Monday, August 30, 2010

More Layers in our Rainforest

Last Thursday we welcomed Dylan into Room 3.

On Friday we made foliage (leaves) for the CANOPY
and UNDERSTORY in our rainforest.


We used two different art techniques. The first technique was painting. We blended different shades of green and yellow paint again which we're getting really good at. Dylan is doing a great job on his second day of school.



The second technique was collage. We tore different types and shades of green paper into small pieces then glued them onto leaf shapes.




Don't you think the leaves make the different layers in our rainforest look pretty cool?



We made snakes last Wednesday afternoon at Buzzy Bees. Snakes live on the FOREST FLOOR, in the UNDERSTORY and in the CANOPY. Wow!
Snakes have amazing patterns on their bodies so they are well camouflaged. This means they blend in really well so their prey don't see them coming. You better look carefully when you check out our rainforest... just in case you're being watched!



Come back soon for some awesome writing about the rainforest from the team in Room 3.



Saturday, August 21, 2010

Our Rainforest is Growing

We have been putting our new knowledge about the layers of the rainforest to good use and have started building a mini rainforest right in Room 3! We read a book called The Great Kapok Tree so we started with a Kapok Tree for the EMERGENT LAYER.

Teamwork has been a huge part of Room 3 recently. You might wonder what we're doing here...










We're making bark rubbings to make the trunk of the Kapok Tree look really interesting.









Cairo & Mykee are hard at work.













So are Kaylee, Kelli & Briah.














The trunk and branches of the Kapok Tree is in the background and another group are hard at work to create the leaves. We discovered that a Kapok Tree has COMPOUND LEAVES. This means one large leaf is made up of 5 to 9 leaflets. So if you come and visit Room 3 you will see that our tree has compound leaves too!










And here we all are in front of our EMERGENT Kapok Tree.







The next layers of our mini Rainforest are already under construction. Come back soon and see what they are and what they look like...


Saturday, August 14, 2010

The Tropical Forest and The Great Kapok Tree

We've had such a busy week!!

On Monday we went to the Tropical Forest at the Otago Museum.








We saw a pond,








a waterfall,











turtles,








exciting insects,








fish,








a tarantula skin,

and, of course, lots and lots and lots of butterflies!!








On Tuesday we welcomed Tigue into Room 3. It's great to have you here Tigue!

On Wednesday we had a very busy Buzzy Bees session. We helped our Buzzy Bees visitors learn about the butterfly life-cycle that we saw at the Tropical Forest.

On Thursday we didn't have discovery which was sad but we had a special assembly to say goodbye to Mr McLeod in Room 5 (also very sad)

On Friday we began creating our very own Tropical Rainforest wall. Watch out this week as we continue the Room Three Kapok Tree.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Painting The Gardner's Maze

This week our Big Book was The Gardner's Maze. Today we painted small hedge plants to make our own little maze on the wall. We worked on our own but it was a real team effort to paint enough to make the maze. Three different greens and some yellow gave a great effect. We didn't even use water to rinse our brushes because we learned how to unload the brushes by painting out the excess onto newspaper.



















Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Letter to Mrs O'Donnell

After Mrs O'Donnell responded to our post about what we found in the rainforest we decided to write her a letter. She was very keen to find out what is special about a toucan. The extra large letter is on the wall in room 3 but we think Mrs O'Donnell won't mind if you share her letter here. Thanks to the wonderful kids in room 3 for all the great ideas for the letter.

Dear Mrs O'Donnell

We have learned a lot about tropical birds. We noticed a lot of different beaks on the birds.

The Harpy Eagle has a sharp beak to eat small birds and animals. The macaw has a strong beak for eating nuts with hard shells. The quetzal has a tiny beak to eat little bugs.

The Toucan has a humungous beak to eat large insects and fruit.

We hope you get to see our pictures.

From Room 3.