Term 2 week 3

Zico has a love of taking photos so there are a few on here that he took, I bet you can spot which ones. 

Physical Education: This week Zico has been trying new things at Gymnastics. His confidence and upper body strength are growing, which is amazing to see. At horse riding Zico is now riding a much bigger horse called Nelly and this week he was confident enough to hold the reins and steer Nelly around. 

Science and History:  Zico has been learning lots about our planet by Watching walking with Dinosaurs and then Walking with beasts and Walking with Monsters, he has made great observations about things like sparrows by saying that their ancestors used to be big but now the birds have adapted to be small because of their food. We have also done a couple of experiments at home. The pictures show Zico making a Wizards Brew out of vinegar, baking soda, dish wash and a variety of food colouring. We visited Natureland as a family and Zico got to pat a Tuatara and we talked about how they have been around since the dinosaurs. Zico also enjoyed observing the monkeys especially one who was eating some beetroot.

Zico took these photos of his lego dinosaurs, they tell a story of attack and battle and finally the winner eating the loser. This was great to see Zico combining the things he loves, story telling, taking photos, dinosaurs and goodies and baddies. 

Zico loved the puddles on the way back from Gymnastics, we talked about how his feet were invincible in his gumboots.

 Zico's sentence at writing time are getting quite long, we have tried building the sentence out of lego to help remember the words and remind Zico about the spaces between the words. My favourite sentence from this week was "Pixie's cat flap was locked but Mum let her in."  I published some of Zico's writing into a little book and this week Zico finished illustrating it. When it was finished he took it to Nana and Grandad's house and read the whole book to them, including my publishing mistake where I typed "The fish are in a jar ready to be eaten by the frogs." instead of "The flies are in a jar ready to be eaten by the frogs."
Zico's reading is going well, he loves being read to and visiting the library at least once a week and this week Dave noticed that he was reading some of the words that came up on the screen when he was playing a computer game, he is relying less on his memory and starting to really pay attention to the letters in the words.

Term 2, week 2

Another busy week for Zico with lots of new learning.
Physical Education. Zico has been using a hoop at Gymnastics so he showed me skipping through the hoop with his hoop at home. Zico is getting more confident with his body so he also climbed up on the window sill in his bedroom!

Zico's writing is coming along nicely, he has been suggesting his own topics and knows lots of the sight words as well as how to form so many letters without assistance.

 Zico loved listening to a new book in the car. Zico has been reading to us everyday at least 2 books as well as listening to stories and having stories read to him. He also really enjoys just looking at the pictures too. We have been visiting the library at least once a week as we just love getting new books, this week Zico was thrilled to find the sequel to his favourite Ruth Paul book Stomp, called Dinosaur Dads.

 Zico got to do some monoprinting with paint, we discovered that if you write words then when you put the paper on you get a mirror image of the word. Zico also enjoyed doing some finger painting and mixing silver and orange paint.

 At Gymnastics Zico was learning about Spacial awareness so he had to try and keep his eyes closed as he jumped on the trampoline as well as walking across the room with his eyes closed and falling back into my arms. So much fun.

 Zico has learnt how to take "selfie's" on my phone, he also found out how to search on google with his voice instead of typing words in. He taught me and we said the names of his favourite dinosaurs and then learnt more about them through watching the videos that google showed us.

 As well as typing letters onto google Zico had a go at typing numbers onto a calculator, it wasn't as much fun though but he still enjoyed typing a number and getting me to read what he had typed.

 Zico had a go on a new swing as we had an early start and got to the library before they were even open! Luckily they have a swing outside to kill some time on.

Term 2 Week 1

Zico loves to visit the library and has learnt how to use the self issue machine so he can now issue books himself. We have reserved some of his favourite books about Dinosaurs by Penny Dale. Here is Zico showing you the inside cover which is the part of the book that he always reads.  Zico has been reading lots of sea related books to us. He went fishing off the wharf in the easter holidays so finds reading tricky words like line and bait quite easy.

 We have been lucky enough to have a visit from a Preying Mantis. She had a fat tummy and a few days later we were lucky enough to see her laying her egg sack on our deck.

 Zico continues to grow in confidence and try new things. Here he is trying the round about at the beach playground.

 We have been enjoying some autumn sunshine at the beach. Zico found a log to balance on and a stick to use as a weapon.

Easter Holidays (2 week break)

We went away to Cable bay for a couple of days in the first week. Zico loved playing at the campground. At breakfast time we saw a stick insect and a very friendly Weka. Daddy suggested that we feed the stick insect to the Weka, it gobbled it up much to Zico's delight. There was also a friendly campground cat with white socks called Timothy.

We went out on the paddleboard together and Daddy went fishing on his Kayak but before he went off into the depths we all explored some caves together. It started to get cold so Zico helped me to light a fire on the beach. He found drift wood and kept throwing some more on the fire. He toasted some mini marshmallows too. When Daddy got back it was dark and late and our fire was blazing so we cooked Daddies two mackerels that he caught on the fire and ate some proper crisps to go with it. Zico loved this new version of "fish and chips". 

 Zico has had a break from writing for these two weeks but he has read plenty of books, done some dot to dots, visited the library and various playgrounds. Had a friend visit from Wellington and of course had heaps of time building with Lego and Duplo which is his favourite thing to do.

Week 9

This was the last week of term before the easter holidays. Zico took some pictures of Pixie with my phone and some of his lego duplo creations.

Zico always gets one or two bedtime stories. This is one of his favourites Stomp. He really likes all the extra talk that he and Daddy do around the silly behaviour of the dinos.

 It's been a dry summer so Zico was so excited to see rain. He stayed outside getting soaking wet playing on the deck and drinking from the drips.

 We have a grape vine and whilst we were eating some grapes at lunch time we discovered that one grape had a baby snail on it. Zico watched it move around with fascination and smiles.

 I have been making Zico some dot to dots to help with his numeral id of numbers over 10. He delights in doing squiggly lines rather than straight ones so this picture looks funny!

 Zico drew and wrote about Batman as we were going to the Lego Batman movie. He is taking ownership of his writing now and always choses what he thinks he should draw and write.

 Sometimes if the drawing doesn't go to plan Zico will rub parts out and try again.