The wheels on the car go round and round

 Hello, hello, hello, I’m very glad to be here

Every day is more fun when we are in summer school. We started off in our separate classrooms and when Shelley’s appointment was over, we all went upstairs and spent the rest of the day all together. Once again, we learnt about building and how to make things using wood and cardboard. The huge cardboard blocks were piled up on top of one another to make a wall and we had to go around it carefully otherwise, all of the blocks would fall down.

Our big task for today was taking some small pieces of wood and using a sanding block to make the edges smooth. When we were sanding the wood we noticed powder falling down onto the table. This is called sawdust and it is little powdery pieces of wood. When the edges we smooth we had to put together all of the pieces which eventually became a car. There were four round pieces for the tires; two long thin pieces which are the axles and hold the tires together; some long rectangular shapes which are the base of the car and some smaller pieces which made up the rest of the car and then the roof. All together there were twelve pieces for each car. We used glue to put the pieces together which had a rubber band as well so that the pieces could be reinforced together. Later on in the morning, when the glue had dried, we sat together with our friends and teachers and we drew on the cars.

The cars can move when you push them so we can have them as a new toy at home.

We were all so happy today and helped one another throughout the day. Those of us who are big or even a little big, helped our very little friends with their work and their lunch today. In fact, we are just like a family where the older ones help the younger ones and the younger ones learn from the older ones. We all end up learning from one another which is all about life.

On the second activity table there were lots of pieces of wood which Momo, Jennifer and Beckett were excited about. Jennifer made a station for the trains to stop at; Momo made a house and Beckett made a boat. Our huge boat has a new addition to it. It is a steering wheel so that we can steer the boat to where we want. Lily took one of the round cushions and sat on it and became the captain of the ship. Olivia, Clodia, Tom, Tokutaro and Abiya all went on a picnic on the boat.

We read a book called “The Sandcastle Contest” which was about people making amazing structures using sand. In many cities all around the world, there are real sand building competitions and they make animals, buildings, people and all sorts of things using sand on the beach. In the MPR, we all played with the slide, hula hoop, balls, climbing wall and other fun equipment.

During circle time, we sang our “Hello” song and then we used a peg board and plastic shapes and sang and dramatized, “One block, two blocks, three blocks, four”. We placed the blocks on top of one another and then when we counted up to ten, we knocked the tower down. We also took pieces of wood and sang “This is the way we sand the wood”; “This is the way we saw the wood”; “This is the way we hammer the wood”; “This is the way we glue the wood” etc.

Tomorrow will be the last day of our “Let’s build” theme and many of us have had the opportunity to take fantastic models home with us. Tomorrow we will be making things from junk art and this will be more of a challenge as we will then have to use our own imagination and create something from nothing…..or rather something from junk art materials. Most of the things that we will use tomorrow are things that we usually throw away in the garbage. Our teachers say that “trash is treasure”.

We hope that everyone has a good afternoon and stays dry in the rainy weather. Thanks for another fun day at summer school.

Love always Shelley, Darren, Nanako, Ayaka, Christine, Goh, Liezel and Sabine