Does Water Walk?

At the moment in Te Pihinga our focus for writing is SCIENCE! 

We love Tuesdays, this is the day we get to put our Einstein hats on and experiment. 

Yesterday we asked the question...does water walk? 

Our equipment: paper towels, water and food colouring? 

We watched a video to help us make our hypothesis/prediction- we didn't see the ending as it was a surprise! 

Our ideas: maybe the paper towels might absorb the water, the  paper towel might break, the paper might explode, and maybe the colours will mix together and make a rainbow. 

We also learnt a new word Capillary, our results in our writing describes this action- 

Our class result sentence: " The paper towel absorbs the food colouring and water and then they travel up through the towel to mix both colours to make a new colour". 

Below are some photos of us in groups working together and being open minded explorers during writing yesterday, we cannot wait to share more of our experiments with you. 

A Reading Group Activity

Today the Sam-I-Am's spent some time putting what they had read about into action. With the help of a wonderful mum, Trudi, they followed the instructions on how to bake a happy cake. They did a wonderful job, including working hard to break the walnuts open (not an easy job) and it tasted delicious!

Ka pai Sam-I-Am's!

To Infinity and Beyond

In Te Pihinga this week we are looking into space because on Friday we are having SPACE CAMP. Mrs S is reading the class The Magic School Bus: Lost in the Solar System and we are all enjoying asking questions and sharing our knowledge about the planets, moon and space.

Here are the questions we have been asking:

Tayla - What is a solar system?

Corbin - Why has no-one been through the milky way ever?

Kynzie - Why is the sun so hot? It is 15 million degrees hot.

Chloe - Why has the sun always been the hottest planet? We found out the sun is a star, which is why it is hot.

Hana - Does space end?

Laura - Why is one of the planets away from the sun?

Tayla - What year was space made?

Kynzie - Why is there rings around a planet?

Liam - Why do planets spin?

Chloe - How is space made?

Angus - Is the smallest planet in the universe earth?

Connor - How can the sun change from one side of the world to the other?

Kynzie - What is the biggest planet?

Corbin - Why is the milky way the biggest thing in space?

Chloe - What was the first planet ever made

Xavier - what was the last planet ever made?

Sam- When was the first planet discovered?

Toby - How was the milky way made?

Hana - Why do planets spin very slowly?

Aren't we great thinkers?!

We also have shared some of our space knowledge. Some of us know lots about space and some of us a little bit. Our learning is going to help us answer our questions and maybe change some of our thinking.

Here are our knowings:

Corbin - Planets move around the sun.

Chloe - All the planets that are in space

Xavier - MVEMJSNP an acronym for the planets (Pluto is the coldest)

Angus - The hottest planet is the sun

Xavier - The sun isn’t a planet its a star

Shjon - Some planets make a circle around the sun. Some planets move different ways around the sun.

Xavier - There is more than just one moon. Jupiter has 6 moons.

Thom - The milky way is the biggest thing in space.

Laura - Also a planet is really cold because its far away from the sun.

Lara - The sun moves to the other side of town. It’s moveable

Hana - there isn’t only one sun.

Chloe - In outer space there is more than a lot of planets. One of the planets is really hot.

Sam - There isn’t only one moon.

Aliz’e - Pluto is now a dwarf planet. Not a planet.

Shjon - thinks that Mercury is the biggest planet.

We have worked on some great activities. On Monday we spent some time working on the orbits of the Sun, Earth and Moon. Here are some photos of our work.

Ronaldo's Sun

Cutting the holes are tricky

The finished product

We have also done some writing. 

Here are a couple of space stories:

Dear diary, 

I jumped onto the pillows. Bang! The pillows exploded and I landed on the rocket. I went up and down. And I was in the sky and I finally was on the sun.

By Amelia

Dear diary,

It's space time class! 

It was time to go. We pushed the buttons. It went like, three two one Blast off! "Wow!" said the class. So this the moon class. "Wow!" said the class. It's so big, we jumped out. Bang! We landed on the moon. We saw heaps of craters. "Why is the moon grey?" said the class. "Wow!" I can jump so high. 

By Thom

We really do love to explore space ... even if it is just in our classroom.

Weekends

It isn't just the teachers who come in on the weekends to do things around the school. Check out Connor and his Granddad who came to school on Sunday morning to move the dirt they donated to the school. 

Thanks Kennedy family - we are going to love getting our gardens looking amazing!