what are three differences between a butterfly and a moth?

The  three main differences are...
 1. butterfly's have light colours and moths have dark colours, 
2. moths live their wings out and butterfly's close their wings  
3.  Moths go out at night and butterfly's fly in the day

Butterflies

Moths

Plant Fair

The Waihola District School Plant Fair was held on Sunday and what a wonderful event it was! We had a wonderful turnout of keen gardeners snapping up some bargains. The tasty baking was also a hit! Everyone had  a great time and we would like to thank the PTA and school families for all their efforts. We really live in a very special community.

This week in writing we are exploring newspapers and learning how to write an article. Watch this space for Room 2's newspaper articles about the Plant Fair.

Plants everywhere! Keen gardeners & wonderful helpers.

Amber with her eye on the baking!

Our hardworking cashiers

Anyone for a sausage?

Astronaut Applications

As part of our Inquiry learning we have been reading about Mars. We read a school journal story that told us it would take around 14 months to get to Mars. That is a long time to be cooped up in a space rocket with other people! This would cause some problems. We decided that it would take a special sort of person to be an astronaut. We discussed some of the qualities that you would need to have:

brave, caring, friendly, problem solver, honest, reliable. responsible, calm under pressure, self-reliant, wise, clever, well trained, team player, fit and healthy

Then we thought about what qualities we had that would make us a good astronaut.
Here are some of our 'applications'.

I will make a good astronaut because I will be fit and healthy. I eat lots of fruit and I run outside with my friends. I am also well trained.
I am friendly to other people and helpful. I am brave because I will say 'don't worry, it will be fine' and that will calm people down.
By Amber

I have what it takes to be an astronaut because I'm a space expert.
I can follow even the craziest commands, like if someone told me to fly into an asteroid belt - I'd do it! I'm so calm, I wouldn't scream if I saw the scariest horror movie.
Also 'friendly' is my middle name, because I've made a ton of friends over the years, that's how friendly I am.
By Tom

I would be a good astronaut because I know alot about space. Did you know that Jupiter is the biggest planet?
I am fit and healthy because I eat heaps of good foods and I play rugby. I am responsible so I would be a good person to drive a rocket ship.
By Jack G

I have proved that I have the right honour to be an astronaut. I am brave and wise and clever because I take on challenges. I am well trained and fit and healthy because I eat my vegetables.
 If something comes I will not be afraid. I am smart so I can fix lots of things in the rocket. I am cool under pressure, I can calm myself.
By Tamati

Te Ika a Maui - Artworks

Mrs Jackson read Room 2 the legend of ‘Maui’s Big Fish’. In this story Maui tricks his brothers and hides in their boat so they will take him fishing. Using his grandmother’s jawbone as a hook, Maui fishes up a giant stingray. This stingray becomes ‘Te Ika a Maui’ (the fish of Maui) the North Island. Room 2 explored traditional Maori fish hooks. This linked in with our current inquiry topic of ‘Inventions’. We learnt that stone, bone, shell, pounamu and sometimes wood was used in traditional hooks. Pieces of paua were used to attract the fish.

We created our own clay hooks. We completed observational drawings of traditional hooks from a variety of images then we chose our favourite drawing and turned it into a clay model using Jovi clay.

Maori fisherman used flax rope as their fishing line. We researched the traditional methods and protocols of gathering flax and then gathered some from our school garden. We plaited thin strands of flax which proved to be more of a challenge than some of us thought! Once we had the rhythm and the pattern though it was easy.

Once our clay had dried, we had to sand our hooks smooth and glue on our paua. Mrs Jackson spray coated the hooks before tying on the flax rope and hanging them on our mock paua backgrounds.

The hooks are on display in Room 2 if you would like to come and see them.

Tamati carefully cutting out his hook.

We needed to make sure our clay wasn't too thin or it would crack when it dried. We used a sharp tool to cut out our pattern.

We added some paua pieces to help attract the fish!

The mock paua background. We used impasto brush strokes like Vincent van Gogh.

Ryan helps Tom with his flax rope weaving.

We sanded our clay carefully to smooth off any rough edges.

Shakira, Elsie and Amber focused on their sanding.

Testing out how it will look!

A sample of the final product.

The Great Egg Parachute Challenge!

As part of our Inquiry learning about Inventions, we have been learning about Leonardo Da Vinci. He invented many different machines and contraptions, most of which no one knew about until after he died as he had kept them hidden. On his death he left his notebooks to an apprentice who shared them with the world. We learned that he wrote a lot of his ideas in code or used mirror writing. Tamati tried some mirror writing at home and brought it to school - great job Tamati! It is pretty tricky!
One of Leonardo's inventions was a parachute. Mrs Jackson set a challenge for Room 1 & 2. We had to create a parachute that would protect an egg when it was dropped from the highest part on the playground. Because Leonardo had to work with limited material, so did we! We used - one plastic bag, 3 pieces of string, a sheet of newspaper and 10 pieces of sellotape.
Our values this term are 'Integrity & Inclusion'.This challenge was a great opportunity for the seniors to work with the juniors and vice versa, building relationships and working cooperatively. We focused on listening to each other's ideas and making sure that everyone was included in the creating and testing of our parachutes.
It was great to see and hear everyone being enthusiastic, encouraging and working together.
Here are some photos from our challenge.

Elsie and Evie all smiles as they work on their invention

Nathan and Cooper showing great concentration

Wiremu and Michael putting on the final touches

Oh no Elsie! Its an egg-cident!

Amber and Max's interesting invention

Seth and James used a modified paper plane in their invention

Tom & Madeleine had a very technical design!

Like any great inventor we had to test our prototype. We had some successes and some failures but we know that all inventors need to have great perseverance. We had great fun counting down to each egg drop and then rushing to see if it had worked! (please note - some eggs were hurt during testing)

Tamati and Jack M showed great team work with their invention

The before...

And the after - oops! 

Shakira, Ethan and Sean's invention was a success!

Ryan and Jack G made a great parachute!

easter hoilday

In three more days my Dad is going to Australia, and three more days till his birthday.by amber    
on Easter i am going to our Nana's. by sean

amber Rocks!

Yummy Apple Pie!!!

We are so lucky! This morning a group of students helped Mrs Timms make apple pie with apples from our playground tree. The students have been carefully collecting the apples since the start of term. We are very fortunate to have such a wonderful neighbour and friend of our school. Here are some photos of our apple pie feast! 

Room 2 ICT

This year we are learning to use different Web2tools. These include Storybird, Tagxedo and cool text generators etc. We are going to become internet experts!
We are also going to be learning about cyber safety so we can be clever internet users.