Project Island Song

We had the most fabulous day at Urupukapuka Island on Thursday. We learned about our precious marine environment and how to protect our endemic plants and wildlife. We planted some trees and made traps. On the trip back to Paihia we even saw some Bottlenose dolphins! 

Koroua was our biosecurity officer, checking the bags to make sure we didn't translocate any pests to the island.

Shaniadawn was in charge of Health and Safety, checking the passenger list.

Tamati showed us how to put on the lifejackets.

Caitlin enjoying the boat ride out to the island.

North, south, east and west.

What a view!

Climbing the fence safely.

Proud karo tree planters.

Group photo. Awesome Room 3.

Lots of collaboration needed to construct our traps.

Anahera driving the boat back to Paihia.

Mangamutu Stream and an origami dragon

This week we set out up Omapere Road to do some water quality testing of the Mangamutu Stream. We had fun using all of the equipment -  the thermometer, bathyscope, periscope, gravelometer, classification sheet, measuring tapes and stopwatches. We had to carefully record the data we collected.

Lee-Ayla trying out the periscope (to test water clarity).

Nesta getting ready with the measuring tape.

Calaise and Ahzaria-Lee checking the water temperature.

    

Time for a snack!

Measuring the width of the stream.

Manakitanga using the bathyscope to see what is under the water.

Mei putting an orange into the water to test water flow.

Monique was our origami expert and made a fabulous black dragon (one of our NZ Read Aloud tasks this week):

Dragon posters and alternative transport

This week we started reading the 5th book in the Dragon Defenders Series as part of NZ Read Aloud.

We made some posters to advertise the grand opening of Dragon World.

As part of our Squawk Squad Antarctica unit we are learning about climate change. We imagined what Kaikohe would be like if there were no cars. How would we get to school? Some of our ideas were quite imaginative and hot  air balloons were very popular!

Measuring and designing

We are learning to be scientists. One of our activities this week was our Classroom Olympics. We had to measure and then find the mean, median and mode of our results. We discovered it is very important to measure accurately and all use the same unit of measure otherwise the data is unreliable and cannot be used. We all enjoyed using the measuring tapes.

Tamati measuring how far he can throw a straw

Jacob weighing a handful of Unifix blocks.

Caitlin and Nesta measuring how far the little red pompom was thrown.

Mei measuring the volume of water Ashleigh can squeeze out of a sponge with one hand.

Ahzaria-Lee finding the difference between how high Tailah can reach and how high she can jump.

We also had to follow a design brief for a handheld device which could be used to look underwater.  Here are some of our awesome ideas:

Defend yourself with words

 This week we read a fabulous poem about bullying by James Brown. It is called Words.

Then we wrote our own poems about bullying. 

Here is Yozarna's poem:

I don't know why, why, why

but they exist ist ist

and they hurt, hurt, hurt

and they're always here, here, here

and they're called bullies you know, know, know.

You hide, hide, hide.

Our favourite writing task this week was a 50 word challenge. We had to write a story about bullying with an orientation, problem and solution using exactly 50 words. We really liked using the word count tool on Google Docs. Having a word limit meant we had to think carefully about using language effectively. 

Here is Quiara-Lane's story:

On my first day at school I got bullied from a boy. He was calling me names. I was sad. I started crying. The next day he kept calling me names. I told him to stop. When it was home time I told his mum and he got a _________!

Room 3 explore te ngahere

 Our topic last week, as part of our Squawk Squad unit, was "Spirit of Exploration." We decided to explore te ngahere in the middle of our school. One of our goals this year is to improve our movie making so this is a very early attempt!

Sharon Holt and Scott Base

We had two lots of virtual visitors in Room 3 this week. Sharon Holt, author of the Te Reo Singalong books, and Scott Base in Antarctica!

Here is the video of Sharon Holt talking about how she became an author. She gives lots of good tips for aspiring writers. If you skip to 51:38 you will hear her answer to Yozarna's question, "Do you write the words or the music first for your singalong books?"

On Thursday morning we had a Zoom meeting with Scott Base in Antarctica. We were so excited we forgot to take a screenshot! The men we spoke to haven't seen the sun since April 20th. Jayden asked them if it is cloudy in Antarctica and they said "Yes, it is quite cloudy at the moment."