Thursday 18 September 2014

Ahoy, me Hearties!

Wow! It's been over two weeks since I last posted an update about what we have been up to in Room 4. Yesterday we came to school dressed in our pirate gear and explored like pirates for our Pirate Discovery session. We dug for gold, walked the plank and jumped into shark invested waters, drew treasure maps, folded newspaper pirate hats, threaded bracelets with special beads, made eye-patches, and created hooks for our hands just in case we need them! Whew....

Tomorrow is International Talk Like a Pirate Day and the whole school is dressing up like pirates. 

Here is some of the 'Pirate Talk' I've been practising:

Ahoy! - Hello!
Ahoy, Matey - Hello, my friend!

Ahoy, me Hearties! - the same as saying "Hello, my friends!"

All hand hoay! - comparable to all hands on deck

Avast ye - stop and check this out or pay attention

Aye - yes

Booty - treasure

Crow's nest - small platform atop the mast where the lookout stands

Cutlass - short heavy curved bladed sword used by pirates

Doubloons - other coins or found in pirate hoards and stashes

Head - the pirate ship's toilet

Heave Ho - give it some muscle and push it

Jolly Roger - pirate's flag including white skull and crossbones over a black field

Lad, lass, lassie - a younger person

Landlubber - big, slow clumsy person who doesn't know how to sail

Old Salt - an experienced sailor

Pieces of eight - coins or found in pirate stashes

Savvy? - do you understand and do you agree?

Scuttle - to sink a ship

Seadog - old pirate or sailor

Shark bait - will soon join Davy Jones' Locker

Shipshape - cleaned up and under control

Thar she blows! - Whale sighting

Ye - you

Yo Ho Ho - cheerful exhortation to demand attention


And you can create your own pirate name with this Pirate Name Generator.




Monday 1 September 2014

Spring Has Sprung

I can hardly believe it is the 1st September. We wrote stories about spring this morning and spent last week learning about spring for Discovery. Last Friday (29th August) was Daffodil Day in New Zealand and is a fund-raising and awareness day for the Cancer Society. So some of our Discovery activities were about daffodils and Daffodil Day.

The children painted watercolour pictures of a jug of daffodils.

 And we made our own daffodil badges with yellow and orange cupcake cases.

I like how one of my children described it this morning - "the daffodils are waking up."