Science trip to Memorial Park

Today we went to Mt. Roskill Memorial park to look at what life we can see in the Oakley Creek Stream.

First we walked to Mt. Roskill Memorial Park, we followed Room 11. It was really really far. We had to walk in single file, that is one behind the other and on the pathway close to the grass

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Once we got there, we sat in our groups and Sally told us how to get the water from the stream and into the containers so that we can see the water life. Look at all the equipment we are going to use-

We all had a chance to scoop some water and pour it into a container so that we could see the bugs. Then we looked at the chart to see if we could identify the bugs.

Look at all the interesting bugs we found:

This is a oligochaete worm

So is this.

Look at this-

There is an oligochaete worm, a potamopygus snail and some fast swimming water boatmen.

Look at us being scientists and identifying the bugs.

Here is Sally explaining what we saw today.

We had a fantastic day. Thank you Sally.

A Maths problem with money

Today Jenna came to see how we did our problem solving in Maths. This was our problem:

Fair exchange

Amelia had a $5 note. She exchanged it with her sister, Kahealani, for three coins. What were the three coins?

Here are two videos about how some children worked out the problem:

Aren't we clever?

  

What has happened to our Buddy James?

On Friday James met his carer for the day.  His carer was Edgar Wilson from WINTEC.  This is the friendly e-mail we received from  Tarita.

 Greetings,

Please find enclosed some photos featuring Buddy James. James’ carer Edgar Wilson from WINTEC , is also deputy chair at Trust Waikato. Edgar brought James along when visiting us today. James spent time with our policy advisor, database manager, office manager and communications manager. We enjoyed his visit. Please share this email and photos with James’ creator and thank him/her for a delightful buddy.

Best wishes,

Tarita

And here are the photos. It looks like James had a good time.

Here is James outside The Waikato Trust.

Here is James with Edgar.

Hello James we hope you had a great day with Edgar. Wow what a busy day you had, with some very important people. We are so pleased to see these photos.

Thank you very much Edgar for looking after James for us. We miss him very much.

Room 1 wishes James all the best for his future.

  Tough Crocodiles

Today we learnt about crocodiles.  Crocodiles are reptiles like snakes and lizards. They are cold blooded and need to lie in the sun to get warm. If they get too warm they open their mouths. Crocodiles are predators because they catch animals to eat. We saw a video about the king crocodile catching a kangaroo. It was sneaky because it went under the water, jumped up near the kangaroo and grabbed it with its strong jaws. It shook the kangaroo to kill it and break it up. There was kangaroo blood on the crocodile's teeth. Astera did not like that because she was scared. Poor Astera. 

Crocodiles have an enormous mouth. They look like logs under the water. It camouflages like a log on the water. They are very sneaky. It jumps up and eats another animal. First it smashes it then it swallows it. After that the food goes in its tummy.      Alzarah

The crocodile has a big mouth. It has sharp teeth. That is sad for the kangaroo, because the crocodile ate the kangaroo. 

Astera

The crocodile can swallow a fish. A crocodile has a strong tail and lots of sharp teeth.  Jerimyah

The crocodile has sharp teeth and the crocodile ate the kangaroo. Then the crocodile jumped out from the water and grabbed the kangaroo.    Sirrena

The crocodile eats the kangaroo and it grabs the kangaroo with its strong jaws. It has a long tail. The crocodile has four short legs. It has whitish yellow scales underneath its body. Crocodiles have black scary eyes. The crocodile has lots of sharp teeth. It has a humongous mouth.    Akesa

The crocodile eats meat and kangaroos. It is sad because kangaroos can die from the crocodile. The crocodile has sharp teeth to eat animals.         Amelia

The crocodile has humongous sharp teeth. It has black scary eyes. It can bite. The crocodile has a large mouth. It looks like a log in the water.   Isaiah

The crocodile has got big and bumpy ridges on its back. The crocodile has sharp teeth.    Alex.

Crocodiles have two eyes. Crocodiles can kill someone. Crocodiles are large. The crocodile can run fast for short time. Crocodiles are strong. Crocodiles can camouflage and look like a log.      Damsey

Crocodiles have scary eyes and they sneak under the water. They have long strong tails. Crocodiles eat fish.  Francesca

A crocodile takes humongous bites to eat its prey. Its prey likes to eat leaves. The prey is a kangaroo.   Sauni

Crocodiles have black scary eyes. They have a long strong tail, because with its tail it can stand. Crocodiles can camouflage in the water how they do this is going under the water. They sneak looking for prey. They have a long snout. They have so much sharp teeth. They have hard bumpy ridges on the back.     Imran                   

Road Safety Stop Motion

Today we practised our stop motion animation skills! We used Andrea'a block heads from the library to cross the road safely! We had lot's of fun animating the blockheads and moving them a little bit at a time. It was a bit tricky to make sure we did not have our arms or legs in the frame, but we think we did a pretty awesome job!

And here is our movie! 

Describing Fireworks!

Today Room 1 described the fireworks we heard and saw last night! We came up with lot's of great words to describe what we saw, heard and even smelt!

Here are our explosive describing words!

Water with Sally

We learnt about water. We talked about what we do with water at home. 

We drink it, we wash our dishes, we have a shower or bath and we clean our teeth with this water. The sewage pipes takes this wastewater away from our house to the waste water treatment plant which cleans the water before it goes into the sea.

But this doesn't happen to the water that goes down the drains outside. The storm water pipes don't go to a special place to get cleaned, it goes straight into the sea like our experiments showed us.

First we put rocks on a board.

Then we put a large plastic sheet over the rocks and tucked it under the board, like making our bed. This represents the mountains, rivers and lakes on earth. 

 

 

Then we had to point to where we thought the river would go.

After that we got to pour water onto our land. The water made lakes and rivers. The rivers flowed off our boards and into the drain.

 

 

Then we made a river with the rocks and once again covered the board with a plastic sheet.

 
 

Then we had a race to see which group's river will get to mark first.
 

The sharks won this race.

Back in class Sally showed us what should not go down the outside drains.
Water animals can not see in dirty water. So they could die.
 

Car oil and cooking oil in the sea stop sea animals from breathing and if a seal gets oil in them they will drown. 
 

Water animals can not see in water with paint in it.
 

Soapy water is not good either.
 

So we have learnt that only RAIN WATER must go down the drains.