Winter Sports

We have been practicing rugby, soccer and netball in preparation for the Lower Waipa Winter Sport Tournament. Lots of mud, lots of fun, and lots of improvement. Well done guys. You are giving it your all and some of you have shown real improvement in skills, strategies and playing as a team.

The challenge of leading

We joined with Paterangi school for an awesome leadership development day with project energize. We were challenged and learnt about the skills and attitudes that make for awesome leaders - patience, perseverance, the ability to step back and listen, allowing others to lead, involving all and many more. Leading is not easy and is a skill to learn - are we up for the challenge? You bet! It will just mean taking on opportunities to get more experience, thinking carefully about the way we lead and watching great leaders model good leadership. Room 7 you all have the potential to be great leaders. I am looking forward to seeing you rise to the challenge.

Kindy reading

 
Room 7 went to our local kindy and spent some time reading with the children. We thoroughly enjoyed it and had to think about how we can make the children feel comfortable with us big kids and interact with them on a level that they understand.

Does colour affect taste?

We did an experiment today to see if colour affects how something tastes. Mr Marquand told us he was just seeing if we could tell what flavour each of the drinks were. We did not know that they were both lemon and lime but one had food colouring in. Nine of us thought that the red drink was some sort of berry drink. About 5 people did think they were the same. This shows that for some people colour definitely does affect how they taste a flavour - interesting! Does this mean that if we dye our peas blue they will taste like blueberries?

Lower Waipa Cross Country

Awesome running today guys. I could see all of you were nervous which is OK as it helps you stay focused. Congratulations to those who came through fast enough to go on to the full primary cross country.

Imploding can

Today we did an experiment which made a can implode - exciting! We put a small amount of water in the bottom of a can and boiled it for 30 seconds. We then tipped the can upside down into a bowl of icy cold water and it imploded. We had lots of discussion around why this happened. The air in the can expanded as it heated up and when we put it in the cold water it rapidly cooled down the air which contracted and pulled the can in with it. I wonder what would happen with a tin can or a can made out of  titanium?

We also observed how warm air expands by putting a bottle with a balloon over the top in hot water. The balloon blew up as the air in the bottle got warm.

School Cross Country

A massive effort today guys. You can all be proud of yourselves. I saw some of you push yourselves really hard and many achieved personal bests - well done. A big congratulations to the place getters - you inspire us!

Some more science investigations

These are some experiments from our learning about density. We discovered what liquids were denser than others by the way they floated at different layers. We also suspended an egg in a glass by creating a liquid which it floats on (salt water) and putting a liquid (water) less dense than the egg on top of the salt water. Density is how compacted the atoms and molecules are in matter.

We asked the question if color affects the burn time of candles. Our experiment didn't give us a clear answer so we decided we would need to do an experiment using a greater number of candles and colors.

Another experiment we did to help learn the scientific investigation process was investigating what solutions would clean a tarnished coin. Coke and vinegar were clear winners in this so pull out your old coins and begin cleaning!

In this experiment with Mrs Graham our Bible in Schools teacher we learnt about physical changes. The small dense gummy bears when put in water dramatically changed size as they absorbed the water surrounding them. A physical change is a change when no chemical change happens, only physical changes such as state or shape.

Fractions and percentages

In maths we have been focusing on fractions. Some of us have been learning to find the fraction of a number as Dan explains in the above video. He shows it by counting out the groups. We have also been learning how to use our times tables to make this process quicker.

Today one of our groups was learning to find out the price of an item with the sale percentage taken off. e.g. 30% off some $75 shoes. We learnt to use an easy benchmark percentage like 10% to help work it out. So 10% off $75 is $7.50 but because it is 30% we need to times $7.50 by 3 which equals $22.50. We then take this amount off $75 which gives us the final price of $52.50.

The last of our maths groups has been learning to visualize fractions to help decide which fractions are bigger. We are also learning to use benchmark fractions like 1/2 to help us in this, e.g. In deciding if 8/14 is bigger than 1/2 we know that 7/14 would be a half so 8/14 is bigger than a half.

Stinky fish hands

We all know that getting fish smell off our hands can be difficult so we did an experiment to find out the best way to get the smell off our hands. We are learning about the scientific process and so are using this experiment to learn the process.

We tried water, soap, detergent, vinegar, toothpaste, baking soda, lemon and salt. Most people had a hypothesis that the vinegar would be the most effective. However, surprisingly, after the smell test it was the detergent that got the most votes. We will now talk about the variables in this experiment and if it was a fair test or not.

One massive snapper!

We were lucky enough to get hold of a massive snapper (thank you Fish City). We used it to do all sorts of learning such as dissecting its eye, estimating and measuring its weight (12 kg) and length (82 cm), researching facts about it and grouping the information into paragraphs, identifying it's anatomy and an experiment to discover the best way to remove fish smell from hands.

A number of our estimates were reasonably close to the actual weight, but most of our length estimates were too short. Dissecting the eye was quite difficult as it was messy and hard to cut through. We did recognize from our diagram the lens of the eye - a little round clear ball. In our research we looked for some records in size and weight of snapper. We got a number of different answers which showed us the importance of triangulating search results to ensure the information we get is accurate.

We have now buried the fish and will dig it up in a few months to observe the rates of decomposition of different parts of the fish.

How heavy is a plane?

This morning we did some learning and practice with measuring temperature and weight. We needed practice in estimating as well as understanding other things like reading a thermometer. Understanding gross weight (Tin can and soup) and net weight (just the soup) was new learning for many of us. It would be great if some of you did some more estimating and researching the weight of bigger objects like cars and planes!

Science Wonderings Wall

Created with Padlet

What is matter?

Today we asked the question what is matter? We learnt that matter is anything that takes up space (has mass) and weighs something. We explored the properties of air and discovered that air is matter.

These are a couple of the experiments that helped us see that air takes up space.

We sucked all the air out of the bag which shrink wrapped Breanna and Lars. All the air on the outside moved in to fill the space. Finn tried to blow up a balloon in a bottle but couldn't because the air inside the bottle couldn't move away for the balloon to expand. Also here is a link to the smoke rings video we watched which shows air movement. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VL0M0jmu7k 

Through this experiment we observed that air does weigh something. We created some balanced scales and then let the air out of one balloon. As you can see, air does weigh something.

Dry ice

Our Bible in Schools teacher Mrs Graham brought some dry ice with her this week so we had an afternoon exploring its properties. We learnt that it is frozen carbon dioxide, it is -76 degrees and turns straight from a solid to a gas (Sublimation). We did all sorts of interesting experiments - mixing with water, exploding gloves, making music with it and creating big smooth bubbles. What I want to know is what is dry ice used for in real life? Let me know the results of your research in the comments.

Room 7 helping the Robin

 

Part of our learning at camp was around saving endangered species and ways to do that. After getting back from camp Room 7 had the privilege of helping out with a project moving 31 NZ Robins to Mt Pirongia. We created the boxes to transport the Robins and some of us also participated in the release of them up at Mt Pirongia. It was such a great way for us to see that we can be involved in making a difference. Hopefully we will see an increase in Robin numbers up Mt Pirongia and in the future tell our Grand-kids that we were part of the beginning of it!

Fonterra Science Road Show

We had an awesome time at the science road show. Is it easier to pop a balloon with one nail or 5 nails? What kind of light bulb uses the most energy? What happens when you put an acid into milk? Why can you use a vacuum cleaner to float a ball? What can you do to wool to make it really strong? All these questions and many more were answered? We learnt about pressure, vacuums, acids and bases and much more. Mr Marquand even got shrink wrapped ready fro the freezer!! The day was a great introduction to our science inquiry into the material world next term.

People Savers - First Aid Course

Marie from Red Cross came helped us learn how we can provide first aid to those in need of it. Some of the things we covered were the recovery position, DRSABC, poisons, broken bones and bleeding noses. There was an organised surprise scenario as part of camp where we put these skills to the test. We had to quickly assess what had happened to Breanna's Dad (a fall from a tree), identify any dangers, call for help, deal to some wounds and deal with shock. We did pretty well and the patient was well looked after (Most of the time!).

Silage tyre stacking

We were given an opportunity to do some hard work to raise some money for our school trips. So after a couple of mornings of mud and sweat we managed to pile hundreds of tyres to cover 4 silage stacks. Well done team! There was definitely some endurance and strength built doing this.

Karapiro Camp

Camp 2013 was a super fun, super busy 3 days. We all ended up being more tired than we have in a long time! It included all the activities seen in this compilation of photos and videos as well as lots of others including the epic glow stick Diamond Heist night game, a Burma trail, splits and mouthfuls of marshmallow competitions, early morning runs and swims, the big Quizmatiz and many more!

Our focus of learning was on being risk takers, team players, and leaders. We were also gaining knowledge and forming opinions on species protection and hydro power.

  

Some photos of our awesome disguised dinner. You guys looked so awesome! I was stumped on who so many of you were. 

 

We visited the Karapiro dam and were looking into how it works, it's advantages and disadvantages as well as it's environmental impact.

We also visited the Maungatautari Reserve and learnt about the threats to native species and what is being done to try and save our valuable endangered species. We were also lucky enough to see three Takahe of which there are only 225 left in the world.

Inspiring Leaders

As part of our inquiry into leadership we have been looking at inspiring leaders who changed the world by their strong attitudes and courageous actions. This included Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr, Nelson Mandela, Sir Edmund Hillary, Gandhi, and Aung San Suu Kyi. Even though they faced many challenges they stayed strong to their beliefs and fought for what is right. We are thinking about us being leaders and the attitudes we need and actions we need to show as leaders. This is a couple of pieces of our word portrait art which describe the leaders.

Finding the Volume of a Cuboid

Pencil Portraits

 

Here are our awesome portraits. We did a lot of work on different shading techniques. Having contrast between light and dark makes a pencil portrait stand out and look 3D. We measured the facial features to get the right proportions. If you think these are great you should see the unscanned originals. Feel free to leave a comment about what you think.

The area of a Triangle and Parallelogram

Inspiring attitude

"Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how we respond to it." We discussed this quote and then watched this inspiring video of one man who didn't let anything stop him from living life to the full. I've put it up here guys in case you want to watch it again.

A Good Student...

Created with Wallwisher

Same Same But Different

In room 7 we have been talking about how we are the same in some ways but different in others. Sometimes we need to find things in common with the people we think are so different to us. In these portraits we looked at how we are the same but different visually. To create them we used photos of ourselves cut into strips and then we combined them with others to make a new face. We also created a name for our new person combining the names of those in our portrait. Creating this portrait also helped us learn the importance of alignment and symmetry in creating portraits. Great practice for some other portraits we will create soon.

TEAM CHALLENGES

Working together and encouraging each other is a must for these challenges. Room 7 were awesome and gave their best. They even managed to get the Octopede up to a jog! The tangram square still remains a challenge to master - who can be the first to do it and show me!! What would it take for a team to become even better at these challenges? Keep up the good team work room 7 - Mr Marquand.

Attitude Determines Altitude

We are about to dive into a new year of learning and discovery in room 7. A great time to remind ourselves of our awesome motto - ATTITUDE determines ALTITUDE! Your attitude will play a massive part in how your year in room 7 goes. Here are some great thoughts to think about.