This is a Year 3 and 4 class blog at South Hornby School. We are in the Uru Mānuka Cluster. This is a place where we will share our learning. Please note that some of it will not be complete, it will be my first drafts. Remember to be positive, thoughtful and helpful when you leave a comment. Please check out our individual blogs as well.
This term science has been our inquiry focus. As part of our inquiry, we have been learning about the water cycle. We have learned that the water on Earth is reused again and again. First, the sun heats up the water on Earth and it turns into water vapour and rises up into the sky (this is called evaporation). Next, the water vapour turns back into water drops when it is high in the sky, and mixes with gases and dust to make clouds (this is called condensation). Then, the clouds get too heavy and rain, snow or sleet falls down back to the ground (this is called precipitation).
We made water cycle bags to see the water cycle working close up. We drew pictures on a plastic bag, then we put some water in the bag (and added a bit of blue food colouring). We taped them to the window where they would get the heat of the sun. The water evaporated and created water droplets on the side of the bag, like clouds. Then the water at the top of the bag got too heavy and started sliding down the bag, like rain.
This week in writing we have been recounting our favourite time of day.
We could choose between the morning, the middle of the day, evening or night time. We were challenged to use describing words to create a picture in our readers head, and include senses like see, hear and smell.
This term, Miss McLeod's and Miss Bannan's literacy groups have been learning about animals, linking to our science.
In reading we have read about heaps of different animals and in writing we wrote information reports about a sea animal of our choice. We published in two different formats (the ones below or a brochure). The ones below all have the animal popping out in 3D.
Here are some of our finished information reports.
Last week Miss Bannan and Miss McLeod's reading groups worked together to create animal habitat dioramas. We have been reading about lots of different animals, including sea animals, pond animals and endangered animals, and we wanted to make something to show what we have learned. They were heaps of fun to make! Here is a slideshow of our animal habitat dioramas.
On Monday the year 3 students had their session with Miss Morgan for Cyber-smart.
She tested our listening skills. We had to follow a set of instructions to create a picture. Then we wrote a small story about our picture. We used what we have been learning about explain Everything to create our pictures and stories.
Here are a couple of examples.
Do you think you can have an educated guess at what the instructions were to create the picture?
Every Friday morning we draw our 'Heroes of the Week', who are nominated by their classmates for showing their South Hornby People Powers (Be There, Make Their Day, Choose Your Attitude and Play). Our Heroes for the Week are; Briana, Eliza and Kaisa. Well done!
Throughout the week the children get to nominate someone that they have spotted showing their People Powers. We have to write on the nomination ticket which People Power they were showing to deserve the nomination. Our People Powers are: Be There, Play, Choose Your Attitude, and Make Their Day.
Once we've written on the nomination ticket we put it inside our Hero of the Week box and this gets drawn out on a Friday.
On a Friday we need to shake the box and then we draw out 3 lucky people to become our Heroes. These 3 people get their photos taken and we put the photos on the wall to celebrate for next week. They also get to choose something out of the prize box.
Here are some of the people who have been nominated so far.
Raquel Mikayla . Kihi Boy
Bailee Zara Tovie
What do you do to celebrate your heroes in your learning space?
We have been continuing our scientific learning. Miss McLeod's class has been doing chemical reactions and this week we did an experiment called colourful rain.
To do this experiment you will need:
500ml of water
150ml vegetable oil
food colouring (we found blue, red and green work well)
wooden spoon
large glass jar
small glass jar
We doubled the water to make a bigger volume.
Here is the experiment-
1. pour the oil into your small glass jar.
2. add some drops of food colouring to the oil
3. stir the oil and food colouring vigorously
4. pour the oil mixture into the water
5. observe
Here is a video of what happened in our experiment once we had poured the oil into the water.
The oil sits on top of the water because their different properties prevent them from mixing together. The Food colouring only mixes with the water and when it falls through it looks like colourful rain.
Today we used M&Ms to help us learn about probability. We talked about what colours might be in the bag, then we answered some chance questions, such as "what is the chance that you will find a Kit Kat in your bag?". We had to use words such as; certain, impossible, likely and unlikely, to answer these questions. Lastly we tipped our bag of M&Ms out and counted the colours to see if our predictions were correct. Finally, we got to eat our M&Ms! It was a fun maths session. Here are some photos of Cadie, Frank and Cody doing their maths work.
