Science Experiments in Reading...

We have a science focus this term to get ready for our Science Fair.  During reading workshop time, the Fantail & Pukeko groups have been reading about and completing some simple science experiments.

We discuss our hypothesis, method, results and make conclusions.  We also have been thinking about modifications that we could make if we complete the investigation again. 

Making crystals with Epsom Salts

We have looked at how puddles evaporate, what happens (reaction) when an acid is put with a non-acid and how crystals grow.





The crystals were great to watch because the Epsom Salt crystals starting growing almost straight away.  We learned that every type of chemical that makes a crystal grows a different way.  The epsom salt crystals are long.

What happens with baking powder,
baking soda, water
and vinegar

We were pretty excited about putting an acid (baking powder) with an acid (vinegar) and seeing the reaction - our hypothesis was that it would make a BIG FIZZ... and we were right!

Thinking about puddles & evaporation

When we read about evaporation, we learned that the sun plays a big part on how fast the puddles evaporate.  However, we also found that we did not complete a FAIR TEST.  We had a big discussion about what we could do better next time to make it a fair test.  Now we just have to wait for the sun to shine again!

Survival of the Fittest

Last term Moana 3 was lucky to have a student teacher working with us for 5 weeks.  Matua Stephen loved science and he shared this passion with us.

We are very proud of our animals that we created after learning about 'SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST' and what features predators & prey have..   How were these features decided?  By roll of the dice!!

From here we had to research and find out what features were best fit for our animal's environment. 

Our learning:

 if animals hunt - their eyes are at the front.

If animals hide - their eyes are at the side.

Sharp teeth (front & molars) for carnivores

Flat, square teeth for herbivores

A mix of both (like us) for omnivores.

Thanks Matua Stephen for sharing your knowledge with us - we are all so proud of our creatures!

Celebrating our Mum's

Just before Mother's Day, those of us in Moana3 created some wonderful Mother's Day cards for all of our wonderful mums!

We wrote a poem for our mums using the following guidelines:

Line 1: Alliteration

Line 2: 3 adjectives to describe our mums

Line 3: a nickname

Line 4: a simile or metaphor about our mum

Line 5: a 3 word statement about our mum

We chose whether we wanted to create the inside digitally or by hand.

For the outside of the card, we used tissue and dye to create a blended pattern.  Koka Ngaire took our photo and we cut out fabulous hearts from a big pad of patterned paper.

We were all really proud of our efforts and our mum's appreciated and loved our efforts too!

TinkerLab - Balloon Powered Vehicles!

In Moana 3, every Friday we have our TinkerLab challenge... last week we started our challenge with CREATE.  

Creating, Thinking, Problem Solving, Collaborating!

We have our big junk box and our challenge this week was to create a vehicle that was powered by air out of a balloon.  

Most of us worked in buddies and created many different vehicles.  

We soon realised that we had to have free moving wheels and we had to think hard about how the propulsion from the air coming out of the balloon was going to move our vehicles and where we needed to attach the balloons - did we blow them up first or did we have to attach them and then blow them up?  Lots of critical thinking!

There was lots of practicing, taping and re-taping, modifications, changes and discussion!

At the end of our 30 minutes we had a SHARING session with each other where we looked at each other's creations and discussed what modifications we could make for next time.  

We then did some LEARNING where we researched balloon powered cars and found out how to make the most of the propulsion coming from the balloon.

We are going to TRY AGAIN this week, using what we learned from our own creations and what we researched.  Watch this space to see how we got on...

UPDATE:  Some of our cars were slightly more successful than others!  We learned that it was all about the wheels and axle.  Those cars with good round wheels went the best.  We also learned that to make an axle, we needed a skewer to go through a straw.  We were really happy with the results!!!
Our next challenge - using what we have learned here, we are going to create powered boats: propellors, balloon or jet.

Celebrating our Diversity!

For Term 2 we are going to have TinkerLab time where each week we are going to work with 'junk' to create around a theme.

In Moana we have 16 different nationalities!!  We think that is pretty impressive - don't you?

Koka Ngaire set us a challenge to Celebrate our Diversity through creating...



 This week:

We had to get in groups of 4 and Koka Ngaire gave us 20 sheets of newspaper, 1 metre of sellotape and 40 mins - that was it!!
We had to choose one nationality from our group and create a national costume using the newspaper... we had to make it really obvious which country our costume was from - Koka Ngaire and Koka Rachel (our DP) were judges (Koka Nolian our Principal came to see what all the excitment was about too!)

We had to communicate effectively with each other, we had to problem solve, we definitely had to think and we made connections with each other and to our cultures.

It was really fun and we definitely celebrated our diversity within our class!

Who do you think achieved our goal?

Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu

We have enjoyed using this first week back having a look at our buddy classes' blogs in our Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu group.  It is nice to have a genuine audience and one that has classes from different areas of New Zealand.  We are really just new to blogging last term - but we have picked it up quick and really enjoying sharing our learning with others and reading what other learners have been doing.

We have been impressed with the DLO's we have seen and also what some learners have given up for Lent.  We also enjoyed reading Anzac Day poem's  - they reminded us of our own  Anzac assembly we had today.

We are very keen to have a go at some super DLO's with animations and hope to be able to post them soon.  We are going to learn how to do this and our DP Koka Rachel has set us a challenge... keep watching for the results!!!

Camp Kaitawa - Year 6 camp

Just to prove there was snow!

April 9 - 13 saw our Year 6s brave the weather conditions to head to Camp Kaitawa at Lake Waikaremoana.

At the top of Panekire

We were meant to go in week 4, but a cyclone came through so we cancelled... however, Mother Nature decided to throw us some curly weather anyway!  We had sun, wind, rain, snow (!), more rain and a little bit more sun!

Confidence course

The aims of our camp were:
HEALTH & PHYSICAL EDUCATION:
REGULAR  PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
– Experience creative, regular and enjoyable physical activities and describe the benefits to well-being.

RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHER PEOPLE
–    Identify and demonstrate ways of maintaining and enhancing relationships between individuals and within groups.

KEY COMPETENCIES:

Relating To Others:

* Interact

The dishes never stopped...

* Share Ideas

* Listen to different points of view

* Participating and Contributing:

* Share ideas in a group

* Take part in group activities

Managing Self:

* Set realistic goals.

* Considerate to others.

* Reflect/discuss personal progress

Snow day = Quiz day

Best food ever!

There was A LOT of perseverance, resilience, problem solving, thinking, reflection and responsibility happening.  Some of us had never stayed away from home before, some of us had never hiked, some of us had never had to do cleaning jobs before!

We all learnt that we had to get stuck in together to get things done.

Many of us had to go way outside of our usual comfort zone and tackled activities that were very new to us.

Reflections

Calm before the snow

We had a great group of parents helping us who made the trip unforgettable!

The non-competitive addition to the Camp Log book!