Same but Different

We've been learning about a way of showing that things can have similarities and differences.  It's called a Venn diagram.  We made two Venn diagrams on Friday.  The first one was quite large. 

We went up onto the court and everyone was given a little picture.  Some of us got a picture of a kitten, some got a picture of a puppy and some of us got a picture of a kitten AND a puppy.  Can you work out who got which picture?

The Dodgy Duckling

After morning tea we read "The Dodgy Duckling" again.  It's a New Zealand version of the traditional tale, "The Ugly Duckling".  

In the Kiwiana version, the extra large egg turns out to be ... 

a Kiwi.  He's big and has floppy feet and a long, pointy beak.  He can't catch dragonflies like the ducklings and when he tries to learn to swim, he sinks to the bottom of the pond like a soggy kumara.  He is described as being as blind as a short tailed bat and gets teased and laughed at for being different.  
The poor old dodgy duckling wanders off and finds a dark cave for a long sleep.  When he wakes up, it's night time and he is so excited because he can see!  He spots another bird strolling past and finds out that he isn't a dodgy duckling after all.  He's a cracker looking kiwi!!

We used another Venn diagram to show that, while the kiwi and the ducklings had some differences, they had many similarities too.  

During the Olympics we learned a little bit about many different countries.  Now we're going to be learning lots about Japan which is a country that is very special to a student in Room 4 and his family.  We're looking forward to learning some more about being a New Zealander and some of the similarities and differences between living in New Zealand and living in Japan.

See you next week Room 4.  Don't forget to ask at home for help to email me when you find out the name for the line that goes all the way around the middle of the earth.  Ms Little has my email address.
Remember there's a wee prize for anyone that emails me with the right answer before next Friday the 24th ...
Mrs B :) 

100m Sprints

Last week we watched clips of Usain Bolt winning a gold medal in the 100m sprint.  So on Friday we had a go ourselves.

First we had to carry on learning about measurement.  All that knowledge about measuring using non-standard units like cubes and rods came in very useful as we learned how to measure things in centimetres (or cm as we now know we can write it). 

Then we discovered that there are 100 cm on the big school rulers and we found out that 100cm is also known as 1 metre (1 m).  That came in really useful too because we worked out that we would need to put the big school ruler down 100 times to workout how far to run for the 100m race. 

After lunch we wandered up to the top field and began by estimating where we thought 100m would be.  It was really tricky. 

Luke had a great plan.  He used really big steps and counted to 100. 

 

There's Luke standing on the right of the picture.

It was an awesome plan Luke.  It turns out that Luke's stride was about 50cm.  (Hmmm - that's something we could have fun checking!)  When we used the 1m rulers to measure the distance, we discovered that it was only 50m to nearly the end of the field. 

We considered our options.  Isaac suggested that we head towards the bank on the other side and measure another 50m around the field.  Great suggestion Isaac.  That would have been a great solution to our problem.  Trouble is that the ground is rather boggy over that way.  Luke suggested putting a marker down and running straight back to the start line.  So that's what we did. 

Really, really fast.  Well ... not quite so fast as Usain Bolt but we think we did pretty well. 

I wonder just how far we can stride.  Lets find out ...

More Measurement

We are continuing to learn different ways to measure things.  Today we used 1 centimetre cubes to measure our hand-spans.  We remembered last week's key points.  

• Use the same unit
• Start at the start
• Place the units end to end

Because we were using 1 centimetre  cubes, we now know how many centimetres our hands are from the tip of our little finger to the tip of our thumb, in a straight line. 

We discovered that 1 centimetre is about the same width as a finger so we went around the room trying to spot things that were close to 1 centimetre, then checking with our fingers.

I am really enjoying being back in Room 4 on Fridays.  See you next week. 
Mrs B : )

Room 4 Measures Up!

I was awfully pleased to be back with the darling kids in Room 4 too.  Yay!

We had a lot of fun measuring teddy bears and many other friends, including a pony, tiger and even a giant ladybug!  There were big bears, little bears, fat bears, skinny bears, bears that stood up tall and bears that crawled.

We put the bears into different categories to start with.  Tall bears, medium height bears and short bears.  In small groups we ordered the bears according to different attributes such as height, arm length and nose size. 

Dakota's ladybug is much taller than Josh's policeman bear and Caitlin's crawling bear when they are like this.

But Josh was keen to point out that Policeman bear was taller when ladybug was standing like this.

Then we drew outlines of our bears onto paper and measured them using cubes.  

Thomas's bear was nearly 7 cubes wide.

Some bears were quite short but some were much, much taller.  Check out Kerrianne's bear.

Snowy was rather tall.  How many cubes do you think she used?

We learned THREE very IMPORTANT things about measuring.  

1. You must use the same unit for the whole measurement.  This means you can't start measuring how tall your teddy is with cubes then suddenly use a pencil as well.
2. You need to start at the start.  Don't have the unit hanging over the end of the object you are trying measure!
3. You need to put the units end to end.  No gaps! 

We put our measurement knowledge to good use and measured some of us.  We decided that using cubes to measure ourselves would take ages so we used orange rods instead.  You can check out the full size outline of Luke in the stairwell to see just how many rods tall he is.  You'll find some photos of others with their outlines too.

Have a great week Room 4 - I'll see you on Friday

: )    Mrs B

First week back!

We have had such a great week!  I am so pleased to be back with the darling kids in Room 4!  We have spent quite a bit of time getting used to routines and new activities (well Ms Little has mostly!!)

My favourite thing about this week was using our poem of the week to practice our volume, pace and expression.  We are currently learning poems to recite in Week 5 and Poem of the week is a great way to practice our skills together.

What do you think of our skills?? And our frogs???

Class letter!

Term 3 Class Note

TTFN

Winnie the Pooh's good friend, Tigger,  is (slightly) famous for saying TTFN.  
(Ta Ta For Now)

There were some fabulously great times this last week and a few sad ones as well.  Week ten was Mrs B's last week teaching Room 4, (sad) but we got to meet Ms Little who is Room 4's resident teacher (exciting).  

We had a fun last week in Room 4.  Katrin McMullan told us many interesting stories of the legend of Matariki.  We really loved the story about the Star Fishes.

The little star fishes didn't listen to their parent's good advice and got caught in the net.  A bit of a lesson for all of us really!!

In Room 4, we enjoyed reading the ANZAC Biscuit Man again and had a load of fun with ANZAC biscuit related learning.  We did some drama and put ourselves in the place of the ANZAC Biscuit Man.  We tried to imagine what he might have been thinking as he ran away from the old man, old woman, horse and cow. We came up with some interesting thoughts.  Especially when we wondered what he thought as he realised he HADN'T thought when he leaped on the kunekune pig's back!!

We did some dramatic warm ups before getting started on our thoughts.  In this photo we are passing an imaginary feather around the circle.

Lindsay is holding the feather carefully between her finger and thumb and Koby is watching carefully so he can take it without dropping it.

 We used stencils and the painting technique 'scumbling' to paint our ANZAC Biscuit Men on Wednesday.

We mixed our own shades of brown using dark brown, white and yellow and had to use teamwork to make sure our stencils stayed in place while we 'scumbled'.

On Thursday we painted the Jaffa eyes, Hokey Pokey buttons and a mouth on them.  They are now in Room 4 with our speech bubbles so pop in and take a look sometime.

We also made some real ANZAC biscuits. (A very big thank you to Leanne, the Teacher Aide of the year.) Yummy!

So this is the TTFN bit from Mrs B

Room 4 - you have been a fabulous class and I'm sure you will continue to be a fabulous class for the fabulous Ms Little.  I've got many great memories of your smiley faces and I am very proud of how you have thought hard, worked hard and made great progress.  I'll miss you heaps but this is not haere ra, (goodbye, I'm off) but ka kite ano (see you again)


Ka kite ano!!!


Mrs B 
xxx