Our Amazing Award Winners

Congratulations to our Shooting Star Award winners Anouk and Kaylee and to Riley our Values Award Winner. Our school value is integrity which is all about doing the right thing even when no one is watching! You must always make the very best choice!

Plays by the Sea Jellies and Dolphins

This week these two groups have been preparing plays for us during reading time. They were very entertaining!

Landing a Job
 Pirate Chief -  Anouk

Parrot - Riley

Seagull - Abigail

Pirate Crew - Miss McKenzie and Audience 

A Terrible Fright

 Baby Ghost -  Hunter

Father Ghost - Johnny

Mother Ghost - Taysha

Mrs Scrub - Bella

PS you may not be able to view these videos on iPad or iPhone.

Sharing our writing

We Today we completed our first ever written explanation! We wrote our explanation on a pedestrian crossing! We had to explain what it is, where it's found, who uses it, why they use it and how it's used. 

Here we are sharing our writing with our classmates.

Johnny's Dog Barney

On Wednesday Johnny brought his dog in to visit Room 3. His name is Barney! Johnny told us lots about Barney and how he cares for him. We learnt that Barney's long ears actually help him to smell because they touch the ground when he is sniffing and direct the smells to his nose! 

Inquiry Learning: Evaporation

We are learning about the process of a liquid turning into a gas - evaporation. We found out that you need to heat the liquid water up to make it turn into a gas. That is why hot water makes steam! The steam is the water vapour as it evaporates.

We made puddles on the warm concrete and drew around them with chalk so we could remember the size of the puddle we made.

Check out what our puddles looked like only 15 minutes later...

What has happened to the water?

We drew around what was left of our puddles.

This group made an interesting puddle because part was in the sun and part of it was in the shade.

Why did only the water on the sunny part of the concrete evaporate?

What's left of Room 3's puddles one hour later.

Kids, tell us in the comments below what has happened to the liquid water?

This puddle was still there 3 hours later! 

Kids, why you think it took so long to evaporate?

WANTED

Does anyone have unwanted pillow/cushion stuffing at home? Please send it along to Room 3!

We are also in need of milk bottle and soft drink tops. Please collect these up and send them along to Room 3 also.

(It would be super helpful if you could please puncture a hole through the center of each top with a nail if you have a moment to do so. If not send them along to school anyway!) 

We will be using them as part of our inquiry this term. Can you guess what they might be used for?

Chris has emerged as a beautiful butterfly!

Chris the chrysalis hatched just before school this morning at 8.45. It all happened very quickly! Yesterday we noticed the chrysalis was darkening and this morning before the children arrived at school Miss McKenzie noticed the chrysalis had become completely transparent over night. No one even saw Chris break free of the chrysalis we just noticed a crumpled up butterfly clinging to the swan plant!

Chris the chrysalis yesterday evening. Can you see the wing? 

Look at those delicate crinkled wings. 

Can you see the empty chrysalis?

Chris really liked Ben's self portrait sketch and spent most of lunchtime on it! 

We are now patiently waiting for the arrival of our second butterfly Maisie! 

Cooper's Guinea Pigs

Cooper brought his pet guinea pigs into the classroom to show us on Friday. We learned a lot about guinea pigs from Cooper and his Mum. The Clownfish reading group had read two books about guinea pigs last week so we could make connections between Cooper's pets and their reading.
We read the Guinea Pig book together as a class and learned lots of new facts about Guinea Pigs.
Did you  know that another name for a guinea pig is cavy?

Is water still water when it's frozen?

Today the children in Room 3 learned a new word - Molecule!
They learned that everything is made up of tiny wee molecules. When they are close together and can't move they make a solid, when they can move a little bit they make a liquid, and when the molecules are really far apart they make a gas.

The children pretended they were tiny wee water molecules.

Here we are a solid (ice)

Here we are as a liquid (water in our drink bottles)

Here we are as a gas (steam from the boiling jug)

We learned lots about solids, liquids and gas yesterday!

We have also used marbles in containers to show water molecules. When we made a solid we packed the marbles in tight and they wouldn't move when the container was shaken. We showed a liquid by putting less marbles in so they could still move a little bit when the container was shaken. We only put 5 marbles in the last container to show a gas.

 Gas

Liquid

Solid

Maisie the Monarch Caterpillar Update

Exciting news!! Maisie has just started to spin her/his silk pad from which she/he will hang upside down from in the shape the shape of a J before shedding the skin to become a chrysalis. When you arrive at school on Monday morning Maisie will be a tiny wee chrysalis 

Can you see the white silk pad being made under the leaf? 

Update (1 hour later)

Maisie is now hanging from the cremaster she has made on the silk pad in the shape of a J. She's twisting and turning preparing to shed her skin revealing the green chrysalis!

Water Inquiry

We had some great discussions yesterday and this afternoon about water. We discussed, wrote and drew pictures about what we already knew about water including what it feels like, what it is used for, where it exists etc. 

One homework task this week was to bring along a photo of you using water. We have made a poster today and looked at all of the different ways we have used water recently. If you are yet to bring along a photo you may add your photo to this poster on Monday. See if you can add any different uses. 

Calling all touch players...

If you are a keen touch player and would love to play touch for Gore Main School on Wednesday nights in Gore make sure you look in today's newsletter and fill out the form. You must bring the form back tomorrow or Monday at the latest! 

Our Class Pets

The Moody family have kindly given us 2 pets to have in our classroom! They are monarch caterpillars and we will get to watch them hatch into Monarch butterflies. We have named the caterpillar Maisie and the crysalis Chris! We are patiently waiting for Chris to emerge from the crysalis as a beautiful monarch butterfly. We are expecting Maisie to form a crysalis any day now!

We have been learning about the lifecycle of a monarch by reading this picture book which is based on facts and by watching YouTube videos.

Speaking of pets...last week Hunter brought in one of his pets! His cat had caught a leveret (baby hare) which he and his sister rescued! We learned a lot from Hunter about the difference between a baby hare and rabbit. 

Did you know?

* a hare is born fully furred, able to see and capable of independent movement 

* a rabbit is born with no fur at all, blind and completely helpless

* a hare is born on top of the ground 

* a rabbit is born in a burrow 

* a hare can live on it's own one hour after birth!