Term Three: Exploration

Finishing off Term 2 with a treat

To wrap up our Geosphere Inquiry, Room 14 used a Moro bar to investigate what happens to the Earths Crust during an earthquake. We looked at three different plate boundaries; transform, constructive, and destructive.

Presenting our Learning

At the end of Term 2, students were able to choose what they wanted to learn more about and how they wanted to share what they had learned. Cynthia, Evan, TJ, Toby and Baxter chose to put together a presentation to share with their classmates. 

Pyjama Mufti Day and 100 Days at School

Room 14 started off 2017 by counting down every day we spent at school, and when we finally got down to 100 days at school we wanted to have a Mufti Day where we could wear our pyjamas. We worked really hard to write letters to Mrs Varney and Mrs Boxen to ask for our mufti day, and we thought hard about what we wanted to do with the money. 

Our Turangawaewae unit at the start of the year taught us about other people in our community who are not as fortunate as we are and some members of Room 14 had the idea to donate the money raised from our mufti day to a children's charity, Kids Can. 

Working Together

Room 14 learned to work together to move a hoop around a circle without letting go of the hands we are holding. 

Mathmaticians

In Room 14 we have been working hard on developing our maths brains. We made a rainbow to help us remember the different ways to add to 10. 

We practiced making groups of 10 using materials. 

We learned a new game called Cover Up Kiwi:

Roll two dice and add the number together. Cover up as many kiwi's as you can to make the number you have rolled. Roll again. First person to cover up all of their kiwi's calls "KIWI!" to win the game.

Gian and Miss Harris practiced counting groups of dinosaurs up to 10 so that we could easily see which number is the biggest and which is the smallest. 

Term 3: Exploration

This terms Inquiry unit led us to explore 3 different parts of the planet: Antarctica, Egypt, and the Ocean. The whole Junior School started off the term by watching Moana together in the hall; Moana and her family were explorers who sailed on the ocean and used the stars to guide them.
We loved singing along to all the songs.

Egypt

We were incredibly fortunate that Maria's father Mohamed could come in to teach us a little bit about Egypt. Some of our favourite things to learn were: 

There is a lake full of alligators on the Nile River.
The lake was made by people to help make electricity.

The Sphinx’s nose and beard fell off
after it got shot by a rocket.

There are three big pyramids for the Pharaohs and

three little pyramids for the queens in Giza.

We learned about how tall the pyramids are - Godzilla is 100m tall

and the two biggest pyramids are taller than that. The tallest one is 139m tall.

The mummies are wrapped in bandages...
...Not toilet paper!

Houses in Egypt are a lot like houses in New Zealand
and lots of them are made of bricks.

The Pharaohs and Queens take their favourite treasure in the

tomb with them to take to the after-life.

The pyramids are
made of limestone.

Archeologists are a type of explorer who looks for old things

like the treasure in the pyramids.

Houses in Egypt have electricity for things like TV’s and

Playstations just like we do in New Zealand.

We found out that the tallest pyramid in Giza, Egypt is 139m tall. We looked at how long one metre is and measured ourselves against a one metre ruler. Room 14 lay down head to toe in a long line and Miss Harris used a measuring wheel to see how tall Room 14 are altogether.  We measured in at 35m.

We then used the measuring wheel to measure out the height of the pyramid in Egypt, which went all the way from Room 14 to the middle of the senior playground!

Antarctica

We started our look into Antarctica by writing down on sticky notes what we thought belongs in Antarctica and sticking this onto a Define Map. 

We investigated our define map and found out that:

There are 7 types of Penguins that live in Antarctica, including our favourite Penguin, The Macaroni Penguin!

Antarctica does not have any Polar Bears or Walruses; they live at the North Pole!

Antarctica is a dessert because it has a very small amount of rain every year. 

There are 7 main types of Whale that live in Antarctic waters: the Blue Whale, the Fin Whale, the Bowhead Whale, the Right Whale, the Humpback Whale, the Grey Whale and the Minke Whale.

You can find out more about these whales at the Cool Antarctica website.

Under the Ocean

We talked about what we thought the bottom of the ocean might look like. Most of the people in Room 14 thought that the ocean floor would be flat like the beach, and only 8 of us thought that there might be hills and valleys under the ocean.

The students on the left in this picture thought that the ocean floor would be flat.

We thought back on our look at the Geosphere in Term two and the video Someone To Lava and remembered that there can be volcanoes under the ocean. 

We learned that there is a really deep spot in the ocean called the Mariana Trench, and the deepest spot in this trench is called the Challenger Deep. The Challenger Deep is 10,916m deep. We could fit 49 and a half Sky Towers in the Challenger Deep standing on top of each othe

Term Two: Learning about the Geosphere

Nude Food Champions!

We have a lot of Nude Food champions in Room 14! Nude Food is food that does not have wrappers. This could mean food comes to school in a reusable container or zip-lock bag. 

Thank you, parents, for making the effort to help our students to care for our environment by reducing our waste. 

The Atmosphere

We started off the term learning about the four spheres that make up our planet. These are the Atmosphere, Biosphere, Geosphere (or Lithosphere) and the Hydrosphere. 

We did some experiments with Air Pressure to learn a little bit more about the Atmosphere. Here you can see our balloon rockets. The air pressure squeezes out of the balloon and pushes it along a nylon string. 

As you can see, the purple balloon didn't work too well, but the green balloon got all the way to the other side of the classroom!

Inspiration for Writing

We like to think about new and different things to write about. 

Here we squished a bag of playdough in our hands and watched as the playdough slowly changed colour and then wrote about what we could see. 

It feels a little bit like magic! And I like the colours. The red one looks like blood and the blue one looks like water.

Kate Zhu

It smells like dough and I don't like the smell of it. I like playing with it. It's the colour of the table.

Baxter Yang

The playdough smells like sugar. It is really squishy. It looks like gold. 

Tessa Currie

Today we touched playdough. It looked blue. It smelled like sugar. 

TJ Thompson

I played with playdough. It was hard and it looked yellow and white. It looked cool! It smells like salt. 

Liam van den Nieuwenhuysen-O'Dowd

It smells like salt. It feels squishy. The playdough is orange. 

Meila Kopua-Mokole

I touched the playdough. It felt squishy and the colour was blue and yellow and red. It smelt like salt and when the playdough comes to me it is squishy. 

Aria Kolo

The playdough looks pink. It is like it is made out of strawberry, and it is squishy. 

Cynthia Austen

The playdough is so squishy and nice to feel. When I smelt it it smells like salt and it looks like blue playdough. 

Mikana Joyce

Today I played with the playdough. I looked at it. It was yellow playdough. It smelt sugary. It felt soft.

Areesha Khan

I touched playdough. It was blue like a rainbow. The blue is like water. It looked like cooking dough. It smelt like sugar. It felt like a muffin. It is squishy. 

Fiona O'Brien

I love to play with the playdough. The playdough smells like a rose. 

Monique Meyer

Rock Hunters

Room 14 decided that we wanted to learn a little bit more about the Geosphere and what is under the ground we walk on. We started by looking around our school for things that belong in the Geosphere, in particular some different types of rocks. 

We set our rocks up on a small inquiry table with some sediment and magnifying glasses. We noticed that some rocks can be broken and others are hard to break, and sand is made up of lots of small bits of shells and other things. 

Taking on the Planet

We learned about the different layers that make our planet and then used the playdough from our writing to make these layers. We thought carefully about what layer to put on next and what colour each layer should be. As we put the next layer on top we said goodbye to the layer that was disappearing. 

Miss Harris tried to make all the different countries that we are from.

The whole class was very excited to see what all the layers looked like when our playdough Earth was cut in half, and then into quarters.

Thanks, Fiona, for taking some of these fantastic pictures!

Crystals!

We learned that crystals form in the Geosphere, so one afternoon before our trip to the Museum we tried to make our own crystals out of salt and water. We got to choose a colour but the colour didn't really come through in our crystals. 

Volcanoes

We learned about the different parts that make up a volcano and talked about the volcanoes that are in the city we live in. One afternoon we pushed all the tables to the side, and Miss Harris did her best to draw Auckland on the floor. We all held up the name of a volcano and stood on the floor where our volcano lives in Auckland. 

This is not even half of the Volcanoes in Auckland! Luckily most of them are Dormant or Extinct.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

In Room 14 we love presenting Room 14 News, but sometimes there is just too much exciting stuff going on for all of us to share! When this happens, we get into two circles and take turns sharing to the person sitting opposite us. Spaghetti sits around the edge and Meatballs sit in the middle.