What Lives At The Rocky Shore?

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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.

The Great Evaporation Race and A Photographer

We are learning how to do a fair test. You have to do fair tests when you are experimenting so that you know the experiment is working correctly. This is Experiment Number 2. We are finding out which container water will evaporate from first. We made the test fair by putting the same amount of water into each container, putting the water in all at the same time, and putting them in the same place with the same amount of sunlight from the same direction. We learnt that a hypothesis is a sensible guess at what will happen in an experiment. Our hypothesis was that the water from container 1 would evaporate first because it the most thin and shallow container, as well as being the widest. We thought container number 2 would be last because it has the tallest sides and the smallest gap at the top so the sunlight can't get directly into it. We set up our experiment on Thursday afternoon (23rd February), and today, Friday, our hypothesis about the winning container was correct!

This morning, Darryl Torckler came to our school to tell us all about the rocky shore. He is a photographer and diver who takes interesting, colourful, exciting, incredible, stunning close up photos of the plants and animals on the rocky shore. He told us to wear covered in shoes when we are exploring so we don't cut our feet on the oyster shells, or kina. He told us to be quiet and patient when looking for the animals because big loud clompy feet would scare them away! When we are looking at the rock pools we should keep an ear or eye on the waves to make sure they don't come splashing over us. Darryl takes photos with his special underwater camera. Some of his photos are of both above and below water. The only time he has been attached by an animal was when he was bitten by an eel when he was taking a photo of a crayfish! His blood looked green because he was 12 metres down and no red light could get down so far. He managed to get a shot of the eel. He said the scariest thing in the sea is a sea snake.
This week we learnt that seaweed is a protist, a one celled lifeform.  It is kind of like a plant and kind of like an animal. We think this is a bit confusing and we need some more information. Please leave a comment to tell us anything YOU know about seaweed. We also learnt that a sea cucumber throws up its whole stomach if you annoy it. We can't wait for our trip to Cornwallis!

What Makes A Living Thing?

We had an enormous discussion today about what makes a living thing. Here is the list we came up with:
All living things:

• have babies that are born, hatch or germinate
• die
• need nutrition
• breathe
• move
• grow
• have senses
• have a type of liquid inside them like blood or sap
• make a noise
• have a habitat
• excrete (get rid of ) waste

We debated if these were true or not, and we came up with justifications and reasons why most of them should be on our list. There are a couple of them that we are not sure about though. Leave a comment letting us know what you think, and if you can find examples that prove our list right or wrong!

Welcome to our blog

Welcome to Room 16!
This term we are looking at the Rocky Shore, and the animals and plants that live there. Our big question is: Habitats-Paradise or Prison? Harry and his family spent the weekend at Kawau Island and gathered all these amazing things for us to have in our classroom. This week we will be start finding out all about some of these animals, what they are called, where exactly they live and what they eat.
Have you ever explored rock pools at the beach? Leave a comment telling me all about what you have seen there.

Our Movie

Here is the movie that we used as the backdrop for our dance 'Every Child Has The Right To An Education'.
We discovered that millions of children in the world don't get to go to school for lots of different reasons. Some girls have to look after their younger brothers or sisters, or they have to get married very, very young. Some children have to go out to work instead of going to school. We found out that some families cannot afford to send their children to school, and sometimes war and unrest disrupts children's education. We tried to show images that could convey messages about how sad we found this in the first bit of our film.
We did lots of philosophy and discussion work this term about why education was the right of every child, and why it is so important. For this part of our movie, and dance, we wanted to use images and colour that showed happiness, fun, laughter and joy. We chose video images that showed girls and boys going to school, even girls going to school with male teachers, children taking their younger siblings to school so everyone can learn, and lots of shots of what we love about school-books and reading, art, music, writing, maths, and PE.
The last bit of our movie had to be loaded separately for technical reasons!!  It is the video Andy shot in our classroom and put together for us. It shows us having fun. We wanted this because we think learning is fun, and we truly believe it is the right of every child.
We hope you enjoy watching them.