Welcome back to Term 4 -2011

Hi everyone,

I can not believe it is already Week 3 of Term 4! And after many weeks I have finally found the time and remembered my password to get onto the blog (after many failed attempts!). We had an absolute blast in the last week of Term 3 on our camp in Bannockburn. Everyone had a wonderful time. We will be posted photos very soon, so be sure to check these out!

Now that we are back at school we are in the process of organising our items for the end of the year production. Matai have the important job of linking all the class items together as well as opening the event with a haka powhiri. It is going to be spectacular!

Today we have our fingers crossed and toes for the weather to behave so we can have our Agriculture Day. Some of the children in Matai class have reared animals and are bringing them today to be judged. Also we will be taking part in many activities based around farming. Come and check it out. The day begins at 10.30am.

Mrs Suangoon

Speech Finals

On Friday we had our speech finals for the Year 6, 7 and 8 children. Mrs Rishworth and Mrs Stirling came and judged the finalists. A huge congratulations to Jack who came first for the Year 6 children, followed in second place with Scott and then Tonia and Jamie were 3rd equal

A big well done to everyone who put in the effort to learn their speeches over the week. Overall as a class we have some excellent speech presentation skills and this is due to the hard work over the year that we have put into speaking in-front of an audience.

Dancing Raisins - Science Experiment

Here is another experiment called 'Dancing Raisins'. See what we did...

Question: When bicarbonate soda and vinegar are mixed together what happens and why?

Hypothesis: We all agreed that the baking soda and vinegar mixture would go fizzy. But we were not quite sure why at this stage. Some people thought that the raisins would jump out of the jar and others thought they would move around in the jar.

Equipment:
10 raisins
1 tall glass
2 teaspoons of baking soda
white vinegar

Method:
1. Place the backing soda in the glass
2. Slowly pour the vinegar into the glass (be careful it doesn't overflow!)
3. Drop the raisins into the glass, and watch them bounce up and down

Investigation Results:
We added vinegar to the baking soda and it fizzed up. Then when we dropped the raisins into the mixture and they bounced up and down. The science behind this is when the baking soda and the vinegar are mixed together they create carbon dioxide. The bubbles attach themselves to the raisins and take them to the surface. When the raisins get to the surface the bubbles pop and the raisins go back to the bottom.

We also tried this experiment with fizzy drink because it also has carbon dioxide. This worked but not as strongly as the baking soda and vinegar.

Here is some pictures of this:

Maths time madness: Percentages

Today we learnt more about percentages, fractions and decimals. Percentages are everywhere - we use them in farming, school, tests, we see them on the pack of food packages and at the shops. But how do you calculate percentages? Today Matai team were given an imaginary budget of $200 dollars to spend with a buddy. We were given catalogues from various shops. Mrs Suangoon said there was a massive sale on where some of the items were 50% off and some were 25% off. When we were spending our money we soon learnt the art of percentages. Check out us working hard with our buddies:

De-Bonz Storyteller

What a way to start the week and day - De-Bonz the storyteller treated the entire school to a hilarious performance. The stories were about his family, and boy oh boy were they small tall tales. We heard about Granny who caught on fire, De-Bonz's first days at school and many other stories that had the school in fits of laughter. Check out the pictures:

Friday Night Disco

Well done Matai and Tawhai team for your disco organisation. Everyone had a fabulous time dancing the night away. It was great to see everyone boogying, doing the birdie dance, limbo and jumping on the conga line.

Everyone get on the conga line!

Glow lights

Look at all that dancing

Everyone happy dancing away

Thursday 15th September 2011

Matai having been working on their imaginary budgets this morning for maths. We had some 50% of and 25% off sales. They had $200 dollars to spend in a range of catalogues with a buddy. It was great to see the children using their maths in a real life context. They are now able to identify that a quarter is the same as 0.25 or 25% and that half is the same as 50% or 0.5 as a decimal. 

Also Matai children who will presenting their speeches in front of the school tomorrow are:

Jack - Dairy farming

Jamie, Scott - Homework should be illegal

Tonia - Caged animals is cruel

We wish them all the best, as we know they are a bit nervous about presenting in front of their peers and the judges. If parents want to come along they will be presenting between 9am - 10.15am.

Wednesday 14 September 2011

Yesterday things started really positively with our sales for the school disco on Friday. Matai and Tawhai teams are organising the school disco as part of their fundraising efforts for Camp Bannockburn at the end of the term. We are busy making decorations, organising music, working out the costing and doing all the other behind the scene work.

Here is Scott and Jack selling their tickets in the office yesterday:

We also were really lucky to have Grant come into our school and do lots of fast paced touch activities. It was so impressive to see and hear all the positive and supportive comments that Matai were making to each other. Lots of the class are now highly motivated to start playing touch this season. Check out these pics:

Today is the big day of the speech competition for our class and Totara. All the children are a bit nervous about standing up and presenting their speeches but with the hard work done in terms of writing them we know everyone will be fine!

Novel Studies

All children in Matai have been reading novels for our reading programme. They have been working extremely hard at completing a range of activities to show their understanding of what they have read. Here are some children in the Matai room showing off some of their hard work:

Larissa with her Fantastic Mr Fox book cover

Daymon and his Hatchet book cover.

Helga with her new book cover for Boy Overboard.

Ella with her Boy Overboard cover.

Kirsty showing her setting page for the novel Holes.

Danielle's great cover for Boy Overboard.

Jeremy showing the difference between his cover and the actual cover to Hatchet.

Pop Fountain Science Experiment

To start off our kitchen chemistry unit we carried out an experiment called 'Pop Fountain'. This is our experiment...

Question: What will happen to the fizzy drink when mints are added?

Hypothesis: We think the mints will mix with the coke and it will fizz and froth up and explode. There will be big bubbles at the bottom of the bottle. So we think carbon dioxide will cause pressure and ozze coke over the sides.

Equipment:

1.5 litre Coke bottle

9 mints

2 pieces of card

Method:

1. Take the lid off the bottle of coke.

2. Put the card over the bottle neck

3. Roll up the tube of card and tput over the neck of the bottle

4. Put the mints into the tube

5. Pull the card away slowly so the mints drop into the bottle. RUN!

Investigation Results:

When we put the mentos into the coke the it erupted causing foam to spew up out of the bottle. The reason for this is coca cola contains carbon dioxide gas that has been forced into the liquid under pressure. When you unscrew the lid, it releases the pressure and the carbon dioxide forms bubbles. When we added the mentos it helped the bubbles escape so quickly that the erupted out of the bottle in foam.

Check out these pictures:

Getting ready for the mentos to go into the coke....

Getting ready to run!

The audience waiting in anticipation....

Look at what happens!

Screen Printing T-Shirts

Here is our finished products: Read below to find out how we did our amazing screen prints.

In term one and two we learnt how to print using a variety of mediums such as creating printing blocks with PVA glue and indenting meat trays. This term Mrs McLachlan gave the Matai team some t-shirts and we thought it would be a great idea to screen print these. Mrs Suangoon taught us the tricks of the trade and before we knew it we were cutting out designs with craft knives, using rollers to apply ink to our prints, and ironing our t-shirts to heat set them. Here are some pictures of the end of the process. Everyone is so happy with their efforts. Well done Matai team!

Anna heat setting her t-shirt

Tonia using a paint brush to colour in the eyes on her cartoon face.

Kirsty ironing.

Jeremy doing a great job at ironing.

Look at that concentration Danielle!

Boys can iron too - go Daymon!