Water Experiments with Sally from Watercare

Water is one of the most precious resources on earth and we have been learning about water so Sally, from Watercare came to visit us on Thursday and share some experiments with water.

She talked about different states of water- solid, liquid, gas.  Ice is solid because it doesn't change shape, water is liquid because it can change shape and moves freely while steam is gas and is free to move around in the air.  We pretended we were water molecules in different states.

In our first experiment, we had to put our finger a jar of water.  Our finger looked bigger in the water than out of the water. Sally told us that this is called 'refraction'.  Refraction is the change in direction of a wave caused by the change in the wave's speed, in this case water.

In our next experiment we wrote 'x' on a piece of paper and put it under a jar full of water.  When we looked at the jar from the side, 'x' had 'disappeared' like magic.  Water can play a lot of trick on us!

Saphire looking for her 'x'.

Another experiment involved some pepper.  Sally sprinkled some pepper on the water and she told us that water can have 'skin' on top.  The pepper floated on the top then she added some soap.  The soap was heavier so it sank to the bottom creating a white surface.  Sally then added some water and as if by magic, the 'hole' was filled up.

We also had a boat race with soap chasing the boat.

We had a challenge too!  Our challenge was to add as many popping corn as we could to a jar full of water and count each time we put a corn in.  We were able to put 56 corn without the water spilling out!  We could see that the water was higher than the brim but it hadn't spilled, we wondered how many more could it take?

Whanau Came to Watch Our Swimming Lessons

The swimming has finished for this year and during the last week, our whanau were invited to come and watch us swim.  They were impressed to see how much we had improved with our swimming.

'Snow Flakes'

This term our art focus has been on painting and different kinds painting techniques and since we had been learning about Seasons, we decided to paint some snow flakes.

We painted the background blue and then used the bottom part of the soda bottle to 'stamp' snowflakes.  We added some glitter to give sparkle.

Fruit in Autumn

There are avocado and peach trees in our neighbours backyard, so we went to investigate what was happening with those trees.  We noticed that they are laden with fruit and some of the peaches are turning yellow, so they will be ready to harvest in autumn.  

The investigators

We wonder if the peaches are going to be juicy and if the avocado will taste delicious in our sandwiches!

Painting with Nature

There so many different tools to use when painting and on Friday we went to look for different natural materials we could use.  Some materials we had found were not suitable for painting like egg shells but we found pine cones, leaves, pine needles, grass and feathers which seemed more suitable.  We brought them back to class and used them to paint.  The shapes and patterns were amazing while some were a bit tricky to use. It was different but fun at the same time.  We didn't know we could paint with natural materials too!

IPad Training

What our exciting day it was on Thursday when we finally started to work on our IPads.  Mrs Lal came and took our first lesson and showed us how to take photos and write something about it.

We have to be so careful when walking with our IPads and use our 'Kawa of Care' at all times.

We wonder what we will learn next?

Kawa Of Care for our Ipads

-hold your Ipad with both hands

-keep the flap closed when you are not using it

-use the flap to cover the screen

-close the flap to save battery

Ipad is for fun learning!

Swimming is Fun

We are so lucky to have a pool to learn to swim and cool off in this hot weather.  We are even luckier to have the swimming tutors to teach us how to swim.  While most of could float on our back and front and glide, now we are learning to use our arms as well.  We learn something new everyday!!