Honey and Bacteria Investigation

We have been doing lots of research on honey, bees and bacteria this term and have begun an investigation into what will happen if we put a variety of different honeys, and eucalyptus oil on bacteria.

Earlier in the term we had inoculated our agar plates with bacteria by putting our fingers on the agar, now the bacteria has grown on the agar plates and is visible.

We have five groups all testing a different variety of honey and one other group testing eucalyptus oil.

We have been working hard in our science journals to draw accurate drawings with labels as well as recording what we are noticing happen and predicting what might happen next.

Ask the students about their predictions at home and stay tuned to our blog to see what happens!

Toitoi Term 4 Visit

Curtis! Are you okay!?

Today Sue from St John visited our class. We had the chance to identify hazards and come up with possible ways to prevent them, we also learnt how to treat 4 common injuries.
(Disclaimer: No Curtis' were harmed in the making of this slideshow.)

Have a go at the St John Safety Champ game:
https://safetychamp.stjohn.org.nz/

Boats

This week and last week our class had been designing and building boats.
Things we learnt were that objects with air in them float, objects with a flat bottom float, things that are light weight float, things that are made from foam float, and things that are hollow float.
We had a chance to test our boats and then go back to the build stage to see if we could improve our designs.
All our boats floated! But we were not sure how long they would last in the water...

Maker-y

More coding of the Edison Robots!

Te Wiki o Te Reo Maori

Last week was Maori Language Week and our students were learning all about Powhiri. Here are photo's of us matching Marae pictures to their Kupu, preparing the hakari (feast) and challenging each other in the wero.

Maths Games!

Maths Games in Room 3. We have been playing the times tables flash cards race, Number Bonds to 10 on our Chromes, Puzzles to look at shapes, and Card Games and Snakes and Ladders to practice our adding!

More Maker-y

Last week for Maker-y the kids were using the ed-blocks programme to code the Edison Robots to follow a track on the grids. Lots found this difficult but the kids persevered and got there in the end! Well done for sticking to it guys.

Ice Breaker

Our class has been looking at erosion and how this changes our land. The investigation we carried out was a model to check what would happen if water got into the crack or crevices of a rock. Our class could connect the idea that if the water expanded inside the glass bottles when it froze and break the bottle that the rock could break if the water had no escape in the cracks and crevices of a rock.

Cook Island Language Week

Kia Orana! Thanks to Whaea Pearl for bring her amazing family in for the Cook Island Performance they shared with our school! The kids have had an awesome week learning about Cook Island culture.

Maker-y Robots

Yesterday's Maker-y Session: first the kids had a collaborative task where they had to build a structure with blue tack and popsicle sticks using only one hand each. Then they had a chance to code the Edison Robot's using either demo codes or their own coding!

Maker-y Edison Robots

The kids in Room 3 have been working with Whaea Nane and the Edison robots. They have been learning the different parts of the robot, vocabulary (Algorithm, Debugging, Decomposition), designing their own robots that would be helpful to them and coding.

Senior Girls Self Defence!

Yesterday I got to take the all the Y5/6 girls to learn self defence with Whaea Annie! We learnt how to keep ourselves safe using our minds, voices and bodies.
We had an awesome day, thanks Whaea Annie!

Decomposing

In Term 1 we buried a few natural items to see if they would decompose or potentially turn into fossils over time. We went back to these yesterday to see what had happened. We noticed lots of different things which can be found in a table on the students blogs if you want to read more!

Orienteering

Today we had an awesome time with Mrs Robinson from Counties Manukau Orienteering teaching us how to read maps and do some orienteering around our school. This was great fun!

Rippa Rugby

Some photo's from our Rippa Rugby sessions with Coach Steph from Counties Manukau Sport.

ZOOFARI!

And here we have the lovely Tamy's team!
Looking great girls!
Leave a comment below and tell our blog viewers what your favourite animal was and why.

ZOOFARI!

Miss Fee's group (Isope, Kayle, Michael and Arush - The Dream Team!) at the zoo. As the other parent supervisors send me their photos I will add them to the blog.
Boys leave a comment below telling us your favourite animal and why it was your favourite!
Watch this space.
Thanks Auckland Zoo for a wonderful time!

Anzac Biscuits

On Tuesday we made Anzac Biscuits for science, we learnt how to half fractions and we learnt the difference between physical and chemical change!
Anzac Biscuits are a chemical change because the change cannot be reversed, unlike an ice cube that can turn back into water when melted and even a gas during evaporation.

How big was T-rex?

Our science focus for this term has been around dinosaurs. Lots of the kids have been wondering how big dinosaurs actually were. We have done a bit of research and found out that the T-rex was 12 metres long (from the tip of the tail to the nose) and 6 metres tall (from the bottom of the feet to the top of the head). We went outside and measured how big this actually was and lay down inside the measurements.
As you can see in the photos, 8 of us fit in the length of a T-rex and 3 of us fit in the height of a T-rex! Huge!

Making Fossils

This week we made fossils by imprinting shells and fossils into concrete.
Make sure you check out our students blogs for their writing this week as this is what we will be writing about.
So far we have learnt that a fossil is anything that has been preserved over a period of time. For things to become fossils is is important that they don't decompose. Things that speed up decomposing are exposure to oxygen (air), and moisture.
We had a great time!

Measurement

Here we have Room 3 learning to estimate and measure, we used measuring jugs in millilitres (ml) and litres (l) to measure liquid and we used scales in grams (gm) and kilograms (kg) to measure weight.
We also measured the distance/length of some items using millimetres (mm), centimetres (cm) and metres (m) but Miss Fee forgot to take photo's of us estimating then using the rulers to measure!

Counties Sport - Hockey

Counties Manukau Sport are coming into our school every Thursday teaching us Hockey (how to grip the stick, how to dribble and push the ball). Here are some photo's of this weeks session!
Remember to wear covered shoes on Thursday to protect your toes!

Wheels Day!

The Room 3 students that participated in wheels day today!

MOTAT Trip

Flick through the slides to see what we got up to on our MOTAT trip! 

Kids - add a comment explaining what your favourite part of MOTAT was, write it in a complete sentence!