Year 3 Transition Day 2: Flight Inquiry

On Tuesday, we had our second transition day where students had the chance to work in their new spaces with new students and teachers.

We did a mini-inquiry about flight. We investigated what would factors would make a paper plane fly further. 

This is a short movie to show our plane throwing competition that we had at the end of our Inquiry. This was lots of fun!

Plants need soil to grow! Or do they?

Today we discussed this statement, "Plants need soil to grow!" Our learners said whether they agree or disagree with this.

Blaze: Soil makes the plants grow.

Caspian: I disagree because drift wood plants and cacti don’t need soil to grow.

Izar: I agree because plants need nutrients and there are nutrients in the soil.

Edward: I disagree because upside down plants

Theo: I agree that plants need soil to grow because there are nutrients in the soil.

Lily Ji: If it isn’t in the soil, it won’t grow.

Wil: I agree because plants need soil to grow.

Eva: I agree because it helps the plants to grow fast and the plants need room for the roots to sprout.

Kate:Plants need soil to grow. I agree because it helps the plants because it has lots of nutrients. You also need sun.

Dylan: I disagree because cactus can grow in sand. So some plants need sand instead.

Reuben: I agree- you need soil for the roots.

Georgina: Plants need soil to grow because it is good for them.

Molly: I agree because they need space for the roots and roots and they also need sun and rain. How else would they grow.

Jasmine: I agree because they need soil for the roots to go deep into the ground. Plants need soil to grow.

We have put some information together for students to research:
Planting and Growing

Planting: I am curious!

We are planting beans. We wanted to find out what students know and what they would like to find out...

Transition to the Seniors

Our Year 3 students have been working in Matariki and Mahutonga. We have been working in different groups to get ready for next year. Today in our transition time we did an experiment. See the clips below to find out what we did and for the scientific explanation.

Predictions

Leola: It is going to make a rainbow.

Alastair: The colours will mix together in different shapes.

Nela: the milk will change colour.

Lily Ji: I think it will explode.

Rim: I thought it would turn brown.

Elliot: It will swirl around the bowl because of the chemical.





This is what we think about transition:

Georgina: It was fun and I like connecting with the people in Mahutonga.

Eva: It is fun. We meet new people and we get to do experiments.

Eden: I liked working with new people in a new space.

Liam: I thought that it was fun. It’s good to make new friends and get to know the space more. Next year I will know what to do when I am in the seniors.

Talia: It is helpful because next year we will know other people. We know who we can play with and we might make new friends.

Lily Ji: I really like "wake up your brain". It really does wake up my brain.

Ridley: It is good because we did experiments and milk spread into different colours.

Katherine: We got to know the space more.

Kirsty: It was fun. It is helpful for next year because we get to work with new people.

Matilda: I like transition time. I like to choose what to do for exercise. Drama was really fun.

Ruby: I really like it. Yoga was really fun.

Elephant Toothpaste

Today we did an experiment called "Elephant Toothpaste". We asked students to do a creative piece of writing. This is what we came up with:

Elephant Toothpaste

It looked like ice cream
It looked like an ice cream maker
It went into swirls
How amazing
Elephant toothpaste
It looked like it had invisible hands
Slowly rose up like bubbles  
By  Hadley

Elephant toothpaste

Elephant toothpaste … oh my did it erupt?

Elephant toothpaste … lots of bubbles rising up.

Elephant toothpaste … lots of slime.

Elephant toothpaste … it kept going.
By Ruby

Elephant Toothpaste

Slow explosion

Rising up

It looks like ice-cream and don't eat it because it's gross vinegar

disgusting

It's bubbly like bubble mixture
By Blaze

We made some elephant tootpaste art too...

Slime Experiment

This is an experiment that I did at home

"Making slime was lots of fun! Lots of good planning, observing and perseverance too. This is my slime - I had to make it carefully because if I didn't it wouldn't work! It was my second try because the first time I rushed and didn't follow the instructions. The second worked much better".

We're loving how our students are so engaged and enthusiastic about our "Kitchen Science" Inquiry.

Baking Soda and Vinegar Experiment

Today, these guys showed us an experiment with baking soda and vinegar. Before we did the experiment we made predictions about what might happen. We said that it might:

• rise up 
• cause a reaction 
• explode 
• poof like a cloud of smoke 
• get fizzy 
• froth up 
• create create carbon dioxide 
• bubble

Bouncing eggs

From, Christiane

Created with Padlet

Scary Slime!

This guy has been experimenting with some scary slime at home. 

He says it is a bit gooey was squishy. It is breakable and it can stick.   

WHAT YOU NEED: 
Borax 
PVA glue
Food colouring


If you would like to make this at home, here is a clip to help...

  

Sugar Crystal Observations

We looked closely at the sugar crystals and made some observations. Read what we observed in the padlet below...

We have been observing closely

Created with Padlet

Sugar Crystal Experiment

Ingredients:

Sugar

Hot water.

You will also need:

Pencil

String

Paper clip        

glass cup

Bowl                   

Spoon

Method:

1. Pour the hot water in the bowl

2. Add 3 cups of sugar to the hot water

3. Stir until the sugar dissolves in the water

4. Wrap the string around the pencil and attach the paper clip to the end

5. Put the paperclip in the mixture.

By Eva

What do you predict will happen?

Created with Padlet

How to make jelly: writing instructions

Today we wrote instructions about how to make jelly.  

Making Jelly: Hook for our Inquiry

As part of our change inquiry, we are focusing on kitchen science. Today we started by making fruit jelly. We saw that the jelly crystals dissolved in the hot water. We have left the jelly in the fridge to set...

Tautoru's Trip to the Tip

Sustainability

We have enrolled in the sustainability unit of the What's For Lunch programme.  Every week we will be learning about a different resource and how we can be sustainable with this resource.  We will be doing science experiments around each resource and have follow up readings.  This week the resource is water.  One of the coolest things we learned is that some of the water we have today was around when the dinosaurs were around!

Calling all Gardeners, Geologists, Scientists, historians and interested Inquirers

Dear Families

As we are venturing into our discovery of all things wonderful in our backyard we would love to have the expertise of any parents who would be be willing to come and share their knowledge and expertise with us.

If you are interested in visiting the Tautoru Classroom please let Aimee, Chrissy, Danny or Gillian know. We would love to have some visitors over the next few weeks during the students Finding Out  stage of their inquiry.

Thanks from the Tautoru teaching team.

Thinking Like a Scientist - Our discovery into 'What's in our backyard'

                                             'What's in our backyard?'

The Tautoru team are well on their way with their inquiry about 'What's in our backyard?'.
We have been tuning in and finding out about what's in our own backyard, our school and local beach backyard. 

Some Tuning In  questions the students have been pondering have been...

• What is a backyard?
• What do I have in my own backyard?
• What are the similarities and differences between my own backyard and our Worser Bay School backyard?
• What have we found out about our fellow Teacher's backyards? 
• What can we see, feel, hear and touch at our own Worser Bay Beach?
• How can we beautify our own school backyard and environment? 
• What are we curious to find out? 
• How do sunflowers grow? 

Have a look at some fantastic photos of some of Tautoru students planting their own sunflower seeds. They are going to track their Sunflower seeds progress over the coming weeks and eventually plant them in our own school backyard to beautify our environment. 

Fizz Inflators

We had great fun on Thursday blowing up balloons using vinegar and baking soda.  The acid vinegar reacts with the alkaline baking soda to produce carbon dioxide bubbles.  Because gases require a lot more space than liquid so the carbon dioxide fills the bottle then moves into the balloon and inflates it.  You might like to try this at home and see how varying the amounts of baking soda and vinegar affects the amount the balloons inflate (a word of warning - we had a couple explode!)

Exploring the rock pools at Worser Bay beach

We are learning about creative thinking. We had lots of ideas and used our imagination down at the beach. 

It was Sea Week last week so we are doing a mini-inquiry into the things that live in our Worser Bay beach rock pools. We discovered some interesting creatures.