Q:What is the wordls longest insect?

A:
Stick insect
the stick insect is known for it's size and it's ability to camouflage.                                                                                                                                                              
Here is a photo of the stick insect:

An example of a stick insect :)

By:Ryan,Harry,Tom.  Stick with us on the blog :)

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.

Maths Learning in Room 2

Mrs Jackson’s maths groups are currently learning about using multiplicative strategies to solve problems. Here Harry, Ryan, Nathan and Wiremu work together to solve a tricky problem on the mat while Tom and Tamati use the Activ Board to record their working. Working together like this gives students the opportunity to talk through their thinking and hear others ideas. The students help each other in their learning. This also helps them to become problem solvers. 

We have been discussing the benefits of making mistakes. We learn from our mistakes and become better problem solvers as we learn to identify where we went wrong and how we can fix it.

Ryan, Wiremu, Nathan and Harry working together, sharing and explaining their thinking.

Tom and Tamati using their known facts to add on or take off groups to find the answer.

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.