the black paper. When we had been around the outline of the sheep we took the paper off and removed the original picture to see lots of holes, just like stars shining through. We also added some random stars and then took our artwork to the projector to see how it looked projected on the ceiling. They looked amazing and have put them on display in the windows just inside the classroom with the daylight behind them. Please take a look if you get a moment. On the second table many of us were completing our Hagoita bats by adding the year 2015 and our names using origami paper as well as the sheep picture from cotton wool and card. They look amazing and will try and get some photos soon for our special ‘Portfolio’ books. As soon as we had finished snack we went to the park as it was a nice bright and warm day. We were lucky and managed to see our friends and siblings from Buds and Petals Classes. Soccer and playing tag were again popular today. We needed to drink some water when we got back to the classroom as we were warm and active in the park today. In circle time we looked again at the sun models we started and when we looked in a book we saw there were lots of other planets apart from the earth. Nile told us that there are 8 planets and Adam reminded us of the word ‘Planets’ when the teachers asked us what else goes around the sun. The poster showed us the 8 planets and the closest one seemed to be very small and was called Mercury. In the book it showed some close up pictures of Mercury which Tokutaro showed all his friends. Ethan spotted a shooting star in one of the pictures and we guessed that the surface of Mercury was so rough because of meteors hitting the surface> it is very hot in the day on Mercury and cold at night. Next to Mercury was a slightly bigger planet called Venus. We are making a mobile in the classroom and have made the Sun and Saturn but needed to make Mercury and Venus too. We moved to the tables and practiced making spheres with play-dough before making the two planets with paper-clay. It was a little difficult but we did a good job. We put the planets on a board with our names and then had to make a small hole in each one so that we can attach some string properly to the top and then to our mobile. Have a great weekend. All our love, Darren, Ayaka and Nanako