More bubbles, explosions and the fun of Discovery World

A trip to the science laboratory & Discovery World at Otago Museum provided some great learning experiences AND the children have written fabulous recounts about the trip.  I won't tell you any more because they have done such a great job!  They have included details like when, where, who and why and have written about the experiences in the correct sequence.  You will also notice that the writing is in past tense, just the way a good recount should be.

Unfortunately I was only with a small group of Room 2 scientists who went with Room 4 and Tom the scientist so there are just a few photos here.  The other part of Room 2 went with Room 3 and a lady called Heather.  The recounts will give you great word pictures and you can let your imagination go wild.

Go Room 2!!

Tom from the Museum put something 'cool' in the Coke.  Read below to find out.

Last Thursday Room 2, 3 and 4 went on an excellent trip.  We went to the museum to have fun.  Someone got dry ice.  He put a Coke bottle in a tray.  He opened the lid of the bottle.  He put the dry ice in.  The Coke was like a water fountain because it exploded out of the bottle.  He said that it would work with any fizzy drink.  I liked it. 

Written by Paige

Last Thursday I went to the museum with Room 2, 3 and 4.  I liked the Coke exploding.  To make the explosion the lady put the dry ice in the Coke then we had to move back because the Coke went all over the floor.  I got a surprise.  

Written by Briah

I like going to the museum.  Last Thursday I went with Room 3.  It was fun.  I went into a big bubble.  I stood into a big stand.  I pulled a rope and pulled the rope down.  Then the bubble went up.  It was fun.

Written by Josiah

Last Thursday Room 2, 3 and 4 went to the museum on a bus.  I played with KayLee and Rebecca and Mina at Discovery World.  We did science experiments at the museum.  I liked the museum. 

Written by Kerrianne 

I went to Discovery World on the 1st of September.  It was for fun.  I went in the bubble.  The end.

Written by Izan 

Last Thursday Room 2, 3 and 4 went to the museum.  First Room 2 and 3 went to the Discovery World.  We went for fun and to learn science.  I liked the Discovery World.  We went for the science stuff.  

At the end we did something with Coke and dry ice and then when the lady put the dry ice it exploded.  It was a big explosion.  In Discovery World I went down the slide.  There was a plank and I walked on it.  It was bouncy and fun.  Then Kerrianne came on and we bounced on it.  The we did something else.  The science was fun as well.  I loved going to the museum.  There is a cafe there.  I haven't been to the cafe yet.  I haven't been with Mum.

Written by Zoe 

Last week we also explored one of our previous questions.  We were interested in how bubbles get to be round.  It turns out that it's something to do with SURFACE TENSION and we've been doing some more experiments to find out a bit more about that.  Hopefully there will be some posts about that coming up.

Well I don't know about you but I reckon the there are some amazing scientists and authors in Room 2.  If you enjoyed reading our blog, please leave a short comment. We love reading the comments from our audience as it endorses the value of writing.   

See you again soon.

Some wonderful writing from some of Room 2's authors

Did you know that the best way to have friends is to be a friend?

Everyone in Room 2 knows that and we've been demonstrating it in all sorts of situations.  Check out the photos and a couple of recounts of our lunchtime play last Friday.

Josiah, Aden, Zane & Luke on a mission.

Mina, Rebecca, Zoe and Kelli hunting for clues around the adventure playground.  

Me and my friends went to the house and the house door opened and the door closed.  It was scary and it didn't open for a while.  We saw some wood and sticks.        Written by Kelli.

Briah, KayLee and Steven taking turns to shoot Steven's ball through the hoop.

                                                                 

          

I got a ball.  I went to the court with KayLee and Briah.  We played on Friday.   Written by Steven.

Izan, Cairo, Paige and Caitlin are invited Kerrianne to join in.

And now a couple more factual recounts and an imaginative recount to finish off.

Surprise!!!        by Mina.

Last Thursday was my mum and dad's anniversary day.  I did a big surprise at home.  It was a chocolate raspberry cake and some flowers.  I had 5 pieces of cake!   

Going to Christchurch       by Libby. 

Me and Mum and Max went to McDonalds on Tuesday.  It was a big trip to Christchurch.  We were hungry.  I got a Happy Meal.  I got chips and a toy.  The toy was a Zoo Ball and a glow stick.  

The Dragon with Orange Eyes    by Tigue. 

Last night I had a horrible dream.  It was about when I had to go and kill a dragon.  A knight was there.  The knight dressed me in knight's clothes.  I was really scared.  The dragon was scary. The dragon blew fire.  he had orange eyes.  His eyes looked scary.  He had spikes on his back.  He also had a horrible voice.  I felt horrified.  The dragon had claws.

Bubbles, bubbles everywhere!

Last Wednesday afternoon Room 2 made a huge bubbly mess.  It was all in the aid of science.  Read Aden's recount of the bubbly experience below.

Yesterday after lunch I blew bubbles and it was fun.  I did it outside Room 2.  I made a HUGE bubble and it was bigger than my shoe.  It was AMAZING.  I learned more about bubbles.

by Aden




We had a lot of fun blowing bubbles and tried to come up with questions about bubbles.  Around the photos are some of the great questions that some people in the class asked about bubbles to find out things we don't know yet.

Why is it so hard to blow bubbles out of the straw?

How do they pop?

What colour are they?

How do bubbles blow up real big?

Why is it all fluffy at the top?

Why can bubbles be big and small?

When can you blow bubbles?

Why can't you taste it?

How do the bubbles get air?

How do bubbles get into a round circle?

Science is Cool!

Last Tuesday four scientists came to visit.  Esther, Bianca, Sam and Joe helped us make lots of strange noises with Airzookas, straw oboes, an echo box, bottles of water and a coat hanger and a fork! 

We look a bit strange with our fingers in our ears but that's the way to hear the loudest noise when you tap the coat hanger with the fork.  Steven said it's because the sound goes up the string and into your ears.  Wow Steven.  That's really cool scientific thinking!

Zane is holding an echo box.  We had to wobble it around and it made some VERY loud noises bounce out of the box and hurt Arleyah's ears!

Luke, Mina, Cairo (and Dakota from Room 3) are playing Straw Oboes.  It was really hard to get the sound that Joe demonstrated but some of us managed.  When we got it right, it sounded like a room full of angry ducks!

These are Airzookas.  Come back and read the blog again because we hope that there will be some great recounts of how we made them.

This was hard too.  We blew gently across the top of the bottles and the bottles made different sounds because there was more water in some of them. 

We also made Ice Cream.  It only took a few minutes and it was YUMMY!  We're going to write some recounts about that too so you know how to make it.  But there was a secret ingredient that you probably can't buy so you will probably just have to buy your ice cream at the supermarket.

See you soon.
Room 2

Amazing Learning

On Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 11.00 until 12.30 we have a range of literacy learning.  Here are some photos of the Absolutely Amazing Room 2 learning skills in reading, writing, spelling and oral language. 

The captions have been written by several students in Room 2.

Tigue, Steven and Briah are doing Handwriting

Rebecca, Kelli and Luke are doing their spelling activity.

Cairo and Aden are designing stuff on the design table.

Zoe is watching Paige and Luke doing the puppet theatre.

Me and Josiah are doing the pocket chart.  (They have put the words in alphabetical order.  They swapped two around to see if you notice.  Can you work out which ones? - Mrs B)

Briah, Mina, Luke and Cairo are playing Charades.  (This is a popular game and great for learning new words - Mrs B)

I am on the computer. (There are many great websites to use, including this one which is www.abcyacom )

This is Room two reading "My Sloppy Tiger Goes to School" with Mrs Knight.

Rebecca and Briah are reading around the room.

Libby is writing around the room.

Rebecca and Briah are reading.

Aden and Josiah are doing a story and reading "The Big Block of Chocolate".

Caitlin and Kelli are reading "Te Tio Bay"  (This is a tricky rhyming book and the girls are doing a great job of reading it as part of small group reading with the teacher - Mrs B)

Paige and Tigue are making words.

Kelli, Luke, Caitlin and Josiah are doing a play.

There are a few other literacy learning centres in Room 2. Make sure you check the blog regularly to see what they are.

Room 2 is working very hard on their literacy and I am very proud of all of them.  Our ABC is on Thursday this week.  It's a special morning tea including rainbow jellies, ABC mini muffins and ... well... I've got to keep something for a surprise!  See you again soon.  - Mrs B

Thanks for helping Room 2 win the competition!!

Hello to all the wonderful friends and family of Room 2.  Thanks to your contribution we have won the Principal's Class Shout of $100.  Yahoo!!!

We already have one idea for how to use it.  At the start of Term two we discussed some different ways we could celebrate awesome behaviour in Room 2.  (Our ABC)  We've had a some great ABC's this term but there was one suggestion that, while it was very popular, would cost a bit of money.  So we put that idea on hold.  We were all very excited when we realised we were getting close and might win.  We have to put our proposal to Ms D first but just to give you a sneak preview into our thoughts, the ABC we have in mind will be especially neat if we have some buckets.  I wonder what Ms D will think of our idea...

During the last 10 days we have been taking a lot of photos of some of the different learning opportunities during our Reading sessions.  Now that Mrs B is feeling a lot better & is back at school, we will be writing captions for the photos next week and posting them on the blog.

Please come back soon and have a look.

80's Disco

The school disco is on Thursday night!!!!

It's an 80's theme and most of us didn't really know how to dress.  When we looked at the dance pictures on our wall we had a feeling that there were no disco pictures so we looked at some pictures and a video clip of 80's clothes and discos.  We noticed a lot of things that were the same or similar. 

Here  we are sharing what we noticed and here are some of the things we learned about the 80's.

Zoe is sharing her thoughts with Nicole from Kaikorai Valley College.

Here's what we noticed or learned in today's session:

Arleyah - Discos are fun.

Cairo - They wore fat and baggy pants called parachute pants

Luke - They wore silver and bright clothes

Briah - They wore colourful tights

Steven - The hair was cut off funny down the nose.

Josiah -Discos are cool and you can dance at them.

KayLee - They have costumes that are brighter than what we wear now.

Kelli - Michael Jackson has weird shiny clothes.

Rebecca - Disco dancing is cool

Paige - They wear shiny clothes.

Caitlin - They have fuzzy hair.

Mina - At disco dances they dance very, very quickly.

Libby - They had fuzzy hair.

Aden - Their clothes were really shiny and colourful.

Zane - They dance cool.

Zoe - At discos the people wear shiny and colourful clothes.

See you at the disco in some weird, shiny, colourful or sparkly clothes.  And don't forget that fuzzy hair!!