Visit to WelTec

On Friday Room 1 visited the Electrotechnology Department and other labs of interest at WelTec in Petone. We were invited by Joe's mum Caryn. The tutors organised a special programme for us with lots of exciting activities about the topics we have been studying at school - Magnetism, Sound and Electricity. Room 1 think that WelTec could be a good place to learn more about electricity and engineering when they are older! We thank Mel, Trevor, Guy and John at WelTec for providing such a wonderful learning experience and answering all our questions!

Click here to view the movie of our visit.

Painting Biscuit Bear

We read the story of Biscuit Bear and decided to paint him! Our painting focus is to mix colours to obtain different shades and to experiment with different brush techniques. To paint Biscuit Bear we dabbed on the paint with the tip of the brush. We are very proud of our Biscuit Bears!

Exploring with magnets

My magnet lifts 3 heavy metal scissors.

Our current science focus is to investigate the properties of magnets.
Our first activity was to find and talk about how an object of our choice behaved when attracted to our magnet.

Our Malaysian visitor:Kiran.

This week Room 1 were lucky to have a wonderful Malaysian teacher trainee working with us in Room1! Kiran quickly became a favourite helper and the class loved to listen to her musical accent when she read stories. She shared a slide show about Malaysian food and cooked some special treats for us. The curry puffs were yummy! Thank you Kiran!

Our Writing : How to make a Book.

In Room1 we are learning how to write instructions - a sequenced explanation of how something happened.
Last week we especially enjoyed reading and discussing the illustrations in a big book Jolly Jumping Jellybeans. We made and illustrated our own book and wrote down how we did it, trying our best to get everything in the right order. We hope you enjoy reading our first try at writing instructions.

Celebrating Matariki: June 4th this year

Pania's mother, Arini Poutu, enthralled Rooms 1, 2 & 3 with a wonderful presentation about Matariki. The appearance in the eastern sky at this time of year of the seven star constellation known as Matariki defines the start of the Maori New Year. We learned a special song to sing and heard how Matariki is a time of family celebration and a time to look forward to the coming year. We watched a DVD of Pania, Kahu and their big brother Tane performing kapa haka with the Ngati Poneke Young Maori Club at the celebration of Matariki at Te Papa. Pania demonstrated the poi and Arini read us all a traditional Maori story. Thank you Arini and Pania!

Maths:Telling the Time

Room 1 have been learning to tell the time on the classroom clock.
Every one has made their own clock face with movable hour and minute hands.
First we learned the hour times during the school day, matching our model clocks to the hour times on the real classroom clock. After that, we repeated the process with half hour times during the day. We are pretty good at telling the time now and keep up the practice outside by playing What's the Time Mr Wolf?

Blending colour: Rainbow Fish

We are learning to mix and blend paint to create our art work. These rainbow fish began as white crayon sketches on black paper. Red and blue paint was mixed and increasing amounts of white blended to make lighter and lighter shades.

Sounds of science:Talking on the Telephone

We were so lucky to have our big Room 11 buddies to help us make our paper cup telephones! It was tricky to to thread the string through the paper cups so their longer fingers were a great help! Our question for investigation was to find the best way to use the telephone to hear your partner talking. Rooms 1 & 11 quickly discovered that pulling the string tight produces the biggest vibrations and the loudest sounds! Thanks buddies!

Sound Waves

When we make sounds,vibrations pass through the air and other materials to meet our ears. Room 1 wanted to to see what vibrations looked like so we tried an experiment to find out. We filled a tray with water and waited till the water was really still. Amelia dropped in a little bead and we could see the little ripples as it hit the water. These ripples are like the vibrations of a soft sound. Artemisia dropped in a small stone. The ripples are bigger, like the vibrations of a louder sound. Daniel's rock made a huge splash, so we decided it was too big!

Jump to It!

On Thursday we enjoyed watching"Jump to It", a show based on the New Zealand Book Awards.
Artemisia and Sarah were invited to join in! Spot them in these photos!

Keeping Healthy with our Buddies

Our big buddies from Room11 visited us to share some special information about keeping Happy and Healthy at the beginning of the term! They all made their little buddy a special pamphlet about eating healthy food, getting lots of sleep, drinking water and getting enough exercise. We are all reading this information again in Room 1 as part of our preparation for the cross country run! Thank you big buddies, you are helping us be the best that we can be!

Days of the Week

Our current maths unit is Time. We made these paper chains to practice the days of the week in English and Maori.

Cross Country

Room 1 are practising each day for the cross country run. We are learning some warm up exercises before we run and finish with cool down exercises afterwards. Remember to wear your running shoes every day!

Exploring Circuits

Room 1 have been experimenting with bulbs,wires,alligator clips and batteries! The student challenge was to make the light bulb glow. Every one worked out that all the items had to be connected to each other so the current from the battery could flow in a circuit or loop, just like in the ghost ball experiment last week.

Jumping Frogs

We are investigating different kinds of electricity.

We created static electricity when we rubbed a balloon on our hair.

We then picked up our “jumping frogs” (frog faces drawn on green paper)!

The electrical charge created by rubbing the balloon attracted the bits of paper.

The Disco

Room 1 at the Disco on Friday!

M & M's

On Friday we soaked orange and green of M & M's in water to see what would happen. The colours dissolved off the M & M's but did not mix in the water! We are not sure why so we will investigate this next week!

Squishy Eggs

On Thursday we soaked a raw egg in vinegar. The acid in the vinegar is beginning to change the eggshell.
The egg with the face is Mr Control. We will not soak him.

We will have to wait till Monday to see what happens next! We predict the egg in vinegar will become soft and squishy but Mr Control egg will stay the same!

Blowing up a Balloon

On Wednesday we blew up a balloon with gas we made by mixing baking soda and vinegar in a balloon. The gas was carbon dioxide.