Mathematics!

Last week some of us made some totally cool creations with recycled materials. We talked about the kind of shapes we'd used. Lots of us didn't know what to call the tubes - Lucas informed us that they are cylinders! 

Have a look at our Explain Everything where we describe our creations. 

Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori

What fun Māori language week we had! Each day there was a new question outside the office to answer relating to Māori language. Ka pai tō  mahi to the children of Room 3, we had a winner everyday!! 

Rāhina - What is the Māori name for yellow? - Coby 

Rātu - How did Maui slow the sun? - Kerrin 

Rāapa - Where is the kura whare pukapuka? - Zach 

Rāpare - What is the Māori name for Christchurch? - Tuarangi 

Rāmere - What is the Māori name for the colour of our house Ti Kouka? - Savannah

Dylan brought a selection of his favourite books about Maui which he shared with the class. 

We also read In the Beginning by Peter Gossage. 

Then we went for a walk out to the car park where we discovered a mural depicting the same story! We were so intrigued by the beautiful colours and patterns we began looking at patterns in our Mathematics programme. 

At Kapa Haka this week we learnt a new song 'To Tinana Ki Roto' which we have been practising in class. You can find the song and lyrics here:

Out on the playground we were working on using  Kia ora - Thank you and Aroha mai - Sorry. Well done to those children who got prizes from the duty teachers for being caught using these words. 

What a great start. We are looking forward to continuing our learning in this area. 

Tino pai to mahi to Whaea Jo and Miss B for the awesome organisation this week. 

Spiders, Puppets & more!

On Friday, Room 3 visited the museum.  

There were 2 main reasons for our visit.  The first, was to see the puppets that we had created out of recycled materials last term.  Secondly, there was an exhibition on called 'Spiders Up Close', which coincided nicely with our current Provocation.

We were extremely lucky to have Dr Cor Vink, (the man who wrote the book that inspired the exhibition) share his knowledge of spiders with us.

We learned lots of interesting facts, which we recapped on once we had returned to school.

Here's what we could remember:

"Some spiders have no eyes and they live in caves." Lakiesha

"Some spiders can't see very well." Rylee

"Male spiders are smaller than females." Yossi

"There's 2000 species of spiders in New Zealand." Zach

"Some spiders don't have webs." Dahlisha

"White-tails don't have webs, they steal other spider's webs." Kaelyn

"Spiders can eat webs." Kiani

"Some spiders use ballooning to get from Australia to New Zealand." Jonty

"Spiders have clear blood." Violet

"A wolf spider can camouflage." Wereta

"800 spiders don't have names." Kiani

"Jumping spiders don't have webs, they catch their food." Wereta

"Some spiders wait for their food to come to them." Candice

"Wasps can eat spiders." Phoenix

"Spiders the same size can eat each other." Coby

  

As well as checking out our puppets in the Whole House Reuse exhibition, we had time to have a wander around other parts of the museum.

Thank you to all of our wonderful parent helpers who came along.  We hope you had as much fun as we did!

Interesting Instruments

During Week 7 of the term, Room 3 were given the opportunity to watch the Symphony Orchestra perform at St. Margret's College.

We were amazed at the many different instruments that were there, how they were played and the different sounds that they made.

Back at school, we drew and wrote about our favourite instruments and some of us even began collecting data about which were the most popular.

It was a fantastic introduction to instruments for us, and we were very excited when Mrs Head's husband (Murray) offered to come into school last week and share his expertise.

Murray captivated us with his knowledge of different percussion instruments, how they could be played and where they might have originated from.  He brought in 2 drum kits and a Congo drum, (which he was very skilled in playing), and even showed us how to make different sounds just using a bucket!  

We got to try our hands at playing all of the instruments on offer, dancing and moving around to the music that others were making.  

A big Thank You to Murray for taking the time to come and share his passion with us...we loved it!