What's Happening

It's December . . . time for Christmas!

12/1/2018

Ko te Maramataka Maehe Tuarua o te Whare 2
(Room 2 Advent Calendar)

Room 2 has it's own advent calendar with Christmas based challenges to complete each day. Check back each day to see the new daily challenge! Thanks to Green Grub Garden Club for the ideas.

What is your Elf Name?

Find out your elf name. Let Mrs Corcoran know what your new elf name is!

Make a Decoration for Our Tree

Make a decoration for our class Christmas tree using materials you can find in the classroom. Some good sites for ideas are;
Activity Village
Architecture Art
Easy Peasy Christmas Origami
Popsicle Stick Decorations
YouTube videos

The Literary Shed - Christmas Shed

Thinkers Keys

Click the image above to open your own copy of the Christmas Keys rubric.

Christmas STEM Activities

You can work independently or in a group of up to three on these challenges.

Christmas Activities Grid

Christmas Around the World

Learn about how Christmas is celebrated in different countries. What is the same and different to how you celebrate Christmas?

Christmas Maths

You can either complete these online or get a hard copy from Mrs Corcoran.
Christmas Maths Mosaics - addition and subtraction to 20, 50 and 100
Christmas Block Co-ordinates - follow the co-ordinates to find the mystery image
Christmas Multiplication and Division Mystery Image - solve the multiplication and division problems to reveal the mystery image

Electric Garden

10/29/2018

Room 2 is taking part in the Electric Garden pilot during Term 4 and we will be trying to grow the biggest pumpkin or the tallest sunflower in the country!

First we need to do some learning around the equipment that we will be using. Go to Lesson One and work with a partner to complete the questions (record your answers digitally or in your topic book). Head to Bitesize to help you complete the sorting activity about Input and Output and Hardware and Software (you will need to glue this in your Topic book).

Genius Hour

9/21/2018

Our Genius Hour projects are well and truly underway! We've had children planning, measuring, cutting, concreting (!) and painting in lots of different places around the school and their projects are looking fantastic! Thank you to all the mums, dads and friends who have been coming in to help with the projects.

The counting snake outside Room 15 is coming along well!

The race track has progressed to be boxed and concreted.

The same group has been working on hopscotch outside Room 14.

The Four Square for the Middle Area is coming along.

The planning is well underway for the dartboard as well!

Would you rather Wednesday?

9/12/2018

Each Wednesday we have a topic to discuss our views on and debate our opinions about. This week the topic was Would you Rather be a Whale for a day or an Eagle for a day? Here is our combined PMIs.

K.W.L.

8/19/2018

Now that we've been working on our Science topic for a few weeks, it's time to reflect on what you have learned and think about what more you'd like to learn or what you've been wondering about that you could investigate further.

Use this K.W.L. graphic organiser to organise your thinking. Make sure it's in your Teacher Check folder so it can be printed.

Group Experiments

8/9/2018

This week we have worked in small groups to complete three experiments.

Milk Sculptures

What is the science behind milk sculptures?

Density Discs

What is the science behind Density Discs?

Making Butter

What is the science behind Making Butter?

Tricky Science

8/8/2018

The Dav Pilkey group read a journal story called Tricky Science. Here are Logan and Lucas demonstrating the experiment. How does the egg float?

We have done some investigating into why the egg floated in one glass and not the other.

The trick was that one glass had a salty solution and one was plain tap water. During our investigations we found out . . .
Salty water is heavier than plain water. The salt in the water can hold up an egg and make it float.
Fresh water makes the egg sink because it is lighter than the egg.
To make an object float (like an egg) you need to add three tablespoons of salt for every cup of water.
The ability of something like an egg to float in water or a similar liquid is known as buoyancy.

Bouncy Egg

8/6/2018

Our first Science experiment that we did was the bouncy egg experiment.

We placed a raw egg (you can do it with a hard boiled egg too) in a jar and covered it with vinegar. We noticed that there were bubbles forming on the outside of the eggshell. We left it in the jar for 24 hours.

After 24 hours we took the egg out of the jar. We could see brown foam at the top of the vinegar that was still in the jar. We washed the egg and passed it around. We found that the eggshell had changed and was now rubbery and we were able to squeeze the egg in our fingers.

The chemical reaction that has occurred was that the vinegar (acetic acid) had reacted with the eggshell (calcium carbonate).

We talked about the chemical names for and symbols for each of the substances;

Acetic acid = C2H4O2
Calcium Carbonate = CaCO3

The acetic acid C2H4O2 reacts with the Calcium Carbonate CaCO3 to form carbonic acid H2CO3 and calcium acetate Ca(CH3COO)2. Next the carbonic acid breaks down to form carbon dioxide CO2 and water H2O.

We left the egg out of the jar for 24 hours to see if anything changed. The shell went like paper and felt like paper mache and started to harden. This happens because the eggshell re-absorbs carbon from the carbon dioxide CO2 around us. After 5 days the eggshell became much harder and we cut the egg open to see what it was like inside.

The egg white and yolk had gone like jelly and looked a bit like jam.

We placed a second egg in the vinegar jar but this time we left it for three days. The shell still reacted the same but this time we could see through the egg and see the yolk.

With this egg we wanted to test how high we could drop it from before it smashed and what it would look like inside. Max and Lucas were in charge of measurements, Josh and Aadit were in charge of recording results and Katelyn was in charge of recording events in photos.

Before we started we predicted what height it would smash at and the majority of us thought it would be between 15cm and 20cm.

The egg did bounce at different heights but then smashed at 25cm.

Someone then asked the question "What would happen if it was a normal egg?" so we set the measurements up again and tried with a normal raw egg. We predicted it would smash sooner but we were surprised to find it took until 175cm to smash.

Logan commented that while an eggshell is fragile it still does give protection to the egg.

Our last egg was placed in the vinegar jar for 3 days for the shell to 'dissolve'. Then we placed it in a jar of water and waited to see what would happen.

Solid, Liquid and Gas

7/26/2018

Genius Hour

7/2/2018

This term we will be participating in Genius Hour.

Based on a concept by Google, students spend time each week exploring their own passions by investigating new ideas or skills. It is a great opportunity for students to study and learn about topics and ideas that interest them. Students will spend this time focusing on researching their topics, learning all they can, and creating some type of presentation to share with the class.

For our first Genius Hour we are focusing on a whole class question;

What can we do to make positive changes to our school environment?

Students will be able to work with up to three others or alone. The goal is to investigate a project that they can undertake to enhance our school environment. Once the students receive approval from the teacher on their idea, they will explore information using the internet, books, library resources, interviews, etc. They will complete a proposal that will go to staff so that they can undertake their project and make or change something to make our school environment better. Depending on what the children decide to do we may be asking parents and family members to help us along the way.

As our projects are finished, parents and family members will be welcome to come in and see what we have done. Students will send an invitation with the date and time of their presentation.
When you are ready to begin your project download the Google Slide here.