Edison Robots

Last Friday a teacher from another school came to teach us about how to program an Edison robot. First we learnt how to connect the robot to a laptop so that it could receive instructions. We learnt what the various buttons on the robot did. From a website we were able to pick the commands we wanted to give to the robot. With our instructions selected, we were ready to start. If our instructions didn’t work we had to try again. Sometimes it was hard to find what our mistake was. We could get them to move but not always where we wanted them to go. So it was back to the drawing board. The visiting teacher said she was impressed with our perseverance. Our challenge was to program the robot to move around in the shape of a square. We had a lot of fun playing with the robots and trying to complete the challenges.

School Fair

On Saturday 16th March, Milton Primary School had its school fair. This year’s fair had a circus theme and there were a lot of activities based around this theme. There were a lot of fun things to do including sponge throw, a bouncy castle, paintball, horse riding, gumboot throw, zorbs, and many other interesting activities. Lots of people also contributed to the raffles. Thank you to those who donated the wonderful prizes for these. The sponge throw was really fun and the willing victims got thoroughly soaked. In the paintball you had to shoot the paintballs and try to hit the targets. Also there was a baking sale and there were a lot of sweet treats to buy. Thanks to all the people who contributed to help set everything up. It was a massive fundraiser for the school. 

The Wax Museum

In Room 8 we have been exploring the concept of “Success” by researching the achievements of famous New Zealanders. Each child was asked to  select a different person to study and create a display about them. They also created a  backdrop, gathered together appropriate clothing and props, and on Thursday 14 March they dressed up and posed as their famous New Zealander in our version of a wax museum.  This project was done in conjunction with our buddy class in California whose wax museum on Famous Americans was on display at exactly the same time! Afterwards, the children created short videos of themselves posing as their famous New Zealander and explaining why they are famous. These videos have been shared with their American penpals.

Geometry

In geometry, we have been learning about the properties of 2-D and 3-D shapes. We have learnt that the flat surfaces on a 3-D shape are called faces, and the pointy bits are called vertices. We have learnt the names of some 3-D shapes and how to recognise them from flat representations of themselves called nets. There are a lot of new words to learn in like parallel, perpendicular and congruent. We have been learning to use the language of geometry to describe 3-D shapes like the ones you can see in this photo.

Athletic Sports

On Wednesday the 20th of February it was the Milton Schools Athletics day. St Marys and Tokoiti came to participate with us. All of the events started at 9.30am and went to around 2.00pm. Lots of parents and caregivers came to cheer their children along as well as their school. These were all of the events: high jump, long jump, mini hurdles, 100 metre sprints, 200 metres, 800 metres, shot put and discus. Each child put in a one hundred and one percent effort. At the end of the day children went home with a red face and a smile with tomato sauce over it from the delicious sausage sizzle at lunchtime provided by Home and School helpers. The 800 metre run was the longest and made us puff and slow down a little bit more at the end of the race. Everyone tried their hardest and our best wishes go to the children who qualified for the South Otago sports in Balclutha. It was a great day but everyone’s bones would have been very stiff and sore the next day!!