Beth's Monarch Butterfy hatches!

We have been watching Beth's chrysalis for over a week now. Yesterday we noticed that it had turned black and we could see orange wings inside the chrysalis. Today at about 10.00am we suddenly noticed the butterfly had hatched and was pumping blood into its wings, ready to fly away! Beth and her friends put the butterfly on a swan plant in the junior courtyard, and just before lunchtime it flew away.

This movie was contributed by Stuart Stock who is one of our parents. We had a great time last Friday holding the Y3-4 swimming sports. It was a bit cloudy and cold- who would have thought after such an amazingly warm sunny week? Never mind- it was a wonderful morning filled with children trying their very best. The house relay was a big highlight... go Cook!

Using digital objects to learn new things

In Room 7 we have a digital data projector that is used (pretty much) every day in different ways. Sometimes we use it to look at and interact with digital learning objects. This week as part of our Body Science study, we have been exploring how the digestive system works, and today we used a digital learning object that helped us learn the names of the different parts of the digestive tract. Tomorrow we plan to use another digital learning object, to help us learn what certain organs along the digestive tract actually do with food after we've swallowed.

You can see these digital learning objects by clicking the appropriate links below the "How WE Learn" sidebar to the right.

Sea Week

This week is "Sea Week" across New Zealand. Seaweek is an annual event run by the NZ Association for Environmental Education that allows New Zealanders to come together and celebrate the sea. Since we live in Eastbourne, the sea is a big part of our daily life. It only seems right we celebrate Sea Week!




For maths we looked at scale drawings of different sea animals, then we used estimation skills to calculate how big these sea animals would be in real life. We then went outside and drew them! Did you know that some jellyfish can grow to be over 10 metres long?

We've been practising our mihimihi...

Last week we were practising our mihimihi (greetings) and we were able to record them. This week we will look at our recordings and see what we need to do to improve them!

Some 'Visual Mihi' to share

Here are 4 children in Room 7 sharing their Visual Mihi. I think they did a great job considering they were not used to talking in front of a camera!

Interesting things about us!

Today we completed our 'Comic Life' posters where we have published some interesting facts about ourselves.
Have a look!

Visual Mihi

This week we plan to finish our "Visual Mihi'. A mihi is used to introduce ourselves, and is usually spoken. But this week Room 7 will be learning how to express who we are, and where we come from, using visual means only! 

Children in Room 18 at Point England School each made a visual mihi last year. Click here to have a look at them, and remember to check back here next week to look at Room 7's!

Class of 2010

 

We are Room 7, 2010!

Inquiry Presentations

This week the Room 7 children have presented their inquiry findings on the question: How do animals survive in the extreme climate of Antarctica?

Click on the 'writing blog' link to the right, and have a look at the videos of children presenting their answer in the form of a puppet show. Some children chose to present their answer in the form of posters, brochures or comic strips, and there are photos of these as well.

The final phase of this inquiry will have us looking at how human are currently using the resources of Antarctica, and what environmental protection is in place to protect the last pristine wilderness on our planet.

Antarctic Treaty

What might the picture above mean?

What can you find out about "The Antarctic Treaty"? Can you explain to the class next Monday, what it is, and what it is supposed to do?

Next week we will explore a little bit more on how humans use Antarctica. How might the "Antarctic Treaty" control what people are allowed/not allowed to do in Antarctica?

Stop Motion animation

Mrs Drinkwater shared this video with the Year 3-4 teachers today. How do you think the author make the wolf and the pig move?

How do animals survive in Antarctica?

Check out the Room 7 writing blog!

Electricity

Between now and the end of the year, Room 7’s reading programme is focussing on science concepts, and ‘hands on’ testing of those ideas. Last week and this week, we have been investigating how an electric circuit works.

After last weeks exploration of the ‘circuit’ concept (i.e. the electricity needs to flow around an unbroken ‘circle’), this week we will be making some different types of switches.

Composing music

This week during music time, we have applied what we have learned about beat, rhythm and melody to completed a 4 bar, 2 note composition.

We used xylophones to plan, practice and perform our compositions to the class. Below are some photos of us playing our own pieces of music.

How cold can it go?

Today we investigated the effects of adding salt to ice.

We added 2 tsp of salt to a plastic cup of ice and measured the temperature. Most group's ice temperature fell to well below minus 10 degrees Celsius.

We added 2 tsp more of salt and measured the temperature. It fell to between minus 15 degrees and minus 18 degrees. The plastic cups started to frost over!

Why did this happen?

Clue #1: We knew that salt helped ice to melt.

Clue #2: We also remembered that for ice to melt, the water/ice molecules need to be excited and start moving about more. That means the molecules need to draw in energy from somewhere, in order to excite and start moving...

After LOTS of discussion we worked out that the energy to excite the ice was coming from the air around the ice. If ADDING energy warms things up, then removing energy must make things COLDER! So the air around the ice was becoming colder, not the ice. The thermometer was measuring the temperature of the air, not the ice.

And boy, was the air around the ice COLD! Minus 18 degrees Celsius was the coldest reading we made. Did I mention that the plastic cups were frosting up?

What does this mean for Antarctica?

The salty ice all around Antarctica is melting, and energy is needed to keep the process going. That energy comes from the air, and as the energy transfers from the air to the ice, the air temperature drops! Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..... No wonder it's so cold down there!

Freezing Cold!

The Physical Nature of Ice
On Monday afternoon we experimented to find out what temperature salt water (sea water) freezes. We measured the temperature of normal iced water and found it was close to 1 degree Celsius. But when we measure the temperature of the salt (sea) water, the temperature dropped as low as -3 degrees Celsius.

What does this mean?

It might mean that...
Sea water needs temperatures lower than zero degrees celsius for ice to form.


Below are some other questions we are inquiring into this week:

What are the three states of matter?

What is the difference between a solid, liquid and gas?

What happens to molecules of water as they freeze? (see the two links below)

• Liquid Water
• Ice

Where does the energy go as water freezes?

History of Antarctica

As part of the 'excite and explore' phase of this term's inquiry on "Antarctica', we have been learning how Antarctica has, over time, gone from being a warm continent to a cold continent at the bottom of the world.

We learned that Antarctica was once part of a 'super-continent' called Gondwanaland.



We looked at the different shapes of the present day continents and how they might have fitted into the jig-saw of Gondwanaland.

Did you know that Dinosaurs once roamed the ancient forests of Antarctica, when it was part of Gondwanaland? Neither did we until yesterday!

Readers Theatre

For the last 3 weeks, students in Room 7 have been rehearsing 3 'readers theatre' plays. 'Readers Theatre' plays are designed to be listened to, rather than watched.

Room 7 is proud to present three plays: "The Enormous Turnip", "Rumplestiltskin" and "The Gingerbread Man".

You can listen to these plays on Voicethread by clicking on the links above.

Mr Dobson got this email from Matthew in France...



Bonjour room 7..

I could not access the blog so I am writing on email.

I arrived in Pouzolles on the 1st of Septembre and started school on the 3rd. The teacher is much more strict, we have to do dictations and the play area is 68 times smaller than in NZ.

Every few days Oliver and I run down to the bakery to buy baguette and croissant. Yet on Wednesday (no school) we have pain au chocolat as a special treat.

I have just joined a football team which has been going really well. The coaches are really experienced and strict.

In most weekends we go swimming in rivers, streams, lakes or the the Mediterranean sea. It's warmer than in NZ (and lots of ladies don't wear any tops!!).

It's a shame that we have missed the season of the snakes but we still see lots of lizards.

Au revoir

KEEP WORKING HARD FOR MR DOBSON EVERYONE!!!!

Matthew

P.S the photo is in front of my school