Easter Masterpiece!

In Room 21 we enjoyed learning about the significance of Easter. We chose special symbols from the Easter story to create our visual art projects this term. 

Enjoy our masterpieces!  

Nia

My cross represents Jesus and how he died for us and my heart shows how much I love Jesus. 

Narosah

My cross represents how Jesus sacrificed everything for us and died on the cross. Easter is important to me because I like spending time with my family. 

John-Paul

My Easter symbol is of the tomb and represents Jesus being resurrected. Easter is when our families get together to celebrate how Jesus sacrificed himself for us. 

Christina

I chose the tomb where Jesus was taken by Joseph. Easter is important to me because it’s a time for us to celebrate how Jesus helped us and died for our sins. 

Joshua

Easter is about how Jesus died for our sins. My art shows how Jesus looks after us every day. 

Christine

I adore and respect Jesus, my Lord because he has given us the chance for new beginnings. My symbol represents Palm Sunday and the start of Easter celebrations. 

Room 21 says THANK YOU to our swim coaches!

We love Friday's because its when we go swimming!

Gzeal, Leon, Bernard, Tukia, TJ and Dimitry during Water Safety week.

We have learnt..

To kick with fast feet

To blow bubbles when my head is under water

To wear a life jacket when I go on a boat with my friends and family.

If we capsize, to huddle together to stay warm.

Forming a huddle to stay warm

Getting ready for our next instructions

Leilani having her life jacket checked.

Thank you to the John Walker Find Your Field of Dreams Foundation for including our school in your community swim programme! We are so thankful.

Scientists in Action

Room 21 loves science. We have been using our skills of making predictions, asking questions and recording observations while we undertake experiments.

We have created soap powered boats..

We discovered how to make a paper clip float..

And finally we created a colour symphony of chemical reactions..


https://youtu.be/kuWwgr_vNG8

What will happen if you mix milk, food colouring and dishwashing liquid?

We found out that no two colour symphonies looked the same.

Watch this space for more from our budding scientists.

Learning about Statistics

As part of learning about statistics, Room 21 have been learning to gather and graph evidence using different graphs.

After conducting surveys and gathering evidence within our own classroom, we decided to venture out and gather evidence from our neighbourhood.

We asked the question;

What is the most popular car colour on Bairds Road?

'what colour will this car be?’

We used a tally chart to record our observations.

We graphed our results and discovered that white and silver are the most popular car colour and yellow was the least popular at the time of our evidence gathering.

What colour car do you drive?

Matariki Learning

Children in Room 21 have been learning about Matariki, what makes it unique to New Zealand and how we celebrate it.

We read and listened to stories. We learned that there is a cluster of 7 stars. There are old stories that say these 7 stars represent 7 evil sisters that tried to starve Matai’s brothers to death. (Keithaline)

We learned that there are many ways to celebrate Matariki. We can celebrate it by spending time with our family and friends. We can gather kaimoana and go fishing. We can also learn to weave and carve. (Awhiana)

A small group of us visited our wharehui to look at the beautiful carvings.

We thought we would try weaving. With the help of our kaumatua Mrs Baker, we learned to weave angel fish and flowers. We discovered that it is a lot harder than it looks!

We can’t wait for Matariki next year!

Room 21 Creative Authors

 Recently the authors from Room 21 were asked to contribute some writing for a new library display inspired by the wonderful story ‘Rainbow Fish’ by author Marcus Pfister. We decided to focus on the lessons to be learnt from this book as well as creating exciting similes.

Here are some similes from our creative authors;

Rainbow fish has scales that flash like the glimmering sun that rises each morning. He has scales that gleam like the diamonds in a queens crown. (Melevasi, year 6)

Rainbow fish zig-zag’s through the rocks like a racing car trying to win a race. His scales glitter like diamonds in the bright sunshine. (James, year 5)

He swims arrogantly like a king wandering through the halls of his palace. Rainbow fish has the confidence of an actor acting in a movie. (Gzeal, year 5)

Rainbow fish’s precious scales blaze brightly like a glittering shooting star shooting through the night sky. (Micah, year 6)

 We decided to create our own display in our classroom. The incredibly talented Keithaline illustrated the underwater scene as well as some characters from the story. She even used shining paua pieces to represent Rainbow fish’s precious scales.

This is the display in our classroom.

Next time you’re in the library, check out our writing for yourself!

Combining maths and science – two of our favourite subjects!

Room 21 have been busy this term learning about measurement.

Did you know that a millimetre (mm) is the smallest accurate form of measurement? Did you know that there are 10 mm in 1 centimetre (cm)? Did you know that there are 100 cm in 1 metre (m)?

We decided to combine our learning of measurement with science.

We have been making gliders.

First we looked at Miss Cornhill’s glider. We had to make a prototype (an exact replica) of hers. We took a straw, a piece of paper and some selotape. One loop had to be 14cm long and 1 cm wide, and the smaller loop needed to be 10cm long and 1cm wide.

Gzeal and Mykyll accurately measuring their paper loops

Once we had finished our gliders we had fun flying them in our classroom.

We asked the question “How far can my glider fly before gravity pulls it down?”

                           Azariah and Sione preparing to fly!

After experimenting with our prototype we could make changes to our glider. We could change one variable (one part of our glider) to see if that improved how far our gliders would fly.

Some of us decided to use a different paper for our loops, some added another loop or a weight and some of us added a tail to our gliders.

This time we ventured outside to test out our new and improved gliders. We worked in teams to take turns flying our gliders, and helping each other to get accurate measurements of the flight distance. 

“The first time I flew my improved glider, I noticed that the flight path had improved. I think this was because the wind could go under the tail and push it further” – Tyrhys.

“I flew my glider 10.85m. This was better than my first prototype. I think it flew this far because the wind caught it and pushed it further” – Senituli.

“I added a weight (a piece of blu tac) to the front of my glider. This improved my flight distance” – Azariah.

“The first time I flew my glider outside I was so excited. It flew further, all the way to the base line of the basketball court. I noticed that my glider flew further inside our classroom. That was interesting” – Serenity.