The Big Green Pears

Yesterday James, Merit and Kyle went out to the Hohepa Garden Programme. They worked very hard weeding, digging and tidying up the garden. There is a large pear tree at Hohepa and the wind had blown some pears off the tree. 

 The pears got a few bumps from crashing onto the ground, but they were fine for cooking. They were not quite ripe yet, so were very hard and green still.

We are learning to use knives safely. We know that knives are very sharp, and that we need to hold them correctly. The sharp  blade must face downwards, and our fingers have to stay well out of the way when we cut.

Lulu demonstrated how to cut safely, showed us what size to cut the cubes of pear.

James kept his fingers well out of the way.

Merit was very careful.

 Merit and Kyle managed to cut up a pile of pear cubes each. Great work!

We put the cubes of cut up pear in the pot. We only needed a little bit of water. We didn't use any sugar because the pears tasted ok without it.

Rawiri helped to put the pears on to cook. They didn't take very long at all.

Now the pears are cooked we can store them in the freezer to use for cooking muffins and cakes, or to have as a healthy snack.

Communication device users- Can you say what fruit we used? What colour were they? What did we use to cut the fruit up?

Perfect Autumn Day

We have noticed that the weather is changing. The temperature is cooler, and there is more rain.

Today was such a beautiful day. In the morning we checked the weather forecast. Almost everyone predicted that the day would be sunny. Only one person said it would be a cloudy day. When we checked the Met Service information for Christchurch we found out that there is a chance that it might shower later today, and it will be very cold overnight.

 We need to get out and do our exercise outdoors whenever we can. Today we walked to Edgar Mackintosh Park.

Rawiri found some really big leaves. They were crispy brown and yellow.

Why are the leaves falling off the trees? What season is it?

If you use a communicate device can you find the "seasons" grid on your Proloquo2Go?

ANZAC Biscuits

During the week we did lots of ANZAC activities. Every year we make ANZAC biscuits together. Here is the recipe from the Edmond's Cookbook:

Ingredients

125g flour
1 cup coconut
100g butter
1/2 teaspoon Bicarb of Soda
150g sugar
1 cup rolled oats
1 tablespoon golden syrup
2 tablespoons boiling water

Cooking Instructions

1. Mix together flour, sugar, coconut and rolled oats. Melt butter and golden syrup.
2. Dissolve Bicarb Soda in the boiling water and add to the butter and golden syrup.
3. Make a well in the centre of the flour, stir in the liquid.
4. Place in spoonfuls on a greased tray.
5. Bake 15-20 mins at 180oC.

Apart from the steps with the boiling water and  the hot butter/syrup mixture, this is a really easy recipe, and the biscuits are delicious! 

To make a gluten free version, you need to replace the wheat flour with a gluten free flour, and oats contain gluten, so you need to find a substitute for these. You could add extra coconut and seeds like sunflower seeds, and gluten free cereals are suitable too. We are learning more about gluten free cooking so that no one misses out on tasting the baking. 

I hope you are all having a fantastic weekend! I will see you all back at school on Tuesday.  

A Walk in the Sunshine

As a part of our achievement targets, we are aiming to exercise for at least thirty minutes a day. On a sunny day it is easy to fit some exercise into our day. Yesterday we headed out for a walk around the block.

Oops, the sun shone on the camera lens, so not the best photo!

We always look for interesting things while we are out and about. Autumn is coming, so we could see lots of colourful leaves.

Why was there a chair on the side of the road? 

We tried to have a class photo under this pretty red tree, but everyone was having a bit too much fun!

Oh dear! We'll have to try to have a class photo another day. 

Have a lovely long weekend! 

Off to the Library

Today we went to the Papanui Library. The library was very busy because it was raining. There was a baby class on today and there were so many babies!

We had a look around and then settled ourselves down to read some books together.

We sat in the Young Adult section of the library. 

When we are in the library we focus on behaving appropriately. Before we went we talked about how we need to be quiet in the library. Sitting down and quietly reading is appropriate behaviour. We don't need to be walking around talking to people that we don't know. People are often busy working in the library, so we need to try not to disturb them. We can ask the librarians to help us if we need to. 

The library is a great place to relax, especially on a wet day. We can also learn some new things too. 

Welcome back for Term 2

Hi everyone! We had a brilliant first day back to school yesterday. This week we are talking about ANZAC Day. We had our van time yesterday, so we took at trip out to New Brighton to visit the war memorial, and then take a walk along the pier. What fantastic weather!

We were sad to find some horrible graffiti on the war memorial.

We all walked up the ramp towards the pier and the library. We looked over the edge to see what we could see. There was all sorts of stuff washed up by the tide. 

Then we walked along the pier. Look at the weather- it was warm and sunny with no wind. We were really happy about that because it is usually windy along the pier. We looked at the waves and the sand.

Rawiri was very interested in the seagulls. He tried to make friends with a big black backed gull. The gull flew away when he got close.

At the end of the pier there is a seat for relaxing. Lots of people were fishing with rods and crab baskets.

We asked if we could have a look in a crab basket. The bait looked horrible, but it was interesting seeing things in the basket. The fisherman caught lots of sticks and only tiny crabs. He put the tiny crabs back in the water to grow bigger.

On the way back to school we had a look at the war memorial poppy sculpture on ANZAC Drive. We will be doing some ANZAC art work this week so looked at the sculpture to give us inspiration. 

Look out for our ANZAC biscuit recipe this week!