Progress on our experiements

The seeds in the dark have germinated and the shoot is about 3 cm long. The one in the sun has just sprouted.

Popcorn Seeds from the Supermarket

Tomorrow we are going to plant lots of popcorn seeds bought at the supermarket, in a small green house.  Do you think it will grow?  Most of the class think it will not grow.  Some think it will grow.  I wonder who will be right?  Watch this space!

Our Science Experiments & Fair Testing

Fair Testing


Conducting a fair test is one of the most important ingredients of doing good, scientifically valuable experiments. To insure that your experiment is a fair test, you must change only one factor at a time while keeping all other conditions the same.

Scientists call the changing factors in an experiment variables.

We brainstormed all the different things we could change (vary or measure).  We then decided on two things we could change  eg light/dark and hot/cold.  We then decided on how we would measure what we saw happening.  Each of us asked a question and recorded this on our sheet.  Over the next few weeks we will watch what happens and record our measurements.  Lastly we will write what happened. 

We will let you know how things are going next week.

Science Investigation Worksheet

Parts of a Popcorn Plant

We looked at the parts of a popcorn plant today. Use the diagram to practise!

Parts of a Plant & Plant Life Cycles

Go to these sites to practise what you learned in class.

Earthworms

Go onto these greatwebsites to find out more about worms

Bird Feeders for Native Birds

Look at these videos to get an idea of how you can make a simple bird feeder. You might get some ideas for our Technology learning next week. There are lots of ideas and designs so start to think about what you might like to do.

Making Bird's Nests

Nesting Materials

Purpose of Nesting Material
The term “nesting material” refers to anything that birds may use to construct a nest, whether they create a simple depression of sticks and straw or if they have a more elaborate type of nest structure with intricate architecture and widely varied materials.

Nesting Materials
• Dead twigs or sticks
• Dead leaves
• Dry grass
• Yarn or string or thread—cut into 15 - 20 cm pieces
• Human or animal hair (especially horse hair) (use short lengths—no longer than 15-20 cm long)
• Pet fur
• Sheep's wool
• Feathers
• Plant fluff or down (e.g. thistle down)
• Kapok, cotton, or other stuffing material
• Moss or lichen
• Bark strips
• Pine needles
• Thin strips of cloth, about 5 – 20 cm inches long
• Mud
• Straw or other plant stems
• Hay
• Shredded paper

This material helps…
• Cushion the eggs from the ground and parents' weight
• Insulates the eggs from temperature changes
• Holds the clutch together for heat efficiency
• Camouflages the nest from predators
• Protects the nest from the elements

To best protect their eggs, parent birds select nesting material carefully, and many birds use several types of material to construct a single nest.

Nests

At the end of T2 we made nests just like birds! We used plaster of paris and added brown paint to this. We soon realised that making a nest is no easy task.

Instructions for Nest Building

Things You'll Need:
• Straw or hay
• Plaster of Paris
• Acrylic paint (brown)
• Twigs and other nest materials
• Ice-cream containers or bucket
• Aluminium foil
• Glass jar
1. Step 1
Mix the plaster of Paris with a small amount of water in a glass jar with a lid. The final thickness should be about the consistency of a milkshake.
2. Step 2
Stir a small amount of acrylic paint into the plaster of Paris. Use brown to get the colour of dirt or mud. Stir the plaster and keep adding paint until it reaches the desired colour. Remember, it's much easier to darken a colour than to lighten it, so start with a small amount of paint and gradually add to it.
3. Step 3
Take a plastic ice-cream container diameter and fill it with straw or hay. Pour the plaster mixture onto the straw.
4. Step 4
Use another mixing bowl and put it upside down on several layers of newspaper. Put some aluminium foil over this bowl.
5. Step 5
Apply the straw and plaster combination to the aluminium foil and work it around to get it into a nest shape. Dry completely before proceeding.
6. Step 6
Remove the bird nest from the aluminium foil-covered bowl carefully.
7. Step 7
Finish the bird nest with decorative touches. Mix up more plaster and paint and apply some gathered or store-bought feathers, twigs and leaves. Crafts stores have plenty of finishing touches for these decorative nests, such as little birds and eggs. Or use Easter eggs!

How the Kiwi Lost its Wings

This the book we read in class. Click on the book to read an online version of the legend. There were lots of important messages in this legend about cowardice, bravery, respect for others and the environment, scarifice and much more. We then researched the different birds in the legend and completed fact files. Today we looked at a variety of posters from the NZ exemplars and Annie and Donna made a poster for us to anylse. We then came up with the following criteria for a 'I'm Proud to be a Kiwi' poster.

Here is the criteria we thought was important for a great poster.

The information presented in your poster is accurate.
The poster has a border around the outside.
The poster is not cluttered and is easy to read (clear layout)
The poster is attractive.
The poster is neat and tidy.
The poster’s message is clear.
The poster is colourful, and the pictures and writing are thoughtfully balanced.
The poster has no spelling errors.

Learning about Kiwis

Yesterday we had Bridget from the Queenstown Wildlife Park come and talk to us about the kiwi and what is being done to save these special little birds. Wow! She was a great speaker and we all learnt so much including our teachers. We saw a x-ray of a kiwi with its egg inside it. The poor mother kiwi having to push out hat big huge egg. Thank you so much Bridget. We will be writing to you next week. Click on the kiwi to find out about the Kiwis at the Wildlife Park.

Did You Know...

Their feathers are soft and hair-like
The legs are stout and muscular and each of the four toes has a large claw.
The ear openings are large and well developed, with very long bristles at the base of the bill.
Kiwis have small eyes that don't work well in the day time
They have very strong legs, which help them in burrowing and ripping apart rotten logs.
A female kiwi is larger than the male.
Kiwis live in pairs and mate for life.
A kiwi is extremely territorial in nature and will protect its ’patch’ (as much as 40 hectares) by calling or chasing the intruder and will fight using its razor-sharp claws. The mother and father kiwi chase their baby out of their territory when it is old enough and it has to find its own!
The egg of a kiwi is quite large, as compared with the size of its body and averages 20% of the female weight.
At night, a kiwi can often be heard making snuffling noises, which is caused by the bird trying to clear dirt out of its nostrils, when it is searching for food.
Kiwi is one of the world’s oddest endangered birds and is closest to a mammal in the bird world.
It is the only known bird to have external nostrils at the end of its bill and one of the few to have a highly developed sense of smell.

Native Birds

Click on the fantail above to learn more about NZ's native birds.


We are learning all about NZ's native birds. We needed to find out what we already know so that we know where to start our learning. Yesterday we brainstormed our ideas about birds and NZ's native birds. We also drew a native bird and labelled the parts. Room Ten actually know quite a lot about native birds so we will build on this knowledge and find out more. Today we used a T Chart to look at NZ's introdcued and native birds. We brainstomed lots of birds we know live in NZ. Our job was to organise these birds into native and introduced birds. We also wrote our owm definition of' introduced' and 'native'.

Click on the Chrischurch City Library site to read a bird story
by Janet Marshall.

Watch this space!
We will share more of our learning journey with you.

Toby's Spider Report

Here is Toby's published web page about spiders. Didn't he do well?

Jake's Web Page

Jake created this web page today. Click on his picture to view his work.

Spider Word Cloud

Today we created a word cloud to show all the words we used during our inquiry.

Spider Facts

This is Annie's model. Watch this space . The Smarties reading group are going to use Glogster EDU to present their information next week. I bet they can do better than Annie!

Spider Webs

WALT... draw and write about what a spider does with its silk
... write meanings for these words - spider, silk, spinnerets
.... draw pictures to show what these words mean

Venn Diagrams

WALT ... use a Venn diagram to compare insects and spiders
We had to write details that tell how spiders and insects are different in the outer circles then write details that tell how they are alike where the circles overlap. A Venn diagram is a great way to compare, that is, find similarities and differences.

Spiders

Today we created a new species of spider. We used paper tearing techniques rather than cutting. These murals are going to be displayed at the Wanaka A & P Show on the 13th and 14th March