We're Back!

Welcome back everyone and welcome to 2016 in Room 1 at Tokomaru School - yes, we are Room 1 now!

It was great to see everyone this morning and hear about what everyone got up to during the break - with all this great weather it is no surprise so many people spent time at the beach and while we're not right by the beach, we did spend our afternoon cooling off in our school pool!  Make sure you bring your togs and towel every day to continue enjoying it...

Big Pumpkin Contest

We have entered the Mitre 10 Big Pumpkin Contest.  We planted our pumpkin plant on Friday after having a bit of a tidy-up in the garden area.

There is a prize for the biggest pumpkin so we are going to have to look after it to ensure it grows!

Room 1 and Room 6 have entered too - I wonder which class will have the biggest pumpkin?

Ayjae gets rid of some weeds.

Riley said "Mrs Bismark, do snails like pumpkins?"

Ayjae and Isabel worked together to clean up the leaves.

Everyone helping and working together to get the job done!

Madisyn prepares the pumpkin for the ground.

"Good work, everyone" said Madisyn.

What do pumpkin plants need to help them grow?

Chalk Art

Conner

Madisyn

Alphie

Matthew

Reia

Reilly

Conner fighting above lava.

Wiremu with his sword.

Ayjae and a whale.

Bob riding a dinosaur.

Nicole surfing the waves.

Molly the butterfly.

Patterns

We are learning to make a repeating patterns using shapes.  

Check out the planes we made following a pattern too.  We had to do lots of good problem-solving to achieve the final result:

We see patterns every day.  What patterns can you find outside?

Thursday Afternoon at the Movies...

This afternoon we watched the recording of our production of Peter Pan.  With popcorn and Fruit Bursts on hand, we enjoyed watching ourselves - super stars at Tokomaru School!

Watching ourselves on the big screen.

That finale song gets us on our feet every time!

Inquiry - Questioning

As part of our Inquiry we are learning to ask questions. I gave the students an example statement and they had to think of questions they had in relation to the statement.

Here are the questions we had:

Statement: Every child in New Zealand should learn to swim.

What are some questions you would ask?

Build a Bridge...

A challenge was set: build a bridge in a team that can support the weight of a 2L bottle of glue using only the provided materials.  "Easy!" shouted Room 2.  

Materials given to each group:

- 30 hotdog sticks

- 2 chopsticks

- 4 pipe cleaners

- roll of tape

- 2 pairs of scissors

- 2 polystyrene cups

- 1 pencil and piece of paper

And go!

Nevaeh, Scarlett and Molly plan their bridge...

Wiremu and Conner get straight into it...

Bob and Ben figure out their strategy.

We did it!  Check out our bridges:

Madisyn, Nicole, Isabel and Reia.

Hayden, Conner, Ronon and Wiremu.

Matthew, Roland, Ayjae and Layton.

Molly, Scarlett and Nevaeh.

Can you set us another building challenge?

What would you do differently if you had the same materials?