Mr Raynor visits our school

Today we were treated to a visit from Mr Raynor from the Auckland Museum. He is a Curator there. Do you know what that is? He talked about New Zealand animals and in particular the Kiwi, Moa, Haast Eagle and Albatross.

Mr Raynor shows us a Moa leg bone - wow look how long it is compared to Mr Raynor's leg!

Here is Kobi holding a Haast Eagle skull. It is a copy of a real one. The curators at the Museum scan a real one and make a 3D model so we can hold and study it.

Sophie is carrying a replica of a Haast Eagle's talon. These Eagles hunted the Moa in the South Island of New Zealand. The Moa and Haast Eagle are now extinct. 

We are writing reports on Mr Raynor's talk in class. We are using all of our writing skills that we have learned during the year. We hope to share them with you too.

Wildlife Photography

The 2016 Comedy Wildlife Photography Competition

Photo Prompts: Using photographs of animals caught on camera with unusual or amusing expressions or poses. 

What is the cheetah doing on the side of the road? Nearby just happens to be a road sign with 40 on it - could this be what the cheetah is looking at?

Is this Zebra calling out to their herd? Has another Zebra done something to make the Zebra call out, does it have toothache or is it yawning?

This Toad certainly looks friendly, what's the joke? Use your imagination and tell us a short story.

Looking Great Fabulous Amazing Fantastic Everyone!

Dear Families for those of you who are busy and find it tricky to visit our room in person, this is what Room 20 is looking like right now!
Soon we have to take everything down for the end of the year so we thought we would show you all now!

Our Class Dojos. We are all different and we appreciate that fact when we are learning and working together. We each designed our own character and wrote the speech bubble to describe what our character is like.

These are our camouflaged Skinks and Stick Insects - can you find them? What are their Adaptations to their Environment or Habitat?

Look at this herd of Zebras! The idea was to learn how to paint a sunset background and show silhouettes with the trees. And then the Zebra is in the front or the foreground. The black and white patterning links well into maths and was a challenge to those that are used to patterning only from left to right! Black tissue paper was added to enhance the 3-D illusion.

Look at these glorious giraffes! Hands on construction is always fun and it's a great way to recycle found objects. We have used giraffes as a subject for Maths Inquiry learning  about estimation and measuring height.

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!