Iam really looking forward to...

This week I am really looking forward to the Ukulele Jam because I did it last year and I loved it And I am looking forward to the university trip because I want to find a dinosaur fossil if there is
one. The End
by Elsie
    

Painting With Watercolours

Painting with Water colours.

I learnt that you can go over some dry paint with a different coloured paint. You can use a wet brush on wet paper and a dry brush on dry paper.  I am proud of my landscape because I used all of the information from my sketch.

Painting with water colours makes me happy, because I can do lots of effects with water colours.

I especially like the texture of dabbing with a giant brush to create really fine strokes to build up my picture.  

My sketch of Waihola Hill

My Practice  Paintings



By Elsie.

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?

Scientists visit to Waihola School

On Friday two Scientists from the University came to our school to teach us about space and to answer all of our challenging questions. We liked how they used everyday equipment, like a basketball, marble and inflatable beach toy to show us a model of how large Earth and the other planets are compared to the sun. It painted a clear picture of our Solar system for us when they took us out to our field to show and explain the distances between our planets and the Sun. When the children spread out across the field we started to get clues about how vast the universe is. The highlight of the visit was speed-freezing bananas and making liquid nitrogen explode a plastic bottle. It was a great way to show us how cold it is in space.

We will never forget  ….

I loved how we got to look through the telescope

Tamati

I like when we did the explosion.

Elsie

I loved when they made mega lethal destructive liquid nitrogen bombs

Wiremu

I loved when they made the super lethal, super destructive ultimately awesome liquid nitrogen bombs of mass destruction.

Nathan

It was mega awesome how they made liquid nitrogen bombs. I feel bad for the poor frozen banana

Ryan

It was great fun listening to all the information,I wonder what it’s like being a scientist?

Tom

I loved the explosion because it blew up the whole bottle

Seth    

I LOVED making the liquid nitrogen bombs and freezing the banana. But in a way I feel sorry for that banana.

HARRY

 I loved making a banana frozen and making liquid nitrogen bombs.

Sean

Scientist Ian Whitaker talking to students

First a bottle was filled with liquid nitrogen. Then it was placed into the barrel that was partially filled with water. The water helped to amplify the sound of the explosion.

BOOMM!!! We all got a shock when it exploded! The sound was incredible!

Taieri School Hui Ako

Waihola students had a great time at the Hui Ako in Fairfield last week. We enjoyed being a part of this great festival that brings so many local schools together to share Maori language and tikanga. We have been working very hard on our own performance of 'Te Ika a Maui - the fish of Maui'.

Here are some comments from the students:

Elsie – I felt nervous going up on the stage. I liked how Silverstream School had their own haka. It sounded really cool.

Ryan – I wasn’t nervous at all going up on the stage, I was excited.

Tamati – I was very nervous and excited but I thought we did a good job. I thought Taieri College had a good kapa haka group.

Nathan – I was nervous before we went up on stage but when I got up there wasn’t as many people watching us as I had thought. I thought Taieri College sang really well and the kindergarten was quite good because they had lots of actions.

Harry – I was surprised with how our performance all came together. I liked the kindergarten because they were cute and funny and I liked all the actions.

Wiremu – I was nervous when I got on the stage. I liked the kindergarten because they were funny.

Seth – It was really funny when the kindergarten did the actions for the body parts song – they were shaking their kumu’s!

Tom – When I went up onto the stage I didn’t actually feel that nervous. I nearly hit Maui with my taiaha! Opps! I also liked the kindergarten – they were really adorable.

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!

Elsie pink bird

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!