Class 4 E-Circle

This isolation period has renewed my obsession with Downton Abbey. If you have never heard of this, it is a TV series following the life of a very wealthy aristocratic family and their servants about a hundred years ago.. I really love history and enjoy all the visual details of that time. The clothes! The handwritten letters! The hats! The cars! The train! Cousin Violet! It's all very sumptuous. One of my favourite characters is the butler Carson. Mr Carson likes things to be done proper.  He can be a tad strict and sets high standards, but has a really big heart.  Mr Carson is a busy man. One of the things Mr Carson does is measuring if the table is set properly. He uses a 'Butler Stick' for this, which means the cutlery and plates are set in the exact right measurements to give the wrist space on the table. That's quite different how we set the table in my house. But for once, I thought wouldn't it be fantastic to Set The Tabl

Today's first task is a delicious Form Drawing I so love it how this teacher first draws the invisible lines with her magic marker- just like me. Hopefully this shows you that I am telling you the truth that it really helps to get a good feel for the form before you put your crayon to the paper. Take your time for this one my dear Class 4, enjoy the process and make it a glorious piece of work. Use any colour that you like, crayon or oil pastels give the best results, but use whatever you have at hand. I wish you could read Dutch You would be able to see why I feel so happy. The letter here is written by an old colleague from my father. He had heard that my Dad had died and wrote a beautiful letter to my sister Yvonne and me. First he described how he knew my Dad; they had been working together for many many year (I'm talking 40 plus years- that's longer than many of your parents are old) and after my Dad retired, they saw each other at

For today's work, the first thing you need to do is find a map of the area you live in. You might need to involve a Team Lock Down Adult in this, particularly because you are going to draw on the map. Most homes have a random kind of selection like my home It doesn't matter if they are a tad old, in fact, that's good. If you really don't have ANYTHING like this in your house, ask your responsible adult to print of a map from Google Map. Which is not nearly as satisfying as unfolding and pouring over a real map, but it will do the trick. On your map, find where your house is and draw it in. Draw or mark any other places of significance.  Now, draw on the map one of the walks you have done. Maybe you walk every day the same route, maybe you mix it up a little. If you have several walks, use different colours for the different walks. It does need to be accurate: not just a bit of a dotted line in the direction where you went, but exactly which str

How was your long weekend Class 4?  On Anzac Day, I walked with my whanau bubble into the Port Hills. We're so lucky to live so close by. We walked up Rapaki track and from then on went onto Witches Hill. On the top of Witches Hill there is a stone bench which is dedicated to some of the young men from St Martin's who died in the First World War. There were already a few paper poppies there when we arrived. Don't worry, Mackenzie actually does have legs, it's just the panorama shot that cut them off.. While we were enjoying the view and the silence of the city up there, an old man scrambled up from the other side. He was 77 years old. He said it had taken him all day to get up there, but he does it every year. He didn't have many teeth left, but was full of good stories which we swapped for some of our Anzac biscuits. His Dad had been in the First World War and while he was in Flanders, they would receive those biscuits from New Zealand. They were a very we

Good day Class 4 on this GLORIOUS autumn day. We are going to stay with Anzac today in preparation for tomorrow in the form of writing out the poem which inspired all these poppies you have made. No need to think, no need to spell, no need to wonder what you are going to write. Just beautiful, regular, well spaced writing. Dance with your pen or pencil- I can hear some groans all the way to my house: remember, when you started to ride your bike it was tricky too. Practice, practice and practice. In your journal, write as beautiful as you can the poem Flanders Fields. A reminder of the tricks of the trade: Use lines Sharpen your pencil Slow down Focus on size of the letters- use dotted midlines if you need or use two lines per sentence. Keep your letters on the line Space your letters regularly Here's the poem. Frequently asked question: does it have to be in running writing? Don't ask a question when you already know the answer honey. Th

This Saturday, 25 April,  is ANZAC day. Usually it falls in the holidays and we don't do much about it at school, so I thought what an excellent opportunity to teach you this year. You will be busy with this one, but you can spread it out over a few days so you're ready before dawn on Saturday morning. First of all, what is ANZAC day? No- it doesn't just mean eating yummy biscuits. ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.  Learn more in this video On Saturday, we will be remembering all those people who made a sacrifice. Thanks to them, we now live in a free world. Okay, a locked down free world at the moment, but still. Do you have any whanau members who were involved? Have you ever been to the Dawn Parade? Here's what I would like you to do: make poppy lanterns like below in the photo. You'll need some clean empty milk bottles (hey- more recycling art!), red, black and green felt pens/ markers, paint or crayon

It's Wednesday- which means it's painting day. Do you still have those paints from the Frida Kahlo post? When I first used my acrylics, which I hadn't used for years, I approached it like water colours. I discovered I used far too much water. Once I had a few tries, I became much better at it and what happens as soon as you practice and get better at things? The fun factor kicks up a few notches immediately. Then I started searching for acrylic paint techniques and found the 'Aluminium Technique'. This won't work at all with watercolour, you'll need the thicker acrylics.  I am going to sit outside on this glorious Autumn day and have fun with my paints. If you don't have acrylics, don't worry, enjoy the video anyway and draw the picture with anything which you have available, your pencils, crayons, oil pastels, chalk. Have you ever notices the fabulous names of colours? The colour of my front door is called 'Zinzan', so

I am so excited after Jacinda's announcement yesterday that we will be moving into Level 3 next week. I know it is going to be another transition, another 'new normal' which will have lots of things to get used to again, but it is a step towards seeing people again and Doing Life For Real instead of via my laptop screen. Making decisions for a whole country is not an easy job. Some people wanted a longer lock down, others were angry that it wasn't lifted earlier. Whatever decision is made, there will be always somebody complaining. Bit the same around my dinner table. With five people, there is always someone who LOVES the dinner and someone who would have prefered less/ more meat, less/ more dairy, less/more carbs, less/more greens, less/ more sugar. Keeping everybody happy is nearly impossible, apart from on pizza nights. So our rule is, everybody has to cook a meal, can choose what they like as long as it is nutritiously responsible and others have to