Classifying and grouping plastic!

We have collected a range of different pieces of plastic from our homes and around the school. On Tuesday afternoon we completed a very interesting task where we grouped the plastics in many different ways. Some of the groupings included: hard and soft, recyclable and non-recyclable, sizes and recycling numbers.
Some of the discussions around why and how plastic is different, how it looks and feels different, and has different uses was extremely interesting. We learned that plastic is made up of polymers and all plastic items are different because of what they are made up of or how they are made.

Our Plastic Lunch!

Over the past couple of days we have been learning within science capability 'Gather and Interpret Data'. As a class we gathered some data about how much plastic is in our lunch boxes. In small groups we discussed how we could display this kind of information, then with all of our ideas and thoughts we created a table to show our data results. Whilst this was quite a simple task, the discussion about the most easy, effective way to display these kinds of results was interesting and we certainly had some great ideas about how to show our collection.

Wonder, Curiosity and Thinking!

Today we kicked off our day by getting our brains thinking and orally sharing our thoughts as a class. This term we are having a big focus on oral language and what better way to practice this than combining it with thinking. Each day we will be starting off with a thinking and sharing activity to encourage our key competencies participating and contributing and thinking, and developing our confidence in oral language.
Toady we discussed an interesting image. Here's what we saw and our thoughts about it:

• Team work
• Why are the ants on the stick?
• How are they balancing on the edge?
• Are they building a bridge?
• What are they doing?
• I wonder if the stick is heavy
• Is hat the boss ant on top or the queen?
• Are they trying to take it somewhere?
• Will they use it to build a nest?
• Are they moving it to their home?
• I wonder how deep the hole is they are crossing
• I wonder if they will fall 
• Why are they crossing the ditch?
• I wonder if the branch will squash the ants on the bottom
• Are they/where are they taking the branch?
• How far are they taking it/ could they take it?
• Why aren't they just going around the hole?
• The grass looks curly and soft
• I wonder how big this branch actually is. How much is it magnified for the ants to be this big?

We are very curious learners who think of so many things! 

PLASTIC!

This term in Room 5 we are going to be looking at and developing our science capability and inquiry skills around the world wide issue of PLASTIC!

Today we looked at some pretty devastating, eye opening images of plastic, and its impacts. These prompted our thoughts, our feelings and posed many wondering, curious questions about this stuff we have become so used to relying on.

Very quickly words such as 'disgusting', 'sad', 'disappointed' and 'angry'  were mentioned. This activity really highlighted to us the problem we have and actually how close to home this problem is. 

We then took the time to refresh our observing and inferring skills based on a image equally as 'sad'. 

Here's what we saw and what we thought!

CRAZY DAY!

AND CRAZY WE WERE!

We had an awesome day at crazy day and we certainly loved being all dressed up, looking CRAZY in our house colours! The parade was a hoot and we had a great time dancing and showing off our costumes!

The burgers were a massive hit. We sure loved them! Thank you so much to the Rimu Senior students for organising this awesome, fun filled, delicious day for us!

Check out our CRAZY get-ups! Don't we look fantastic?!

We are SCIENTISTS!

Over the past few weeks we have been collecting data about the weather. Each school day at 10.50 am and 1.45pm we have gathered our weather results from the digital monitor that signals to the weather station we have had temporarily installed on the playground. We thought that to ensure our results we consistent we would:

• keep the station in the same place and use the same station for the whole time
• read it at the same times every day

Every child in the class learnt how to read the little monitor so they were able to record the findings. 

Today we took our last piece of data and here's what our completed data collection looks like:

Following this, we all got together and began analysing the data we had collected. 

We worked hard and had many discussions. Here are our thoughts:

What we noticed about our data!

·       

      The average temp was 19.6

·       The hottest temp was 25.8

·       Not a lot of rain

·       Temp varies and changes throughout the day

·       Temp seems to be coolest when it is a NW wind

·       Wind speed reached no more than 16.2 at the time of measuring

·       Wind direction changed between readings most days

·       Average cloud cover was a 2 rating

·       Average rainfall was 0.0

·       Most common wind direction was a Westerly

·       Only 1 day with no cloud -1 on our cloud rating scale

·       Highest rainfall was 3.0

·       Temp was warmest with a westerly wind –warm air

·       Lowest temp was 13.0 at the times we measured

·       NO NE wind –uncommon

Throughout our data collection time we learnt a lot of things and figured out some issues with our data collection, which showed some inconsistencies or interesting results.

Due to our personal experiences with the weather, we noticed that the station was not collecting and measuring rainfall accurately, or more wondered if it was measuring the rain per hour.

Below if our collaborative PMI chart that we constructed after our collection.

P	M	I
·     Noticing the changes in weather ·     Using a digital station –easy to use and read ·     Fun to collect the data ourselves ·     Kept to same time slot each day ·     Different people were able to collect it each day	·     Sometimes we forgot ·     Rainfall was not accurate ·     Couldn’t collect air pressure, or wind chill factor ·     Had to go to hall –wasn’t close to class ·     Didn’t learn how the weather station actually works and collects the data ·     Couldn’t physically watch the station collect the data ·     Difficult to make a judgement on the cloud cover as it often looked different straight over head as to what it did further away.	·       Learning about the weather ·       Learning to read the digital screen ·       Differences in weather between collections ·       That a machine can gather/measure weather ·       Noticing all the interesting results ·       How it managed to stay on the pole ·       If the rainfall wasn’t accurate, was everything else? ·       Was there any way we could have made this collection more accurate? –variables?

We decided that it was a shame that the station was not able to collect the data every day and save it e.g. over the weekends so we were able to get more daily data. This might have shown different trends.

We found it very interesting noticing that the rainfall measurer was not accurate. This allowed us to pose questions such as: is it collecting the rainfall data based on the last hour, 24hours etc?

If we were to do this data collection again, it is possible that we would change a few things to try and gather more accurate, consistent data. Based on what we know about fair testing we would think about:

Ø  Different system?

Ø  Setting an alarm so we remember

Ø  Perhaps placing the station in a different place

Ø  Collecting data 2 different ways to compare/check our data

Ø  Having the same people measure for user consistency

Ø  Exploring a way to collect it every day including weekends

Ø  Inclusion of wind chill, air pressure and a more detailed analysis of the clouds, perhaps including the types of clouds, visual pictures too,  to give us more data to analyse and compare

This has been a valuable exercise, allowing us to use skills such as observing and interpreting the weather and different representations of it, gathering and recording data and measuring. Following the collection of our data we have been able to look for trends in our data, pose further questions about what we found and have been able to identify the elements of our testing that may be fair or unfair. 

It has been a wonderful opportunity for us all to engage in science by participating in an ongoing experiment and collaborate our ideas through discussions and group work. 

Inter-school Athletics!

Today some our schools best athletes went along and competed in the inter school athletics competition. Despite the weather the students all did amazingly well and showed some excellent skills and talents representing our school. We are all very proud of you and a special congratulations to those students who broke records. Fantastic effort kids!

Athletics Fun Day

On Friday we had a wonderful time completing a range of fun athletics activities and games including throwing gumboots, high jumping and target throwing. We all enjoyed ourselves and had many laughs and showed off some great talents.

Following our fun rotation we got into our sprint races and house relays. It was awesome to see everyone push themselves outside their comfort zones and strive to gain placings! Well done to all those who won their races and to all for doing their very best.

A special thanks to Mr Blanchard again for some amazing action shots!

Lettuce, Lettuce and more LETTUCE!

Over the past couple of months, we have been growing and keeping a vegetable garden. Many of our class members have worked hard, regularly weeding and watering our plants and keeping it well maintained so we can enjoy the benefits of growing our own vegetables. We have had lettuces and celery growing. Whilst our celery isn't ready yet, this week we picked all our lettuces. And wow LOADS of lettuce we had!
Today, we enjoyed a yummy lunch of fresh sandwiches with our very own lettuce. The lettuce was crisp and tasty and a nice healthy element to our lunches.

Good work Room 5, what a treat!