Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Puppet Show

Last week we had a huge puppet making week. Kaitrin and Drew came every day and helped us make some cool puppets. We made scoopmouths out of laundry powder scoops, pop-ups and onion heads. We were pretty busy practicing some songs and rhymes for a big school presentation last friday. We practiced outside Room 1 but it rained after lunch so we had to have it in Room 6.
It was a bit of a squash but it was still pretty amazing!

We were too busy to take photos during the making time but here are a few.


Room 3 with pop-up
puppets







These colourful birds
danced and looked
like real birds!








The soapbox puppets sang a song.
Their mouths moved.









These children
made foam mouths.
They told funny jokes.





Room 4 made spookies.
They were floaty in the air.








We had so much fun. Can we do that every year please?!

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Being Safe

We have started our new topic for this term and it's all about being safe.

We have had Constable Heather Rei visit our class and talk to us about being safe when we are out walking. Her main message is that we should always be with an adult when crossing roads and to listen to them.










Here we are at the pedestrian crossing in our carpark.
We need to stop, look and listen for cars.
We walk quickly across the road when it is safe, looking up and down the road as we go.










When we cross the street we stop at the kerb and take one step back. We look up the road. We look down the road. We look along the road to check for any traffic. When it is safe we cross.
Here we are holding hands to keep safe. Can you see us? We have some special vests that make us really stand out!










When we walk along the path we walk on the house side, away from the road.










Are you a safe walker?














Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Calendar Orders

We have completed our pictures for the calendars this year around the theme of 'My Family'

Order forms have been sent home in children's reading folders. Calendars cost $10 each, card sets cost $10 and diaries cost $15.








By Charlotte









By Josh









By Caleb









By Dylan






By Isaac










By Flynn










By Baylee








By Tom










By Dakota










By Isaiah







By Matthew











By Thomas







By Koby

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Te Ra - The Sun - Artworks

We visited the Otakou Marae last week and heard some legends. One of the legends was about how Maui slowed the sun. We created some art showing the sun - te ra - and we have tried to use some maori designs. We have looked at the koru shape which looks like a fern frond unfurling. It symbolises strength, growth and new life. We hope you can see some koru in our sun art. They look really bright and firey up on our wall. We used some glitter to make them shine as well!


















Thursday, September 1, 2011

Lotions and Potions


On Thursday Rooms 2, 3 and 4 went to the museum to learn about explosions and potions.

First we went into Discovery World. Here are some photos of things we did there. There were some neon lights with lots of different colours.



There was a blowing machine which held a ball up in the air.









There was a ball track where the ball went round and up and down and through tunnels.








There was a big keyboard. When you stood on the keys it played music.








In the classroom Heather took us through some mixing activities. we had to mix some common household ingredients together and observe what happened. In this photo Heather put in a menthos mint/ lolly into a coke bottle and it exploded everywhere!! We all cheered and clapped- it made a bit of a mess but we thought it was great!!

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Kids can be scientists too!!


On Thursday we had some students from Balmacewen Intermediate showing us their science fair projects. They had to decide on an area that interested them and come up with a question to investigate. They then had to find ways to test/answer their question and create a board with all their information. We had 4 students talk to us. Their topics were ( as we remember them):
1) What effect does the swimming pool have on your teeth?
2) How clean is the Taieri River?
3) Do boys and girls see the same things in
optical illusions?
4)Would Dunedin have similar effects from earthquakes as Christchurch due to the kind of ground underneath us?

Here they are talking to Room 2, 3 and 4.







We thought they were pretty clever and they explained their ideas very clearly.





We have started to explore bubbles and we had lots of fun on Friday blowing them on the tennis court.
Scientists make observations by using their senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. We made some observations using sight, sound and touch. We decided not to taste the bubbles when Mrs O'Donnell said they were made out of dishwashing liquid -yuck!




We saw....
rainbows in the bubbles
big and little bubbles
bubbles floating up even when there was no wind
clusters of bubbles and bubbles by themselves
round bubbles






We heard....
silence

We felt....
sticky little 'kisses' when the bubbles popped on us
slippery blobs










Scientists ask questions to find out new things about their world.
We asked questions and we tried to use some question words to help us...words like who? where? when? what? why? and how?
Here are some of our questions....

How do bubbles go up when there is no wind?
How big can a bubble be?
What will happen when you put a fire under a bubble?
How do you make bubbles?

We want to try and answer some of these questions. We will think about ways to find out over the next few days.

Keep warm everyone!!

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Our Mystery Egg

Last Monday we submerged this egg in a jar of water.
After one day in the water this is what we observed. The egg had some cracks in it. We kept watching each day and showed some photos at assembly on Friday. We had to predict what we thought might be inside. Some of us thought it might be a crocodile...a kitten...a snake.... a tiger... or a dinosaur.




On Wednesday we observed a hole in the top.








Today, Monday, we can see this much of the creature. We think it must be a dinosaur. It looks quite cute. Koby was very glad it wasn't a real live dinosaur as it looks like a Tyrannosaurus which eats meat!!





On Friday we did this experiment to see what would happen. You might like to try it at home. We had a shallow bowl/ plate of milk with some drops of food colouring in the 'corners' as shown in the picture. Then we dropped in a few drops of dishwashing liquid in the middle and we watched what happened. Try it and leave a comment on our blog to tell us what you observed!