Getting Ready!

This morning Jo came in to help us start making some things for the Farmers' Market on Friday. We painted terracotta pots to put daffodil bulbs in, made beautiful, colourful butterflies, constructed self watering herb pots and are busy taking care of mung bean sprouts. We also did lots of maths working out how much we should sell each item for so we make a profit that we can use to buy plants for the Fairy Garden. We are learning a little about marketing as we find out how display our items so they look amazing. Later on this week we are making coconut ice and finishing our greeting cards. We look forward to seeing you at 3pm on Friday outside our classroom.

Making Pizza

One of the activities that we do during our Whetu Swap is cooking with Rachael. This week is was our turn to make pizza. We made the dough, cut up all the toppings and grated the cheese to go on the top of the pizza. It was lots of fun, and the pizzas tasted delicious! The cooks enjoyed sharing their creations with the choir members.

The Book Parade

Last week it was Book Week. There were lots of exciting activities at school-Nina Rycroft came to talk to us about being an illustrator, lots of different teachers read stories in the library at lunchtimes, and on Friday we had the Book Parade. You could dress up as a book character for the day, and at 12pm the whole school gathered together down on the bottom court to watch all the characters parade along the red carpet. In Room 16 we had three Lief characters (from the Deltora books), 2 Judy Moody's-one saving the world and one getting famous, Pippi Longstockings and her friend Anneke, Limelight Larry, Professor McGonagall, Matilda, Badjelly, Little Bo Peep, a cat, a pirate, and the Grand High Witch from The Witches by Roald Dahl. Everybody cheered and clapped as the characters walked along the carpet!

Sculpture, sculpture and more sculpture

By Alexandra and Laura

We have been looking at all sorts of sculpture by artists such as Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and mostly by Andy Goldsworthy. We have talked about the lines, shapes and materials they use in their work, and we really loved how the sculptures could look abstract, but sometimes represented real things like Barbara Hepworth's three stones that represent her children.This week we went and tried to do some of our own environmental sculpture out on the bank. We collected leaves, twigs, branches and  some stones. We had a lot of fun, but also discovered it is much harder than it looks to make something amazing.

                                                                     By Lara

                                                                 By Geraldine and Josef

                                                              By Setoga and Joakim

                                                              By Madison and Culburnia

                                                                        By Caitlin

                                                               By Harry P and Mack

                                                                 By Harry M and Matthew

                                                   By Kaia, Sophie, Hannah and Natalie B

                                                             By Archie and Oscar

                                                              By Toby and Oliver

 Then, this morning before school, this gorgeous creature arrived:

The children drew around Oscar with chalk, then used the fallen leaves to create Shadowman-

they then came and got the camera and took a series of photos of Shadowman with all sorts of different hairstyles, beards and walking sticks. It looked like wonderful fun!

What Lives At The Rocky Shore?

ade 

Here is the video we made for the Year 1 classes to teach them about some of the creatures and plants who live at the rocky shore. We hope you enjoy it!

The Big Bug Hotel

Today Harry's Mum, Jo, came to make a bug hotel with us. We wanted to make the bug hotel because we have been looking at habitats as part of our Rocky Shore Rich Task, Habitats-Paradise or Prison? We discovered that there are some things the same about habitats for insects and rocky shore creatures, and some things that are very different! Jo made a frame for the bug hotel and we filled it with wood, cardboard, straw, old plastic tubing, pipes and bottles, old leaves and anything else we could find that would make a great hiding place for an insect. Jo also designed a garden for the top to attract even more insects. We divided into groups: stuffers, builders, drillers, photographers, designers and gardeners and worked together to make an amazing bug hotel. Then we decided on some rules to keep the bugs and children in the school safe eg observe with your eyes, not with your hands! The sign designers worked hard to make a great sign for the hotel. So far  today we have had several guests at the hotel: ladybirds, slaters, ants, worms, moths, millipedes, cicadas and an enormous cockroach!

The Maths Experiment With Sideways Photos

Hello Readers!

This is our amazing maths from today. We were investigating what happens when you multiply an odd number by an even number.

This is what we already knew: even numbers are 2,4,6,8 and things that end in 0, and the odd numbers are 1,3,5,7,9. We also know an even number plus an even number equals an even number, an odd number plus an odd number equals an even number, an even number plus an odd number equals an odd number. 

Today we used lots of different maths equipment to make arrays of times tables that were an even number times an odd number eg 4x5

Guess what we discovered when we put them all together and worked out the answers:

1. They all made a rectangle shape

2. The answers were all even numbers!

This result surprised us because when you add an even number and an odd number you get an odd number.

Hmmmm.....

then we thought about what might happen if you multiplied two odd numbers by an even number like 3x3x2.

Guess what? It makes an even number, so did 1x3x5x4, and 2x5x3! 

Tomorrow we are going to see if we can work out why this is, and we would like to know any of your theories too. Please leave us a comment to tell us if you think our theory is right.