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...

Birdhouse Building for Ag Day

As part of our inquiry, we are making birdhouses to sell at Ag Day.  We started making some last week with our awesome parent helpers, Dave and Ronnie, then this week we have Wiremu's Poppa and Conner's Grandpa and Nana helping us.  We are so lucky to have so much help!

Wiremu and Matthew help each other 

Ben adds some detail to his plan

Wiremu looks to nail the wood together

Reilly has her plans ready for action!

Nicole has her wood prepared.

Molly starts to saw.

Wiremu's Poppa helps with the 'tricky' bits.

Conner's Grandpa and Nana measures up.

Roland drills his wood together - he said he hadn't done this before, but he was great at it!

Wiremu makes sure Poppa is doing it right :)

What is hard about making a birdhouse?

How much do you think we should sell them for?

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.

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!

What Are We Making?

What will our next step be?

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?