The Mataura Team's Book of Science Experiments

We just love doing Science in Room 2.  Every week this term we will do a different science experiment.  Then we will write about it.

Riley had a brilliant idea.  "We should make a book about it," he said.

And so The Mataura Team's Book of Science Experiments was born.

Harry had a brilliant idea too.  "We should put it on our blog," he suggested.

And so we have done just that.

HOW  TO  MAKE  OOBLECK

You  need  to  get:

    ½ cup  of  cornflour     1  bowl

    ¼ cup  of  water         1  spoon

What  to  do:

1. Put  the  cornflour  in  the  bowl.

2. Add  the  water.

3. Stir  the  mixture.  

It  will  become  a  sticky  liquid  for  you  to  play  with.  

By Sam, Riley, Hunter & Harry.

(You can add more water to make it runny or more cornflour to make it dryer)

Oobleck  is  milky  white  but  you  do  not  want  to  drink  it.

Oobleck  is  sticky  and  weird.

Oobleck  feels  like  a  marshmallow  on  your  fingers.

By Eli, Amelia, Charlotte, Jamie, Daniel and Lylla.

Oobleck  feels  different. 

It’s  like  a   ballerina  dancing  on  your  hand, and  the  dry  cornflour

feels  like  a  ballerina’s  tutu. 

       

       

Maths like a pirate.

WOW!  WOW!  WOW!

What incredible work took place today in Maths like a Pirate.

The Challenge:

• Build a bridge between two chairs.
• Only use newspaper and sticky tape.
• Measure how long your bridge is.
• Measure how strong your bridge is.
• Drive a toy car across your bridge.

This was the 4th time we have done a Maths like a pirate challenge, and the 2nd attempt at building bridges.  (The first 2 challenges involved making pirate hats.)

The improvement in team work, understanding of the task and problem solving this time was nothing short of incredible.

I  WAS  SO  PROUD  OF  THESE  CHILDREN.

 After the challenge there are questions to discuss and comments to make.

Where is the maths in this challenge?
"Measuring how long" "finding out how strong it was" " checking the size" "finding out how big to make something"  "making things thicker" 

Who, or what, inspired your ideas?
"I thought of them myself."  "I practised at home."  "I thought about real bridges."  "We got ideas from The Impossible Bridge book."  "I liked Harry's ideas last time and we used some of them in our bridge this time." "Ben"
"Ethan's team."

What was difficult?
"Time - 20 minutes went too quickly.  Mrs Mac had to give us longer." 
"Making the bridge." (Managing) "the tape). "Stopping it from getting saggy."
"Nothing."

What would you do differently next time?
"I would put a roof on."  "Make it not so long."  "Measure the strength with the scissors box."  

How well did your group cooperate?
"Awesome!"         "Not very well" (this group split into two at the beginning after a disagreement about whether or not to put a roof on the bridge. The split was amicable and they thought it was better than fighting.)

Some groups showed particular engineering skills and cooperation.  Check out these details:

 Tanner, Ebony and Alex worked very hard to make robust supports for their bridge.  It was so strong it could hold a chair.

Ethan, Annabel and Duncan couldn't pile anything more on to show how strong their thick beam bridge was.

 Harry, Sam, Victor and Daniel rolled up newspaper to put sides on their bridge.

Ben, Amelia and Riley put strong supports under their bridge.

 Mya put a roof over her bridge.

Term Four

It seems like Term 3 just whizzed by and now here we are in Term 4.

This term the whole school is focusing on Innovation and Self Management.

Our class has many different areas set up where we can play and create.

Sometimes problems will occur and then we will have to work together to solve them.

Here is one problem: we love the salt tray - it's great for practising letters, shapes, words and pictures - but the salt just won't stay in the tray.

How can we solve this problem?  We'll keep you posted!

Discovery and Magician

Discovery Time is one of the most anticipated and enjoyed parts of our week.
Last one of the term - and oh we did enjoy it!

Following on from our colour-mixing lessons with Ira last week, some of our discovery activities had us experimenting with colour. This is an experiment that uses milk, food colouring and dishwashing liquid.  You can make amazing patterns with these. We used the primary colours of red, blue and yellow and found that they make the secondary colours of green, purple and orange, just as they do when you mix paint. The dish washing liquid makes the milk explode. We don't know why, but we will find out next term.

 Another colour and building choice was building felt pictures.  We can't mix these colours but we can make a huge variety of pictures.  We're very good at using the iPad to take photos now.

Building is one of our favourite things to do and we always have a variety of things to build and make with.  We know how to make amazing buildings and also pictures with the rods. 

We often have the make and do box out. 

We love to create things with paper, cardboard, boxes and all sorts of things.

 To end a lovely last day at school we had a special treat when a fabulously funny magician from New Caledonia came to put on a show for us.  We laughed and laughed, but we don't know how he did his tricks.
Thanks to Lylla's mum and dad for bringing him in.

Maths Like a Pirate

Each week we like to do a "Maths Like a Pirate" challenge. Working in teams of three, we have to use engineering, problem solving and math skills as well as a lot of communication and cooperation in order to complete the challenge. We never know who will be in our team, so we have to learn to work with all sorts of different children.

For our first challenge we were given 6 sheets of newspaper and 60cm of masking tape and we had to make a hat for each pirate in our team. No scissors allowed!  Oh that was hard!  Lots of us didn't manage to make a successful hat.

We had to answer three questions: What was difficult about the challenge?  What would you do differently next time?  and Where was the maths in this challenge?
We really thought hard about our answers.

The next day we repeated the challenge with much more success. Unfortunately Mrs Mac forgot to take any photos. Oh dear!

This week we had another challenge.  We could use any amount of newspaper and sellotape to build a bridge between two chairs.  We had to be able to drive a toy car across the bridge.  Here are some photos to show our first attempts.

 Hunter and Eli had the longest bridge, but it wasn't very strong.

 Molly, Ethan and Daniel folded the newspaper to make it stronger.

 Sam, Bou and Victor knew that bridges need to be anchored by supports. 

 Brie, Annabel and Ebony knew that too. Both groups used LOTS of tape.

 Mya, Alex and Lylla made a wide bridge.

 Duncan, Ben and Tanner put a roof over their bridge.

 Harry and Amelia rolled newspaper to make a support and also folded newspaper to make approaches and to make their deck stronger.

Riley, Jamie and Marnie used the chairs to support their deck. 

After the holidays we will repeat this challenge.  I wonder how we will improve our bridges?

The Haunted House

The 6-year-olds in Room two have been writing a narrative together.  We call it “The Haunted House”.  (Can you spot our clever puns?)

Once upon a tomb there was a man called Max, who scuttled into a haunted house.  Suddenly he was surrounded by some scary monsters.

“Our house is falling down,” they moaned.

The zombie got a hammer and tried to mend the wall, but his arm fell off and the hammer flew out of the window.  A ghost raised his ghostly hammer but it went right through the wall.

“Let’s fix it with metal,” said the bat.

“Did you say medals?” screeched the witch. 

She waved her wand and a whole lot of medals fell into the room.

“Let’s work together,” said Max.

So the skeleton called all his friends to help.  They put their bones on the haunted house.  The witch did a spell to make the house stay up and the ghost had a stinky socks party.

They all lived happily ever laughter.