Materials Can Change

Welcome to Ella and Maia to Room 5 this week.

Over the last few weeks we have focused on this concept for our inquiry.

Materials can be changed by applying different processes

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Last week we looked at how water can change when we heat or freeze it. We discovered that water can turn into steam or ice and that it can has a temporary change.

We saw that tea is a permanent change.

This week, based on Sophia's suggestion, we inquired into paint.

Our question was, If we mix paint can it change back?

We first mixed red and white to make pink.

Our prediction was that we could turn it back to red paint if we added lots of red to it again.

In the end, we decided that mixing paint creates a permanent change as we couldn't make it turn red again.

We mixed white and red paint.

We mixed them and it made pink.

We added more red paint to change it back to red.

We kept adding more red paint but it didn't go back to red.
It was a permanent change.

A week of super visitors

On Monday Room 5 celebrated 100 days at school!

We had a fun filled day which started with making our One Hundred Days Smarter crowns.  We completed other 100 day activities while we waited for our super hero friend, Zero the Hero to arrive. Finally, after counting all of our pieces of food and having our shared morning tea, Zero the Hero flew through the air to congratulate us on knowing all about the number one hundred and his special number - zero!

We also had a visit from Ronald McDonald who talked to us about keeping safe while walking and putting on our seat belt while in the car. Stop, Look and Listen and Make it Click!

On Friday we had an author come to share with us his books.

Lastly, congratulations to Albert and Sylvester for becoming independent writers and gaining a certificate during our syndicate assembly.

OUR ENVIRONMENT

This week we had a focus on How we live in the world. 

First of all we looked at the environment with the help of the teachers at The Tread Lightly Caravan. We learnt that we can help our environment such as planting a seed or how keeping our land and seas free from rubbish makes for a better world.  
Our class goal is to pick up rubbish if we see it, even if it's not ours.

To end our fire safety unit, we met and talked to the firemen. They were very impressed that we knew how to keep safe, where to go and what to shout if we were in a fire. We practised how to stay low and go to the safe meeting place.

 On Friday, we participated in the school's Respect Our Community day. Two teacher's brought in their dogs and we learnt how to be safe around dogs.

How to plant

In writing, we have started to look at how we write procedures.  We have looked at the steps we need to brush our teeth and to plant a seed. This week we will write how to blow out a candle on a birthday cake.  Here are some pictures of us helping to plant a seed.  At home, you could show your child all the different things that have instructions or help them read a recipe as you bake together.

In maths, we have been working on geometry.  This week we found different shapes in our school. We will look how to classify shapes into different features such as size, thickness, sides, corners, symmetry.

Room 5 doesn't do things in halves

Welcome back to Term 4!

This week we have been learning about halves in maths.  The words that we have been using are fractions, half, whole, equal, same.

 We matched up two socks to find it's other half, put two halves of fruit together and have drawn our warm and cool art colours on each of the halves of the paper. Next week we will continue to find other ways to show halves and start our geometry learning.  

We were very excited on Wednesday when we had our new furniture delivered to our room.  

Room five looks like a whole new room!

Please read the syndicate newsletter. It has information about our inquiry unit on fire safety. 

Temperature test

This term we have been working on Thinking and Questioning.

Recent big ideas that I have learned in reading this term are...

Leonie - Looking at the picture and then read the words
Sienna - How to stretch the words out
Veronica - Give words a try 
Ethan -  Finger pointing and reading words
Albert - remembering some new words to learn
Jayjay - Turn the pages
Mason E - Doing my kiwi pointing
Mason A - Chunky Monkey. Find bits of a word that you know that will make sense in the word.
Roman - Trying Lion. Go back and try it again
Alea - How to bring the sounds of words together
Sophia - Skippy frog - skip the tricky and then go back and have another go
Archer - Lips the fish.  Get our mouths ready to say the sounds




To end our temperature unit, in pairs, we found either the hottest or warmest place in the room and waited with bated breathe to see how long an ice cube would take to melt.  

While this was happening we had two fashion models who showed us what clothes we can wear in hot places and cold places.

And to finish off the term ....a little bit of spontaneous joy!!

I'm freezing

The last two weeks at school we have been investigating temperatures. We have made our own temperature gauges and have looked at pictures of hot and cold places. We have put our hand into water and decided if it was warm, cold or freezing!

This week we will use ice-blocks to find the hot spots and cold spots in our classroom and will dress up for hot or cold weather.

At home you could do the same experience. Use the melt-times of ice-cubes to help your child find the hottest spot and coldest spot in your house. These need to be spaces you can stand in so the oven or freezer can’t be used.

This term we have also focused on positional language.  Here we are using our positional words to go over an obstacle course on the senior playground.

Congratulations to the people that received certificates in the school Assembly on Friday. We also say goodbye to Ismaiah and her family at the end of the week. We have loved having you in Room 5. All the best at your new school.