Thursday, April 30, 2015

Highlights

Maths with blue and orange group

Today we did a skip counting math activity which is called hide and show pattern.
We enjoyed, folding the paper, writing numbers from 1-16 and then cutting out all the numbers and sticking them in our math books.
Most of us learnt this pattern which now helps us with skip counting.
Shivani and Fleur did a fantastic job completing this activity and they helped out their friends too!!

Sign Language

There are many ways to communicate. Sign language is a way. We learnt to sign our National Anthem. Lucas said it was easy to follow the YouTube video. We find this language fascinating. 






Constellations

During our last block today we learnt that the constellation on the New Zealand and Australian flags is called the Southern Cross. There are five stars in this constellation and each of them has a name - Alpha crux, Betta crux, Gamma crux, Delta crux and the tiny star is called Epsilon crux. 


We learnt that the Europeans who first came to New Zealand thought the constellation looked like a cross, but some Maori thought it looked like an anchor. We thought it looked like a kite or a diamond. 

Many flags have the Southern Cross on them. Do you know where these flags are from?


We coloured some cardboard to look like the daytime and nighttime sky, then we put pin pricks into the card to show the Southern Cross shape. 


We also made our own constellations. When we were done we held our work up to next to the window to allow the light to shine throughout the tiny holes. 





Let Me Help You

When our classmate could not fix his lunchbox cover, Brayden, Amanaki and Fleur helped. It was difficult to fix but we didn't give up. 

Thinking about sounds

Yesterday we brainstormed words that had the /or/ sound. 


We saw that there are many ways to write the /or/ sound. 

Today we revisited our brainstorm and looked at just two of the words - core and corps. We were asked to think about what is the same about them, and what is different about them. Eloise was able to recognise that both words sound the same but they are spelt differently.


We thought about the word 'to' and realised that it could be spelt 'too' or 'two' depending on the meaning we wanted to use. 

Knowing about alternative spellings is helpful as we become better writers. 


Being a Leader

Today when Ms Tan was writing with a group of us, Lucas volunteered to be a leader to to give out the 'dot' monitoring cards. He gave us feedback on how ready we were to start on our work. He told Liam that he was chosen first because he paid attention and sat patiently. Our leader together with two other students also ensured that the class was tidy when we completed our session. 

Free time fun

Some of the children have been learning how to make paper planes during their free time. What a good way to practice folding paper accurately. 


Two boys had a lot of fun pretending to be astronauts today. 





Robotics

Three friends from a Room 21 went to their first Robotics session today. Look what they got up to!






A new project

Marcus has a new project! He is making a car for two. Today he worked with a friend to paint the boxes for his car. He thought that a blue car would look classy!


Looking at others' work

Some Seniors dropped by to show us the balloon powered cars they made at their Robotics class. We thought they were pretty cool!




Practice Makes Perfect

We have many ideas and we are able to write our thoughts down. However, sometimes it's hard for ourselves and others to read our stories because we don't form our letters properly. We need to practise writing our letters making sure they are formed correctly and sit on the line. 




Checking our learning

Ms Bland wanted to check if the Green Group understood how the skip counting in 2s pattern worked. She asked the children to write the numbers in the skip counting pattern and leave a dot for the skipped number. Here is the result:






WW1 treasures

Elliot has been learning about his great great grandfather who spent time in Egypt during World War 1. He brought in a little jewelry box that his great great grandad bought and inside it were a lot of interesting things... bullets, a piece of alabaster from the pyramids and a button from an army uniform. The box itself was interesting as it was engraved with Egyptian symbols. 




Sharing Our Knowledge

Fleur and Elliot brought news which they are passionate about to share with the class. 

Fleur told us about how she's helping a neighbour to raise funds for her school by selling feijoa chutney. She made the chutney with her dad. She brought photos and gave us a step-by-step rundown of how to she made the feijoa chutney.

Elliot brought some fast cars to share with us. He told us which was the fastest and which one was the slowest. Can you guess which one is the fastest car? You can find out if you comeby our class and have look at his picture chart.



Making Constellations

Today we learnt that the Southern Cross is a constellation. A constellation is a group of stars that form a specific pattern in the sky. With this knowledge we made our own 'constellations'.







Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Highlights

Team work

These boys worked together to create a tall vehicle. 


They found a parking place for it too!



Understanding how skip counting works

The Green Group worked on an activity to help them understand how skip counting works. 

First we folded up some paper. The fold lines made boxes that we could use to write in. 


Next we wrote down numbers in each box on our paper. 


Then we cut each box. 


After that we placed the numbers in order onto our paper. We made a pattern from the numbers to show how skip counting in 2s works. Most of us finished this task independently!