These boots are made for walking...

Today the whole class had a special Inquiry session with Mrs Northover.  We gathered in the new Inquiry area next to the library and were introduced to our topic of shoes.

 First Mrs Northover showed us all a video of shoes through the ages - including Greek and Roman sandals, clogs, cowboy boots, platforms and Crocs.  Then she told the students what their task was - to design a pair of shoes that had a purpose, for example to be worn to a dance or going to the beach, and that were unique to New Zealand.

To provide some further inspiration we watched another video showing some fantastically creative shoes - including some worn by Lady Gaga.  Then the students got into pairs and had to come up with a name for their design, decide how it was going to fit the set criteria and start drawing their design.  They had to make sure that it would fit an actual foot and they had to think carefully about the materials it would be made out of.

 

 

The students were really engaged in the task and were quickly coming up with ideas.  Soon everyone was busy drawing and creating and as I walked around the room I discovered lots of amazingly creative ideas.

The challenge on Friday is to make one shoe following their design.  I can't wait to see the results.

Super Sleepover

Wow, we had a fantastic time last night at our sleepover!

First of all the children had lots of fun taking part in the activities provided by Kelly Sports.  The bouncy castle was a big hit, the parachutes, throwing games and team games were also eagerly approached.  The blind obstacle course and the water challenge were real lessons in team work. Sleepover - Kelly Sports Fun on PhotoPeach

 

 



Then it was time to set up beds and have dinner. The hamburgers and chips were very tasty with lots of children going back for seconds.  The fruit and marshmallows were enjoyed immensely.

After dinner, it was time to get into pyjamas, clean teeth and settle down to watch a movie in the hall.  Finally it was bedtime.  Many students fell asleep straight away, while others took a little while longer!  But as you can see (sort of!) soon there was darkness and silence.

This morning the children began to wake around 6am and soon everyone was awake and ready to start the day.  We started with some Jump Jam in the hall while breakfast was being prepared.  Then when we had built up an appetite we were ready for cereal and fruit.

Finally it was time to go home.  Well done to all the children and parents who came along and made our sleepover such a success, and a huge thank you to all our parent helpers, we couldn't have held this fantastic event without you.

Egg Challenge

On Wednesday afternoon the Year 3 students from Rooms 19, 20 and 21 got together for another science and technology challenge.

Once again the students were put into groups and told their task.  They had to design and make a way of protecting an egg from cracking when being dropped from just over a metre height.  Each group was given 4 paper napkins, 4 straws, some string and some sellotape.  They had to decide upon and draw their design first, then they were given their materials to begin building, before finally being given the egg to finish off their "protection".

Some groups decide they would wrap the napkins around the eggs and put lots of sellotape on to help keep it safe.  Other groups attempted to make frames/holders for egg using the straws before wrapping those in the napkins.  Some groups even attempted parachutes to slow the egg down when falling as well as wrapping the egg up.

Soon it was time to test out each groups designs.  One at a time each group climbed the steps outside Room 19 and dropped their eggs on the ground.  Mrs Buchanan was in charge of checking whether the eggs had survived or cracked/smashed.  Two groups managed to drop their eggs without them breaking.

The students had a lot of fun making and testing their designs.  The task involved some critical thinking, fine motor and team work skills and the students did a great job.

 

 

Big Walk to School

This morning was our "Big Walk to School" event.  As many students as were able met their teachers at Deep Creek Reserve, then just before 8.30 am we all set off walking up the hill to get back to school.

Room 20 were the 3rd class to set off and we were soon setting a good pace.  At the top the children were cheered on by Buster the walking school bus and then had the chance to say hello to the friendly Walking School Bus team at school.

Many of the children had decorated their school bags for a chance to win prizes, and after a vote in class it was agreed that Ava's looked the best (closely followed by Indie and Luis).

Well done to everyone who took part this morning - great job!

Easter Maths Challenge

On Tuesday the Year 3's got together in the hall to complete an Easter Maths Challenge.

The students were put into groups of three and had to move around the hall answering different Easter based questions.  These included measuring the height of an Easter egg and working out how many chicks would fit into 4 nests.

One challenge in particular captured the children's interest - how many small chocolate eggs were in the jar!

Well done everyone on a great effort!


Easter Maths Challenge on PhotoPeach

Design and Build Challenge

On Monday the Year 3 students participated in the first of our EOTC / team building challenges.  They were split into groups of three and each group was given the same equipment to work with:

a property press
a small roll of sellotape
1 metre of string
a piece of card

They had to design and then build a tent using the equipment given.

There was a lot of design and then problem solving over how to transfer the design into an actual model.  Many find the task very challenging, but everyone worked hard to complete the task.  Well done Year 3!


Design and build a tent. on PhotoPeach

Final Flag Results

On Monday the last classes had their chance to vote in the Kids Flag Referendum.

The final result was:

Current flag    221     New flag     259     a difference of 38  

It will be interesting to see how the adults vote.

St Patrick's Day

Room 20 had a sudden burst of energy this morning with a flash mob of Irish dancing ocurring before the start of lessons bell.

To celebrate St Patrick's day I played some of the Riverdance music as students were arriving and then put on a video of Riverdance.

It didn't take long for a small group to gather in front of the projector and attempt to copy the moves, hands behind backs and feet flying.  

Marvellous Maths

Our maths warm up today was finding as many ways as we could to make the number 20.

Each student had their maths books and their pencils at the ready and I set the timer for 2 minutes.  They had to write down as many ways as they could think of to make the number 20 using addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions etc.

There was absolute silence while the students busily wrote down their ideas.  When the time ran out they volunteered their answers, putting a tick against their working out if some one else had the same way.

Here are just a sample of ways Room 20 came up with.  Ka pai everyone!

Flag Referendum

   

This week Torbay School has been participating in the Kids Flag Referendum:

 Kids Flag Referendum Information

We had a discussion in class about how the referendum came about and the different reasons why some people want to keep the current flag, and why some people would like to see the flag changed.  With each reason the desire to change or keep the flag changed rapidly with some heated debate from both sides.

On Thursday it was the turn of our class to go to the school voting booths and cast our votes.  The students had their names crossed off the list and then were given a form to fill in.  There were pictures of both flags and they had to put a tick next to the flag they wanted to have as the New Zealand flag.  Then they had to post their form into the ballot box.

Voting results so far:

Day 1 went to the new flag    44 - 68

Day 2 went to the current flag 144-140

Day 3 went back to the new flag winning by a slim 4 votes 186-190

Current total:

Current flag - 374 votes  New flag - 398

With only Rooms 15, 16 and 18 to go the result could be very close.  Final results to follow soon!

Pom Pom Popping Fun

During our maths strand lessons we are currently working on collecting data using tally marks and turning the information gathered into pictographs and bar charts.  On Friday for our Maths lesson we found a fun way to create a scattergraph.

First of all the students got into pairs and were then shown instructions on how to make Pom Pom Poppers using a set of photographs.










The students had to follow the steps and come and get each piece of equipment as they needed it.

Soon all were busy making their poppers.

When they had finished everyone gathered on the mat and each pair were given a pom pom and had 5 minutes to practice firing their pom pom as far as they could.

When practice time was up we made a line behind our masking tape which was to become our X axis line. One at a time each student had the chance to fire their pom pom out of their "popper".  

 

Some only traveled a short distance, while others made it almost to the other side of the classroom.  As each pom pom landed we placed a sticker on the floor where it had come to a stop.  We then taped in our Y axis to meet our X axis and we were able to look at the results as a scattergraph.

Noah's pom pom landed to the left of the small whiteboard.

To extend the students thinking further we used a metre ruler to measure the distances the pom poms had travelled.  The furthest which had been fired by Noah, had traveled 4 metres 72 cm.  The shortest traveled 64 cm.  By looking at the stickers we determined there was a cluster of dots close together and we were able to conclude that the majority of pom poms (9)  had traveled between 1 metre 50 cm and 2 metres in distance.

It was a really fun Friday maths activity which incorporated both statistics and measurement.  Next week we will continue with this activity by using our writing time to create a set of written instructions on how to make the pom pom poppers to go with our photos.

Art

On Thursday we started drawing our self portraits.  In previous lessons we practiced drawing our features and putting them in the correct places on our faces.  We now all have a better understanding of the shape of our eyes and the details within them, as well as the fact that our eyes do not go right at the top of our faces.







We looked at different styles of drawing self portraits including portraits by Picasso, Van Gogh, Andy Warhol's pop art style and Henri Matisse.








However, with a huge interest in comic books occurring in class at the moment I thought the students might like to create their self portraits in the style of Roy Lichenstein who uses close ups, and a mixture of block colour and dots for skin tone.








The students were soon very busy drawing their faces, and over the next couple of weeks we'll be painting and "dotting" away to get our self portraits finished and on display in class.

Leaping Lizards!

Last week  Mrs Dawe bought in some of Mrs Buchanan's lizards. There were some water dragons, Bert the bearded dragon and some native forest geckos. We talked about why we need to keep the water dragons and bearded dragons in captivity in New Zealand. Maybe you can explain this to your parents! In our next sessions will be looking at... 

What makes them NZ Native animals special?
Why do they need protection?
What can we do to help?

How many NZ native animals can you think of.  Add them to the answer garden below.