Dean's Teach the Teacher

Mufti Day tomorrow - support Waiau School in Canterbury!

Out and about around our school!

Room 20 was very interested in OUR LITTLE GARDENS. We have been looking after our own planter boxes around our room and they are looking fabulous. We have nurtured our own seedlings and they have been planted in the School Gardens. It's really important to water them at this time of year as the wind and sun are drying out the ground quite quickly!

 Maths is fun outside as well. We have been checking out our learning from earlier in the year because we need to practice, practice, practice! Today we were given a challenge to measure lengths over 4 metres using a metre ruler only. 

We had to remember where to start on the ruler and move it carefully and measure accurately. We also recorded the length in mm, cm, and m. We talked about standard units of measure and which unit would suit certain items to measure. We wouldn't use millimetres to measure the distance to the beach because it would take too long so what would we use instead? We had some great reasons and discussion. We also talked about how to record the measurements using our knowledge of place value - thousands, hundreds, tens and ones. If we miss out a zero the measurement could go wrong and that would have a really big impact on our everyday lives. 

Talk to your children at home and explain how measurement affects your decisions, will my car fit into that parking space? I have to estimate. Will that new desk fit into our lounge?

OH THE PLACES WE HAVE BEEN!

Oh the places we have been!

Today we did a Group Breakout and it was an exciting challenge! Today we solved the Dr.Seuss Breakout.

A Breakout involves a lockbox with 4 different kinds of padlocks attached to it. The challenge is to use clues around the room to solve the problems also around the room and then use the answers to work out the numbers or letters on the padlocks.

Each small group had to take turns and use a recording sheet to save their answers but not tell the other groups what they had found out!

Some of the clues were hidden in text from Dr. Seuss books and you know how topsy turvy those stories are! One text had directions in it and these when put into the correct order unlocked a Directionality Lock. A special torch that picked up invisible ink solved a puzzle but needed another clue to solve a 4 digit number.

Each group had 2 minutes to try their solution on a lock and then another group had a try.

A code also had to be found in another small lockbox but groups had to figure out the numbers hidden on 3 plane tickets first.

We had 40 minutes to see if we could complete the challenge but we did it in 50 minutes so next time now that we understand the process we will try to improve our time.

Congratulations Room 20 - Mrs Trembath is so impressed with the way everyone worked as a team and shared their thinking. We all had to think outside the box and try and try again!

Then we listened to the expert educators and talked about adaptation and habitat.

We're going to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo! First we went walkabout!

Kiwi Tennis starts coaching the Middle Syndicate today!

Gabriel from Kiwi Tennis arrived today and started teaching us tennis skills.

 He will coach us for the next 4 weeks so remember your PE uniform on Thursdays please!
Gabriel is one of the experienced coaches that also coach at Sunnyhills Tennis Club. Gabriel is all the way from Spain so we hope to teach him about our country too.