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!

Super Science!

We have started the term with some exciting science. Today we had a visiting group of scientists come to work with Room 2 and 3. Their names were Esther, Bianca, Sam and Joe.

They showed us how to make airzookas and straw oboes and talked about how sound is made and how it travels.

We made some straw oboes. We cut a notch out of one end of a straw. Then we had to blow through the straw while pressing down slightly with our lips.

It was VERY tricky but some of us made some strange duck sounds!!

The Airzooka

We had some cardboard tubes.

We cut the neck off the balloon and stretched the round part over the end of the tube. We pulled the balloon back and let it go.

At the other end is a lid with a hole cut in it. A puff of air comes out when you let the balloon go at the other end.

Sounds Travel!

Bianca had a wire coat hangar with 2 strings tied to it. She hit the wire with a fork when we were holding the strings and it sounded quiet.

When we held the strings up to our ears the sound was really loud. The sound from banging the wire travelled up the string into our ears. The wire hanger vibrated and the vibrations went up the string!

At the end of the afternoon Esther showed us how to make icecream. She mixed cream, milk, sugar, berries and chocolate chips together in a bowl. Then while the mixer was going Joe poured in some liquid nitrogen. This is really really really really cold!! It froze the cream mixture straight away and turned it into icecream. It also gave off steam as it warmed up in the room. Esther then put a little scoop of icecream in a cone and we all had one! Yum...this is great science!

We had a great time observing, predicting, and exploring. Over the next few weeks we will let you know of some other learning that we do in science.

Something to look out for is what hatched out of the mystery egg in our classroom....it has to be submerged in water....hmmmm what do you think it could be??

Zooming Moon Rockets

Incredible Science!!

Today we used 3 objects to make a moon rocket. We had a thin cardboard tube (like a fat straw), a piece of string and a balloon to make a rocket. We made the tube move from one end of the string to the other by having one end up high and the other end down low. We had to make sure the string was tight so it would move. The tube rocket moved slowly. Here are some photos to show us at work.

Then we added some balloon power! We blew up a balloon and taped it to the tube. When we let the balloon go, the tube rocket sped along the string!!! We haven't got any photos of that because we were having so much fun Mrs O'Donnell forgot to take photos!! But here is a picture of what it looked like.

This rocket idea came a really cool site called incrediblescience.co.nz. You could have a look at this site to get some other cool things to do.

Next week we are going to try some more hands on science activities so we'll keep you posted.

Our Gruffalo Pictures

Who is this creature with terrible claws

And terrible teeth in his terrible jaws?

He has knobbly knees and turned out toes

And a poisonous wart at the end of his nose.

His eyes are orange, his tongue is black;

He has purple prickles all over his back.

Oh help, oh no!

it's a gruffalo!!

The Gruffalo

Last week we went to a great show about "The Gruffalo" book. It was amazing. The characters were a mouse, a fox, an owl, a snake and the gruffalo. The mouse is very clever and uses the Gruffalo to scare all the animals that want to eat it.

Miss Cavaye-Astle, our college teacher, has been doing some dance with us based on these animals. We have been moving in lots of different ways to show what these animals are like.

We have done some writing about the Gruffalo. Here are some of our sentences.

The mouse wants to eat gruffalo crumble. By Dylan

The gruffalo was cool. By Isaac

The mouse is little. By Matthew

I saw the gruffalo. By Tom

I like the snake. I like snake shaking the maracas. The mouse is tricking the fox. By Charlotte

I like the shakers on the snake. By Isaiah

Our Shape Poems about Feathers

We have been thinking about shape poems. 

The words of the poem make the shape of 

what the poem is about.

We have looked at feathers this week and made them fly in the classroom.

We felt them on our skin. We listened to some music as we did this.

We brainstormed lots of words to describe feathers. 

We tried to use some of these interesting words in  our writing  about feathers.

Here are some of our poems about feathers

All about the Albatross!!

On Wednesday Alison and Leon from the Albatross Colony at Taiaroa Heads came to talk to us about the albatross.

We got to feel how heavy an albatross egg was and see how big it was. This isn't a real one - just a model!

Here we can see how big the chicks grow. There is an egg, a 2 week old chick and a 5 week old chick on the ground. The white bird on Leon's lap is 4 months old and is heavier than the adult black and white bird!!

The wings of an adult albatross are really long . Can you see them in this photo?

We stretched out 2 children on the floor and the albatross was bigger than them!

We found out that albatross eat squid. Sometimes they see plastic floating in the sea and think that it is a squid and they eat it. This is very bad for the albatross. We can help by making sure our rubbish goes in the bin and doesn't get washed down the drains when it rains.