Project Jonah

Today we had Darren and Louise from Project Jonah in to teach us about marine mammals. Project Jonah is a charity organisation who is called in to save stranded whales. In fact, Darren had a phone call about whales who were in danger to be stranded at Golden Beach, while Louise were doing her presentation. They are also involved in educating communities about marine mammals.

Room 4 has been learning about whales this week. We decided to join Room 17 who initiated this topic, because environmental education is so important  and relevant to all New Zealanders.

The following advice were given:

• Call 0800 DOC HOT , or 0800 4 WHALES, when stranded whales are spotted.
• Keep the whale wet by slowly pouring water on it's skin. Keep the skin shiny.
• Wrap a wet blanket over its body, taking care to keep the dorsal fin uncovered. They also gave us an example of what not to do by covering the dorsal fin in the photo below.
• Mammals breath air, so we should NOT pour water down its blow hole.
• Keep calm around the animal, using low voices. Small children or inquisitive dogs must be kept at a distance to keep the stranded animal calm, as it may stop breathing when anxious.
• Stay away from the tail.
• The tide comes in every twelve hours, so be prepared to look after the animal for a while.

Thank you Darren and Louis. We certainly learnt a lot and we are now confident that we'll be able to help stranded mammals.

HDS Cross Country

Well done to every student who took on the challenge and ran in this years Cross Country races.
I'm satisfied with Room 4's students attitude and results. Beside having three of the four year 5/6 winners in our class, every Room 4 student were able to enjoy the race. Well done.

Farewell to our Korean guests

Over the last three weeks, we had the privilege to host two Korean students. They really settled well and formed friendships with the students in Room 4. We loved having you and learnt a lot from you. Ka kite ano.

Learning how to use our new technology

Check out our brand new Apple TV in our class!!

We are still learning how it works and how we can use it to improve our learning. The students just shared how we used drawing pictures to solve problem. Check out the 'Using pictures to solve problems' post. This device will certainly improve our learning environment.

Using pictures to solve problems.

We had so much fun sharing our solutions on our Apple TV, using draw free, a cool i-pad app.

Problem
A group of students is standing in a circle. Every student faces someone across the circle. The students count off in order, starting with the number 1. Student 2 stands across from student 7. How many students are in the circle?

Yaisa explained her thinking.

Making Grass heads

How to make a grass head - compliments of e-how


Keep a video diary of your own grass head. It'll be great to post.
Tell us what you have wondered about and what you have learnt while you've made your grass head.

Compound sentences

Notes - Predicate, Subject and Object

Compound sentences

Compound sentences are formed when two or more simple sentences are joined.

FANBOYS:

F - For

A - And

N - Nor

B - But

O - Or

Y - Yet

S - So

Example:

My dog is not popular with the neighbours. My dog scares the postman away.

My dog is not popular with the neighbours, because she scares the postman away.

Answers of exercise .

1.   The teacher was late for work, because her guinea pig had hidden her car keys.

2.   I haven’t got any bread, therefore I cannot have a sandwich.

3.   It rained all day, but  the wedding went ahead anyway.

4.   I saw his smiling face and it cheered me up.

HDS Scooter Speed Champ in Room 4

We recently had our HDS Scooter Competition and we are proud to acknowledge Tjarco Chalton from Room 4, who achieved first place, and Joel McDowell, who got home in 3rd place. Well done boys.

Statistics- Term 2

Statistical investigation - Term 2

This is the link to the instructions Room 4's students received.

https://docs.google.com/a/huapaidistrict.school.nz/document/d/1Y0UO4BzsG2sQOconkeBhVaf4pAiqnsEm52OBYoyK8fY/edit?usp=sharing

Tip Top Factory

We had a great time at the Tip Top Factory on Thursday and Friday. Our students learnt how ice cream is made  - from the stage where the Fontera trucks deliver the milk, to where the ice cream tubs is delivered to the shops. Thanks to all our parents who volunteered their time to help make tis trip possible. You are awesome.

The best part of the trip though, was the movie and the ICE CREAM. Yumm!

Using our room space smarter

We got rid of some of our desks this week and it freed up a lot of space. My lovely students did an awesome job re-arranging the furniture. It was a great opportunity to practice our school values and, I must say, I'm pretty impressed with the level of co-operation I've witnessed. It'll be great to share their views on the blog once I know how to do it. Until then, the views expressed are all my own (I promise to be as objective as I can be. :-) They do seem to like the changes though.

Aircraft Challenge - Design Process

As part of our Integrated Inquiry, we are learning about Enterprise with a focus on Technology.Our Aircraft Challenge asked Room 4's students to make an aircraft. Our class has seven teams with 3/4 students per team. Each student made his/her own aircraft using the Design Process.Then, each team chose one aircraft to represent them in the Class Fly-offs.

                   This video clip shows some of our students testing their aircrafts.   

Congratulations to our winners!

First place -  Paige Blake

Second place - Bronson Sammut
Third place - Jack Bowring

Term 2 Week 1

Wow! I've just blinked and week 1 is behind us. What a great start though Room 4. I was really impressed with the way you have just continued from term 1.
   It was especially pleasing to see that you all remembered to collect your student timetable templates on Monday morning and that you've all just got on with it. I know some of you are still in the pit with this and just need more time to really get the hang of this, but I am super confident that you are all able to do this. Keep on trying and learn from your class mates.
  This term we will try to get our class blog off the ground, which will mean that our wiki will go on the back burner a bit. Hopefully we will find a way to use both. (Anyone out there with ideas on how to do this?)