Egyptian Science

Room 7 has been investigating the science of Ancient Egypt. The Egyptians were very clever at preserving dead bodies, and used a mixture of salts called 'Natron' to help preserve the body for the afterlife. This whole precess we call 'mummification'

We are running an experiment using Epsom Salt, Table salt and Baking soda to see if we can mummify an apple.



The process we went through can be found on the Year 3-4 Wiki 'Mummified apples" page.

Being an Expert!

This week each child in Room 7 had the chance to become an expert on the topic of "Why was the Nile River so important to the Ancient Egyptians?"



One of the learning activities we did to help this happen was a "Bus-Stop". This involved the class splitting into groups and each group being given a small passage of information about the different uses the river had.



Each group then had 10 minutes to summarise their passage. Each child had to put to use the information literacy skills of skimming, scanning and summarising in order to do this successfully.



At the end of 10 minutes the summaries were then shared using a 'Bus-stop". One child became the bus, and had a 60 second visit to each other group (the 'bus-stop') and shared the group summary. The members of the group who were the 'stops' were encouraged to ask further questions of the 'bus'.



This activity allowed each child to become an expert on a small but important topic, while at the same time gaining a 'big picture' by listening to what they had to say.



Bus-Stopping is a great co-operative activity to use when their is a large, complicated topic that needs summarising in a short space of time.

Reading our "Uncle Jack" stories

Room 7 have been recording their "Uncle Jack" stories for you to listen to. Click on the "Class of 2010" link to the side and then click on a students name.

"Uncle Jack" is a very cool story by Kate De Goldi. We used her story of Jack and then made up our own. We hope you enjoy!

I also found this link to a storyteller reading "Uncle Jack". You can listen here

"Extra" science homework this week

The "extra" science homework this week can be found on the homework blog. Click to the right and take a look. Bring to school and share when you've completed the task.

Soccer Tournament

On Tuesday we had a fantastic Soccer Tournament organised by SportZone.

The Year 3-4's played in round-robin soccer games during the morning, then the top 4 teams played off for a semifinal/final placement.

Room 7 had 2 teams place in the top four!



Semi finalists!



Finalists!