For Inquiry this term we are thinking about the design and production of our costumes for the school concert. This is a Technology unit that incorporates creativity and the idea of being fit for purpose: our costumes have to be fit for the purpose  so need certain attributes. This proved to be a bit tricky for the children to get their heads around so we took a little detour. 

We looked at the features of tissues and paper hand towels and what these features made them fit for. We had fun trying to use tissues to dry our hands and paper towels to blow our noses. Now we know what fit for purpose means!!

Today we had a chance to cuddle and pat Poppy the rabbit. She is only a baby and was a bit nervous about us all looking at her. She likes to eat spinach, parsley and lettuce as well as rabbit pellets. Thank you Jackson for sharing your new pet with us.

Shapes, shapes and more shapes.

Today we worked on recognizing, translating (sliding), flipping and combining shapes to make a picture. We tied in our value of the term (thinking) and our inquiry concept (creativity) and came up with all sorts of imaginative ideas. We counted how many of each shape we managed to include in our picture and compared the results with other children's work. 

New helper in Room 12

With Mrs Evans leaving to go to a new job, we now have Sarah helping us with our learning in the middle block. Welcome to Room 12 Sarah. We are so excited about having you join us!

All shapes and sizes.

This week we are doing a lot of work around shapes. We are learning the Maori terms in Te Reo and in Maths we are exploring what makes each shape unique. 

During Maths today, in pairs, the children were given a pile of shapes to sort. They were asked to put them into different groups, where each member of a group shared a common feature. 

There was lots of thinking and discussion going on as each pair tried to think of their own way to sort their shapes. Some sorted by colour, some by shape, some by the number of sides and some by size. 

One pair of boys did a fantastic job of sorting their shapes according to the number of corners they had. They proudly showed the class their groups of shapes; one group was made of shapes with 4 corners, another 3 corners, another 2 corners and they even had a group with 0 corners. The 0 corners were circles and the 2 corners were half circles! Well done boys! Well done everyone!