Mrs Boonen’s last day

We had our last day with Mrs Boonen on Wednesday, we took photo’s, had a shared lunch and gave her a photograph made up of a mix of the things she did with us and we all signed the back of it. We also gave her a couple of special prayers. We really enjoyed having her in our room as a student teacher and wish her all the best. We will all miss you.

Gardening with Mrs Boonen

Group 1 reading group got to do a language experience with Mrs Boonen which was based around gardening. We had the opportunity to talk about, explore and describe how to grow vegies from seeds. We then got to plant our seeds. This is what they look like after nearly 3 weeks in the ground.

Wind Turbine Video

Art Exhibition

This week Mrs T exhibited our shoe sketches in the library…they look so cool on display. Thank you Mrs T.

Wind Power

As part of our Energy Options lesson this week we looked at wind power and how wind power is created and what the benefits of wind power are.
We got to make a model of a Wind Turbine and then used fans to set them in motion. Inside each turbine there was a copper wire coil and a magnet, so the movement of the fan made the magnet move which then produced light on the LED.

Percussion with Mrs Boonen

This week our Year 4 students got to learn about making music using percussion instruments. We had to make up an interpretive peice which we then performed and explained to our audience (the year 5 students when they returned)

Here are some pictures of us preparing ourselves and trying out some of our ideas.

Week 4 Roundup

We have had a very busy week this week, with end of year testing beginning, art with Mrs Thompson, athletics training, Energy Options topic and our normal class work load. Contracts have been introduced again for term 4 for some of us which gives us the flexibility in our learning again.

Our student teacher, Mrs Boonen started taking reading and maths groups also and she is doing a great job with us
Miss Maguire has been encouraging us to use computer programmes to help us with sharing our learning like Glogster and she introduced us to a new online link she found that we can use to practise our writing.
We also have started a new writing blog to share what we have been writing about. You can check them out using the links on the right hand side.

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During Energy Options we looked at electrical circuits and how we can generate electricity using a magnet and coiled copper wire.

Book Reviews with Glogster

Artimes Fowl by Nicky

Now by Nick

Witch Baby and Me at School by Amy

Electrical Circuits

This week with Energy Options we looked at electrical circuits, the components they need and how they work.
A standard circuit requires copper wire (for the current to travel through), a power source (battery in our case), a switch (to turn it on and off) and we used light bulbs and LEDs to see what these components together do.

We then explored other ways of using Brain Boxes to create other types of electrical circuits. One thing we learnt was that you needed to make sure when you connected the power source (battery) you had to make sure the positive and negative were in the right place.

Mike Collings

Today room’s 4, 5, 6, 7, 1 and 2 joined together in Kopeopeo to congratulate our local gold medal hero.
Mike Collings was being honored for winning the Pairs Fullbore shooting event at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

We were very proud to have a gold medalist in our community and enjoyed being able to congratulate him by being part of the parade in his honor.

Potential and Kinetic Engergy

We have learnt that: potential energy is energy that is 
stored. Potential energy comes from lifting up a ball 
for example, twisting a rubber band.
We also learnt that kinetic energy is the release of 
energy or movement of an object,such as the ball that 
has stored potential energy.
 
Other examples we came up with were...lighting a match,
the pull back action prior to striking is potential 
then the actual strike action is kinetic, standing up is potential, 
falling back into our chair is kinetic etc.  
Here is a video showing Josh building up potential energy 
and using kinetic energy. 

Energy Integrated Topic

This week we have started our integrated topic for Term 4 where we are exploring different forms of energy, where they come from and what they do.

Here are some photo’s from our first session with Mrs Maple who is an Energy Options educational specialist that is coming into our school once a week for the next 6 weeks.

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Watch this space as we learn more about energy.

Michael Jackson Golden Time

Our last Golden Time for the term’s theme was Michael Jackson.
Shae and Siobhan bought in a selection of Michael Jackson albums (thanks to their mums) and we danced, made loads of noise and generally had fun for the last half hour of school.

‘Keep NZ Clean’

Room 4 and 7 teamed up today to help keep NZ clean. We went out onto the streets to pick up rubbish. Half of us went to Stewart St with Miss McIndoe and the other half went with Miss Maguire down Goulstone Rd to the tennis court. We found lots of paper rubbish and and alot of broken glass and glass bottles.

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