Sinclair Wetlands Visit

On  6 May all of the children in the Rata whanau group visited the Sinclair Wetlands. This was an important part of the concept we are investigating this term which is "Environment and Sustainability". Our first activity was to watch a video about the wetlands and we learnt about some of the creatures that live there. Next we went on a walk around part of the wetlands and our guide, Glenn, stopped at several points and talked to us about interesting things we found along the way. We all enjoyed the wonderful view from the lookout and it was fascinating to find out about the type of pests that invade the wetlands and how they trap them. After lunch, we spent some time planting some native plants to help develop the wetlands. It was a very enjoyable and interesting day.

Science Experiments

During the last few weeks we have been conducting scientific investigations into the topic of Air.We came up with a list of questions for our wonderings wall which we have been researching using google docs to complete a shared project together.

Last week we did some experiments to help us to learn more about Air. We are now going to show you a video of what we did and explain what each experiment taught us about air.

In the first experiment, a plastic bottle with a balloon over the end of it was placed in a bowl of cold water……nothing happened. We then put the same bottle in a jug of hot water and the balloon immediately started to inflate. This shows us that when air is heated, it rises.

Next, we did an experiment which involved half filling a cup with water. A small piece of cardboard was placed over the cup and the cup was turned upside down very quickly. Instead of spilling out, the card stayed in place because the air pressure on the inside of the cup was balanced by the air pressure on the outside.

For our next experiment, a balloon was attached to the inside of a plastic bottle which had a small hole in the side of it. We were able to inflate the balloon not by blowing air into it, but by sucking the air out from inside the bottle. The greater air pressure on the outside of the bottle caused the balloon to inflate.

Finally, we lit a small piece of paper and put it inside a milk bottle. A hard boiled egg was then placed on top of the milk bottle. Because the warm air pushed past the egg and lowered the air pressure on the inside of the bottle, the greater air pressure on the outside pushed the egg into the bottle

Learning About Art

This term for art we have been learning about Pablo Picasso. He was a famous painter who invented cubism which is artwork that is made out of shapes. Picasso was born in Spain but he grew up in France. His father was an art teacher but Pablo was a bad student!  When he was 19 he went to an art school. He became famous for his different styles of painting which were abstract and very original.

We each made one of his favourite patterns or crests. We also wrote a biography of him and did a self portrait in true Picasso style. We did some “blind” drawings where we had to keep our eyes closed and our pencils could not leave the paper. Our learning experiences about Picasso were fun and we learnt a lot about his life and his artwork.

Swimming

We were all delighted to get a couple of weeks of swimming instruction recently especially because the Milton pool had been closed for so long. We were also fortunate that the weather stayed fine for us so that we only missed one of the ten swimming days we had scheduled. In this block of swimming, we focus on practising the basic swimming strokes eg freestyle and backstroke. We use equipment such as floatboards to work on our leg action and once we have mastered that we go on to work on arm action and breathing. Many children made tremendous progress. and some of our best swimmers will compete in the Otago champs on Saturday. At the end of the year we will have another block of swimming when the focus will be on water safety.

Sports Activator

This year we have a new sports activator. During the last few weeks she has visited twice. She has been teaching us the skills that we need to play tennis. First we played games called Octopus and another called Line Tag to help us warm up. Some of the activities we have done to practise keeping our eyes on the ball and ball control have been balancing the ball on the racket, rolling it around the tennis racket without dropping it, one bounce/one hit, and small hits just above your head. We also played a game called Splat! Next we worked in pairs and practised hitting the ball over the net to each other and counting how many times we could do that successfully. We also played hand tennis with our partner. We learnt how to hold a racquet properly and some of the rules of tennis. All of us enjoyed the sessions and are looking forward to the sports activator’s next visit.

School Fair

On Saturday 5th March Milton Primary School had its school fair. This year’s fair had a country theme and there were a lot of country themed activities. There were a lot of fun things to do including sponge throw, paintball, horse riding, and many other interesting activities. Lots of people also contributed to the raffles.  The sponge throw was really fun and the willing victims got thoroughly soaked. In the paintball you had to shoot the paintballs and some lucky people knocked off a drink and got to keep it. Thank you to those who donated the wonderful prizes for the raffles. In the horse riding there were three horses, Pearl, Sharky and Caesar. It was awesome how your body bobbed up and down all the time. In the Fire Engine it was very loud and whoever got in the front seat got to press the button for the siren and it was so loud. This year we had a sawdust dig and if you found a token you would get a chocolate bar and if you found a butterfly you would get a prize. Also there was a baking sale and there were a lot of sweets to buy. We also had the heli drop and  since we had some guests from the Otago rugby team they did the heli drop. Thanks to all the people who contributed to help set everything up. It was a massive fundraiser for the school.  

  

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.