Taieri TSSA cross country

On Thursday the whole school school, WDS is going to do the taieri cross country. It is the  only thing  I am doing this week, a part from music with Mrs Voice on Friday. When I was five I came 11th place, I did not  do it last year because... Well two things. Because I was on holiday and I just had an operation. I hope I get into the top 10 this year.

ICC cricket gear/game

this is an action shot of Tamati bowling!

ICC cricket gear

this is Harry and Seth showing some of the new cricket gear 

from ICC

this is Harry showing Ben  how to bat, now he is a star!!

                                             

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

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!

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! 

Pounawea Camp

Claudia catches an eel. "Yum, smoked eel tastes like trout!"

                       First yabby of the day - caught by Mr Hutton, on a piece of string loaded up with stinky meat.

Jack finds an empty crab shell at the rock pools at Papatowai. We found many awesome creatures including a small yellow foot paua, anenomes and a range of very cool starfish.




 Jacks hollow paddle crab shell has red spots on either side and spikey bits on the front.

The population of bug city in Earthlore is 2,000,000 bugs and growing.

Erosion Challenge- Alex Jack Callum

Last Monday we had an erosion challenge where we had to build a block house to put on a sand hill. Then we had to defend the house from weathering, buckets of water, with bark, sticks and other materials. Here are some photos of our groups creation-

Our final creation had a rock buried in the hill and bark buried around the hill.

Our house after the first downpour.



Our house after a bucket of water.

After a second bucket of water, our house was demolished.

Overall, our group came second. Something we could improve on is making the house sit on the flat bit of the rock. Some things we did well were making supports under the house and putting bits of bark around our hill, making the water run straight off the hill, keeping the sand from eroding. In the end we were proud of our defences from the weather and the design of our house. By Callum and Rowan

Which bulb is best? -Science Experiment

Thursday 22nd of August

During our studies on renewable energy sources we decided we wanted to find out if energy saving light bulbs were worth using. Some of the class had seen an advertisement on television that showed a chocolate teddy bear melting over a light bulb. We had also read during one of our web searches that a lot of the energy that is used to power light bulbs is lost as heat. We decided to test out if energy saving light bulbs or regular bulbs gave off the most heat and light based on the watts needed to run them. We brainstormed how we could test this, the equipment we would need and how we could design a fair test.

We set up the experiment in the classroom and watched to see the results. Our hypothesis was that the more energy needed to power the bulb the faster the chocolate would melt (we used chocolate frogs, not bears for our experiment).

 The class designing the experiment with the equipment.

 Brainstorming what we had to do to make it a fair test.

 We had to make all of the lights the same height from the chocolate frogs,

 Almost ready to melt some froggies!

The energy saving bulb was much brighter, but with less heat.

In the end the frog over the regular bulb was really melted and the one on the torch and flashlight were hardly melted at all. So our hypothesis was correct! Then it was time to eat the chocolate - YUM!

Written by Ms McKergow, Claudia and Jack

Ukelele Jam

Jack the super achiever practising his picking skills on the ukulele.

My still life painting

My still life painting

At the art gallery we were learning about light and colour. We used hot and cold colours which are red, blue, green, yellow, black, and white. We were drawing buzzy bee paintings. We put fabric flowers on them. We used sponges to paint the background.                

By Jack                                               17.12.12

Bubble Experiment

 We heated the air in the white tube with a flame to warm the air inside - it felt pretty cool to be responsible to do this (Ms McKergow was watching closely though!), The air felt warm rising from the tube.

We blew bubbles over the top of the tube to see what would happen to the bubbles.

What we saw: We saw the bubbles rising quickly when they moved over the heat stream. This shows us that hot air rises, which happens to air in nature when it is heated by the sun.

By Tom , Seth and Jack