Ancient Egypt

We are so excited about our inquiry this term.  It's all about ancient Egypt.  Watch out and follow our learning journey!

Timeline

Timelines help us to keep track of things that happen on certain days or in certain years. They help us understand history and tell us what happened when and how much time went between events.

WALT...place events on a timeline

80,000 BC - Cave men and women in prehistoric America received quite a surprise when they placed maize (early corn) kernels too close to the fire — voila — the world’s first popcorn!

•1492 - As Columbus set foot on American soil, popcorn was there, too! Native Americans who greeted Columbus enjoyed snacking on the fluffy white stuff and made quite a fashion statement with their popcorn necklaces.

•1620 - Popcorn played a starring role at the first Thanksgiving. Native Americans in Massachusetts brought bowlfuls of popcorn to the potluck feast!

•1700 - Colonial women made the first tasty breakfast cereal by pouring milk and sugar over popcorn.

•1885 - The first popcorn “machine” was invented. Until then, poppers were made to sit in front of stores to attract attention. But vendors wanted to be close to the crowds — especially the crowds near movie theatres. So poppers were made that could be pushed on foot, pulled by horse or mounted on trucks.

Continents

We are learning about the Continents of the world.

Continents are large areas of land. There are seven continents on Earth now: Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, South America, Australia and Antarctica.

Play these games to make sure you know these.

National Anthem of NZ

Today we sang the NZ national anthem in both Maori and English. We plan to sing it heaps over the term. It is called 'God of Nations'. Here is some information about our national anthem.

Thomas Bracken wrote his poem in the early 1870s, and offered a prize of 10 guineas for the best musical setting. This was won by Otago schoolteacher John Joseph Woods. In 1940, on the recommendation of the NZ Centennial Council, the Government declared God Defend New Zealand to be the National Hymn, and bought the copyright. In 1977, with the Queen’s consent, God Defend New Zealand was given equal status with God Save the Queen as one of New Zealand’s national anthems.

NZ Flag

The New Zealand Flag is New Zealand’s national symbol. Its royal blue background represents the blue sea and sky surrounding us, and the stars of the Southern Cross signify our place in the South Pacific Ocean. The Union Flag recognises our historical foundations and that New Zealand was once a British colony and dominion

Mapping NZ

We have been mapping this week. We put the host cities of the World Cup onto a map and then added some important geographical features. Today we began looking at the provinces where the Webb Ellis cup is going on the road trip. We looked at Northland, Auckland, Hawkes Bay and Bay of Plenty. We think it is important to know about our own country. Tomorrow we will look at Taranaki, Manawatu, Waikato and Wellington. As part of this study we are looking at main cities, things to do, main geographical features and the provinces rugby colours. We also learnt about using key words when searching for information on the internet using Google. Also, we revised capital letters for names of places. Presentation was very important and most of us are getting very good at presenting our work neatly.

Trophy for the Rugby World Cup

Webb Ellis Cup

• Made in 1906 in Garrard's workshop
• Silver and gilded in gold
• 2 cast scroll handles
• 38 cm tall
• Not made originally for Rugby World Cup
• Named after William Webb Ellis (the inventor of rugby football)
• NZ All Blacks first team to win it
• South Africa currently hold it
• 4 nations have won the cup (NZ (once), England (once), Australia (twice) and
South Africa (twice)

Kiwiana

We asked the question, What is culture?
This a definition we liked ...
All the knowledge and values shared by a society
Everything a group of people think, how they behave, and what they produce that is passed on to future generations.

We wrote and drew the things that were important to us in our own cultural wheel. We then got together, in groups of three and talked about similarities and difference between our wheels.

After that we drew things that make us 'Kiwis' and discussed 'Kiwiana. We pasted them onto a chart.

The Oxford N.Z. Dictionary defines kiwiana as “Any of the many 'collectable', items redolent of New Zealand life and culture."

Go to Kiwiana Town to see some of the things that are important to us as KIWIS.







We then completed a cultural wheel that reflects the things that are important to us as New Zealanders.

Flags and Symbols

What is a flag?
A piece of cloth, usually rectangular, of distinctive colour and design, used as a symbol, standard, signal, or emblem

What is a symbol?
A shape or sign used to represent something such as an organisation
such as the Silver Fern)

What is a logo?
A symbol or other small design adopted by an organisation to identify its products, uniform, vehicles and to go on stationery (such as Wanaka Primary School logo)

After completing our kiwiana work, we webbed ideas about what
Wanaka Primary Schoolwiana and Wanaka communityana might look like.

Over the next two days we plan to design a flag or symbol that would represent either our school culture or the Wanaka community culture.

History of Rugby and the Rugby Ball

Rugby and Rugby Balls
This week in reading, the Lollipops group read a new school journal. In it they read an article called 'The First Rugby Ball'. Here are some of the facts they found. They recorded facts on a rugby ball shape and displayed on a group chart.

- Rugby school developed Rugby football from football and played this game according to Rugby rules

- Until 1870, rugby was played with a near spherical ball with an inner-tube made of a pig's bladder!

- William Webb Ellis was a schoolboy at Rugby School, who, bored with the slow pace of a football game, picked up the ball and ran with it, and created the game of rugby. Webb Ellis is the person the World Cup is named after.

- Richard Lindon started making rugby balls for Rugby School out of hand stitched four-panel, leather casings and pigs’ bladders.

- The rugby ball's distinctive shape is supposedly due to the pig’s bladder
Early balls were more plum-shaped than oval.

- The balls varied in size in the beginning depending upon how large the pig’s bladder was.

Co-operative Groups - Class Treaty

We have been learning about the Treaty of Waitangi and Waitangi Day. Today we wrote ideas for our class treaty and classified our rules under key areas. Here are some photos of our co-operative groups at work.

School Days: Old and New

Last term the whole school 's inquiry was about how schools have changed over time. This was especially relevant with our shift to our new school site. We had a great day dressing up in clothes from the olden days. Teachers and children all got dressed up. Here are some photos.

Chuseok

Read the information about this important Korean celebration

Then take the quiz:
Chuseok Trivia Puzzle Quiz

Asia Map Puzzle to download

I have downloaded this Asia map puzzle for all our class computers and the children are getting good at knowing all the countries that make up Asia. If you would like to download it click on the graphic of asia below.

Korean Folk Tales

Today we read 5 Korean folk tales. Like the Maori culture, stories have been handed down for hundreds of years. Even today well known stories are shared at schools and through festivals. They pass on stories of heroes, tricksters and a lot of Korean humour. They also explore values such as friendship, loyalty, kindness and other important parts of the Korean world. One famous style of singing storytelling is called p'ansori has kept stories alive. Two well-known stories are the tale of Simchong (the faithful daughter) and the tale of the greedy and kind brothers called Hungbu Nolbu. We have found out they have a version of Cinderella ( The Korean Cinderella).

Go to this site and read some folk tales.

Read the Korean Cinderella. (Click on the character below)

Play the "Find the Frog" game from the Korean Cinderella. Click on the book imagebelow.

Hanbok

We have been lucky to have had Donna our student teacher in Room10. She has spent time in Korea and we have emailed students in Korea so that we get epals or penpals. We can't wait to hear back from Donna's sister who is a teacher of English there. She is goting to get some of her Korean students to write back. We have compared school at Wanaka Primary to school in Korea. We found many similarities and many differences. We recorded these on a venn diagram. Donna also wore a traditional dress called the hanbok. If you click on the picture you can dress a doll in a traditional costume. Have a go!

Brochures

Here are the first of our published brochures. What a lot of information about earthquake safety for the reader to learn about. Keep up the great thinking Room Ten.

Disasters (Non-natural)

Today we looked at non-natural disasters. These disasters are caused by human activity and include things like...

Terrorism (bombs, threats)
Wildfires ( bushfires)
Pandemics ( swine flu or avian (bird) flu)
Biohazards ( chemical spills
Transportation Accidents ( trains, aeroplanes)

These hazards may be limited to a small area or their effects may be widespread.

Earthquake Safety Brochures

Writing - Brochures

WALT... inform people about how to be safe in an earthquake

You are working for the Civil Defence in Wanaka. Your boss has asked you to create your own “Earthquake Safety” brochure to help inform people of what to do in an earthquake and how you should prepare. Your boss would like you to include at least 4 eye-catching, colorful pictures in your brochure. You must include the following information

You must include:

1. A list of Emergency Supplies/items every home should have
2. A description of what an emergency plan is
3. Safe places to go (indoors/outdoors)
4. A list of things you should do to make your home safer (Fix, Fasten & Forget) and give examples
5. Three things to do before an earthquake
6. Three things to do during an earthquake
7. Three things to do after an earthquake
8. Community Efforts (suggestions for how a community can prepare)

Use the 'What's the Plan Stan?' web site to find NZ information to help you write your brochure.

Click on the icon

Types of Disasters

Today we began our investigation into the different disasters we might experience in NZ.

These are the disasters we came up with...

Floods
Earthquakes
Tsunami
Volcanoes
Storms

We then went to 'What's the Plan Stan?' CD and found out there was one more called non- natural. We are going to investigate this further later in the week. We then looked in depth at tsunami and floods by looking at a fact sheet, photos and a video on each disaster. Then we completed a quiz. Our next task was to complete a table with the following headings.

Disaster Type & Cause
Similarities
Differences

Floods
Floods are one of New Zealand's most frequent hazards. Flood waters can ravage the land, destroying roads, bridges, railway tracks and buildings. Crops can be inundated and livestock drowned. Human lives are also at risk, particularly in flash floods and tsunami, where fast-flowing water filled with debris can sweep people away.
Tsunami
New Zealand is a country surrounded by water, so many coastal communities are at risk from tsunami. In a near source tsunami the water level may fall very quickly past the normal low tide mark, then return just as quickly. If this happens, there won't be enough time to issue a warning and it is important that you know what to do, and that you act quickly.
Earthquakes
New Zealand experiences thousands of earthquakes every year. Most are either very deep or centred well offshore, causing little damage or injury. However, a severe earthquake can occur at any time with devastating effects.

We used a model Annie had completed on tsunami and discussed each heading. Then we completed our own for Floods. Tomorrow we will move onto Volcanoes and Storms.