Year 6 Class Fair

On Friday 22nd August our 38 Year 6 children held a fair. There were lots of toys and books for sale, sherbert, popcorn, jelly, yummy baking that the children did for homework, and fun activities and games.
Every class came with their coins to spend. Some of the Year 6 children helped the younger ones and some helped selling on the stalls. We loved how the younger children really enjoyed spending their money and choosing different things to buy.
We raised $688 and the money will go towards postage and items for the Christmas boxes. These boxes are sent to children in countries where they are very poor. We have to pay $9 postage.

The baking stall being set up with lots of yummy baking!

More baking, homework was fun this week!

Lots of keen customers for stick in the sand!

Louis helping Zeta spend her money at Orlando's 20c stall

Mr Direen paying lots of money to throw the sponge at George!

The fair was great. We learned a lot about budgeting, giving change and dealing with money. It was fun counting it at the end.

World Ranger Day

 Thursday 31st July was World Ranger Day and the Yellow Eyed Penguin Trust invited ten children from each of the three Peninsula schools to take part in activities at the Okia Reserve at Victory Beach.
We did four activities: shoot the pest, use a GPS to find a nest, trap petanque and planting pikao to help provide the penguins with a suitable habitat. We also had to identify plants along the way. At the end we enjoyed a delicious BBQThe weather was beautiful and we enjoyed having lunch at the beach and jumping off the sand dunes. The trip was sensational and we were exhausted by the end of the day. A big Thank you to Mrs Lund for helping with transport and to the Yellow Eyed Penguin Trust for all of the great activities. We loved it!
Dan, Milo, George and Ed

Planting pikao

Eating lunch at Victory Beach.

Using a GPS to find the penguin nests.

Not a real penguin but great to know we were learning about them

and helping them to survive.

Writers Workshop

Writers Workshop

On Wednesday 30th July Mrs Hawker took us to Port Chalmers School to for a writers workshop. Four authors were there; David Elliot, Sandy McKay, Melinda Szymanik and Quinn Berenston. We went to workshops taken by Sandy McKay and David Elliot. They both told us that to be a writer you need to have lots of good ideas and a notebook to write them in so you can use them later on for your writing. David Elliot said that ideas were like butterflies that fly through your head and you need to catch them. He talked about using delicious words in your writing. Both authors said that to be a good writer you need to read lots of books to get other peoples ideas. We really enjoyed hearing them talk about their writing and what inspired them. We loved it when they read their own books to us because they read it with so much expression and passion.

By Josephine Tarasiewicz and Rory Augustson

Terrific Trip to Toitu and Gasworks

As part of our topic this term, Times of Great Change, Room 1 visited Toitu and the Gas Museum. Due to the frosty morning we cautiously hopped on the bus. We were keen to learn more about inventors and inventions and  we couldn't wait to get there.

Visiting Expert - Gareth Engineer

Today Gareth, Katrina's father, came to school to talk to us. He is going to be helping us to install our water tank and help us design our bike powered pump.

Gareth explaining Newtons Laws!

First he explained where our water comes from. The water we use in Dunedin comes from Deep Stream, which is 675m above sea level, then on to Deep Stream, which is 425 above sea level onto Silver Stream at 158m above sea level and then to the Macandrew Bay tank above Jane St which is 124 m above sea level.
 Water needs to come from a height to give water pressure. When a place is very flat, like Invercargill, they use water towers. Naseby uses water races based on the Roman aquaduct system.

Our water tank will be about 10m above sea level so we will have very low water pressure.  We need to create the pressure using a pump which we will attach to a bike. We did experiments working our how much pressure and flow we need to water our garden.

We had to time how long the hose took to fill a 10 litre bucket.

It took about 37 seconds. In the classroom we worked out how many litres per second it took.

Pumpkins From Our Garden

Room 1 and the enviro children from last term and this term made pumpkin soup using the pumpkins we harvested from the school gardens. We softened the pumpkin skins in the microwave so they were easier to cut. We also added onion and bay leaves to the soup. The soup  was delicious!! For Maths Room 1 had to estimate the weight of each pumpkin, weigh them and then add the weights together. The total weight of the seven pumpkins 18.033kgs. We only used two pumpkins to make the soup so we have five left over. Each class has been offered a pumpkin. well done Room 4 on taking up the offer. We can't wait to see what you make with your pumpkin. We have collected the seeds and hope to grow pumpkin plants for our garden next year.

Seven lovely pumpkins grown in our school garden.

Maths! Estimating and weighing the pumpkins. Over 18kgs in total.

It taste great, thumbs up from Room 1

Money For Malawi

Did you know that in Malawi many people, including children, are lucky if they have one meal a day. The meal is often only maize flour and water. They drink water from a well that may be dirty. Many people suffer or die from malnutrition and disease. World Vision is hoping to help them with the 40 Hour Famine Appeal.
To raise money for World Vision we had a rice day at school. Each child brought $3 or more to go to World Vision. We used our Maths, especially our knowledge fractions and volume, and had to work out our quantities. Each child was given 1/4 of a cup of uncooked rice. We needed 6 1/2 cups of rice in total. We added 13 cups of water to it and boiled it for 14 minutes.
Although it tasted yummy imagine eating it every day, once a day! We watched Seven Sharp and they interviewed people from Malawi.

We raised $92 and some children have raised money on their own.
World Vision are going to teach villages new ways of living sustainably. The money raised is providing them with seeds, cows, goats and chickens. They will be taught to use the foods and hopefully breed the animals so they can have more to help their people.

The Young Inventors Go Wild! Room 1 Let Loose at the Otago Museum

Bubble blowing on a scale, Rachel experiments with bubble mixture but luckily escapes!

Kim was astonished and amazed to hear our brilliant new ideas and possible inventions!

Rosa is inventing music on a large scale.

Rachael and Georgia are thinking about the possibilities of this very large hairdrier.

Are Erika and Ben asleep or mind control masters? An intense game of mind ball resulted in Ben emerging triumphant. Are there possibilities for the rematch?

Making Hot Cross Buns

Making Hot Cross Buns was a great way to finish the term. We split into two groups and followed the recipe. It was important we read it correctly and measured accurately. We put the ingredients in a bread maker and then left the dough to rise once it was finished. We baked them in the oven and then ate them. they were yummy!

Waiting to taste them! Are they as good as they smell?

Measuring accurately is important!

Geologist Visits Macandrew Bay School

Richard Garlick our geology expert, also Rosa's father, spoke to us. He told us that some changes to  landforms happen quickly like landslides, earthquakes and tsunamis. Some changes happen over days like volcanoes erupting, some can happen very slowly like the ice age and erosion. He talked about plate tectonics and explained that plates move very slowly, about the speed our finger nails grow. Dunedin Harbour and the Penisula were formed from a shield volcano. It last erupted about 10 million years ago. The centre of the volcano is thought to be between Portobello and Port Chalmers and may have been as high as 1000 m. It probably happened due to a hot spot. These areas have changed over time due to erosion.
Richard told us that the present is key to the past. We need to look at what is happening to our earth today, to find out about what happened millions of years ago.
We were fascinated by the changes that are happening to our Earth and need to remember we are the guardians of our Earth,  and must look after it.

Visiting Expert!

Today Paul Le Comte came to talk to Room 1 today. He spent ten years teaching geography in secondary schools. Paul became fascinated by geography and the world we live in when he was a little boy at school.
He talked about how the land changes slowly over time. This can be caused by things like earthquakes, volcanoes, erosion and  tsumanis.
We went outside and linked arms. Then we went back to back and pushed against each other until eventually a pair fell. This was like an earthquake because the build up of pressure gets so great that the crust breaks. We also made landforms in the sandpit and Paul used a watering can to show us the effect erosion has on our landforms. Everyone learnt heaps.

Stream Restoration

 Today we formed a human chain and shifted nearly a trailer load of woodchips in the stream area. It was great to have our very own working bee.

Baked Potatoes. We were thrilled Yum!

We were thrilled when the enviro group and other helpers baked potatoes for us from our school garden!

They put sour cream and chives on them, yum!

Putting In Our Water Tank

Dan is up the ladder clearing the spouting to see if we can use it to capture rainwater.

 We are thrilled to have Matt, Ed's Dad, helping us draw up plants to install a tank for storing rainwater so we can water our gardens.

Matt, is helping us to put our water tank in so we can water our gardens. 

Ed is holding the plans.

Our School Garden

Felix is harvesting potatoes from our garden

We have been making the most of the fine weather and working hard to get our vegetable gardens tidy. We have a new garden bed and spread woodchips around the outside. We harvested the potatoes and emptied the compost bins so we had good soil that would help our plants thrive.

We are working hard weeding and laying woodchips around our garden beds.

Liam, Gus and Holly are emptying compost onto our garden.

Diana is helping us plant new vegetable plants for spring.