Kararehe

This week we continued with our learning about animals. However, instead of thinking about our big idea in science that we have been investigating, we learnt how to say, read and write the names of the animals we have been learning about. On Monday morning we started the day playing some games to help us learn the animal names in Maori.

Once we were familiar with how to pronounce the names we learnt how to put the animal names into a simple sentence. We learnt Ko te ........ tenei (This is a ...). We then began to create our own animal books in Maori for reading. We continued using our new found Maori vocabulary in statistics by surveying our friends and asking them what their favourite animal was and they had to tell us in Maori. 

We also completed an art task to create a camouflaged animal. We spent time looking at examples on an art blog and then had a go at creating backgrounds and animals that blended into the background. We then wrote descriptions for our camoflaged animals. Mahadyia said 'My peacock has beautiful feathers that have round circles on top like eyes' Spencer wrote 'My elephant is like a fat tree trunk without the bush on top' Jaxsyn said that his animal was as dark as the nights sky.

We finished our animal provocation work this week by learning how to read 'He Kuri' and we took this home to read. 

Our Animal Provocation

This week we investigated further the big idea in science that 'scientist classify animals into groups according to certain characteristics' We learnt about subcategories and found that there are 6 subcategories that we can group animals into. We used the countdown animal cards to sort animals into these subcategories. This created lots of debate about which group some animals should go into! Many of us were very surprised to find that bats were mammals! 

For reading some of us read books about certain animals and others had readings to do on the virtual classroom. Once we had finished reading about our animal we came back together as a group and put what we were reading into the subcategories that we had learnt about. We then talked to each other about what characteristics the animal that we were reading about had to make them fit into that category.

We then used what we had been readng to help us create a report about our animal. In our reports we described the physical features our animal had, described where they lived and then wrote about any interesting features that the animal had. 

In maths we continued our understanding of the purpose of statistics by using the animal subcategories and countdown animal cards to sort the information. We then grouped the cards into fives and then used a tally chart to record the information we had gathered. Next week we will look at how we can present that information.

New Provocation 'What is an animal'

This week we started a new Provocation, 'What is an Animal' this leads into our trip to Orana Park in a few weeks. One of the 'big ideas' in Science that we started to think about this week was how scientist classify animals into different groups according to certain characteristics. We began to explore this understanding by thinking about how we would group animals that we were familiar with. Eli said 'I put the cow and the human in the same box as humans eat cows' when I questioned him further and asked if that is something that is similar about them, 'do cows eat humans?' I asked. 'Ahh no, that wouldn't be good, I think I will change that!' Eli replied. Many children grouped the animals according to the physical features of the animals as presented in the picture, 'I put the fish and the cat together as they both have a bit of grey on them' Zoe stated. I put the dog, cat, rabbit and human together cos the human would have them as pets' Brooklyn said. From these observation I could see that our next steps would be to investigate some sub categories within the animal world and look into what makes a reptile a reptile etc

In our reading groups we read via the  national geographic kids site about different animals. For writing we used the information we learnt to create descriptions and in our maths work on statistics we organised animals into a Venn diagram and took a photo of it, imported it into explain everything and talked about what the diagram showed. Next week we will start to explore and learn more about the animals that we have selected.

An MLE morning in Room 7

On Monday morning we had P1 working with us on an IPad task. There were 44 children one 'big' teacher and 5 'smaller' ex-room 7 teachers to help us. We read a big book about Granny and her Popcorn Machine. Then we used drawing pad to design our own machine that created our Favorite food. There were lots of interesting machines, many opting for ice cream but some rather unique! Brooklyn said 'mine is a seafood machine it spits out prawns'. Ryan from P1 had a cream machine! Once we had designed the machine we imported our work into explain everything and used the tools to create labels and record ourselves explaining our work. We then saved it to camera roll and uploaded it to our media galleries on Uspace. There was so much learning happening around using the different Apps on our iPads. We hope that our friends and families will have a look at our multimedia creations!

Numeracy

Each week for numeracy we are learning new strategies and working on our number knowledge. Check out some of the work we have been doing this week. 

Using our senses

Today we starting exploring how we can use our senses to describe things. We had mystery objects that we had to investigate using some but not all of our senses. We then had to think of an adjective to describe the mystery object. The first thing we investigated was coffee granules, we were able to look at it and taste it! Most of us used the adjectives 'horrible and disgusting'! But some thought it was 'crunchy and yummy'. We then tried mint, we were allowed to smell it and taste it but not see it of feel it. Some of us were a bit scared to eat something we couldn't see, but most of us gave it a try! When Zack saw that it looked like a leaf he said 'I'm not a vegetarian'! We then used the sense of touch and sound to work out the mystery object which was rice. Finally we were really brave and had a go at trying these funny looking green things that Kingston said looked like 'old peas'. They were capers and almost everyone liked them even if some thought they were salty! Brooklyn was very proud of himself for eating it, especially after Mrs McLeod told him that his mother would never have tried it! It was a fun session coming up with describing words. Tomorrow we will begin to build our descriptions!

Story Workshop

We spent two days last week finding our stories through different forms of art and media. We had completed a couple of session with Story workshop before but inspired by looking at Room 14's blog we decided to add photos, digital media and questions to help us. We also listened to a piece of music and used the pastels to create how it made us feel. There was also a TV trailer from a programme called the A Team we watched it and then drew a storyboard of what happen before they went to jail. We spent all Monday morning finding our story and Brooklyn, Eli, Caleb and Spencer decided to write notes whilst they built so they could remember what the different features of their city they created were. On Tuesday we started to create our stories.