With thanks to Teacher, Diane Harris

As a result of Covid-19 restrictions and trips being cancelled, a group of Girls’ School junior students took a virtual tour of the Auckland Zoo. As part of their ‘tour’, the girls spoke about the different types of animals they would have seen, their habitats and the food the animals may eat. Some took a keen liking to the ‘giraffes’ in particular, opening new learning opportunities.

‘The Short-Sighted Giraffe’ was a perfect book for the Year 0 students to support their inquiry.

The focus was a giraffe that needed to wear glasses to prevent her bumping into objects and other animals. This sparked a desire to retell the story in their own words, applying creativity to their writing to change the objects that their giraffe bumped into. Their enthusiasm spread to their art lesson, using egg boxes to create their own giraffes - the girls loved decorating the giraffe’s glasses with glitter and paint! 

The girls also used their fine motor skills with hammer and nails, while also applying maths skills, to fashion tangram pieces into giraffe shapes. Year 8 student, Zoe Davis-Calvert, joined the class to work with them as a team to create a giraffe using only body parts. Well done girls!

Here are a few of the stories the girls wrote:

Olivia Boyd: Rainbow the giraffe couldn’t see. She bumped her head on a rock and said 'OUCH! I need to put on the glasses, but oh no, I am going to look bad.' So she took them off. Then she took her glasses home. She kept hurting herself so she decided to wear her glasses after all.

Elly Chiu: Ruby the giraffe bumped her head on a stick and pricked her bottom on Rhino’s horn and it was very spikey. She kicked her toe on a sharp leaf. She hurt her back because she fell into a swimming pool. She got wet and all the other animals said she was silly. At night the cheetah put the glasses on Ruby. She said, 'I look rather smart'. All the other animals agreed and Ruby kept wearing the glasses.

Janessa Xie: Kelly the giraffe needed glasses. She bumped her head on a tree. 'I need a crash hat,' she said. Then she ran into the hole and she got the ladder to climb out. She really needs glasses!

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