Rat investigation

There has been a lot of interest in rats in Tautoru over the last couple of days. A couple of very inquisitive students have been searching under the deck by the big kids playground for signs of vermin!



As a consequence we have decided to do a quick scientific investigation into what creatures are lurking under the deck. We placed a number of small rodent tags that have a sweet treat to attract rats, mice, and hedgehogs.



After three days we will come back to the tags which will help us identify what is or isn't there.



Check out the blog for future rodent posts.

Matariki Stars

Matariki is Maori New Year. We have been talking about the stars that we see in the sky at Matariki. We learnt what each star is kaitiaki of and we made some booklets to show our learning. Waita is kaitaiki of the sea, Waiti of fresh water and Waipuna a rangi is kaitaiaki of the rain. Have a look at the summary or come and look at our booklets, and you will learn about the others.

Body Gardens

On Wednesday and Thursday this week we have been creating Body Gardens to show our learning about measurement and different types of symmetry. We had to measure parts of our body, for example, the length from our wrist to out elbow or from our foot to our knee for the stem of the flower, and then we drew around our hands for the leaves or butterflies and our fingers for the petals. We placed the leaves and petals on our plants in different ways- some showing reflectional symmetry, some showing transformational symmetry and some showing rotational symmetry.

Arrays, Multiplication and Visual Maths

We have begun to find out about counting in sets by using arrays to make multiplication visual. Making maths visual is an important way to help our brain learn and remember new mathematical information.

One group worked on different ways to solve problems like 8 x 6 (eight sets of six). There were lots of different ways!

Then we moved onto different problems involving planting in rows and we used the array to help us work it out. Here are some examples:

Next, we will think about which strategies work best for different problems and use arrays from everyday life to make multiplication visual. Maths is everywhere!

Tawhirimatea-A Song for Matariki

Today we read the story called "Tawhirimatea, A Song for Matariki" and we talked about some of the Maori Gods. We created pastel artworks using koro patterns, showing one of the Gods.

Can you recognise which picture goes with Tangaroa, the God of the sea and which picture goes with Tawhirimatea, the God of the wind?

Measurement

This week in Maths we have been working on Measurement. We are learning to estimate how long and high objects are and then to check and see how accurate our estimations are. We found out that the more we tried, the closer our estimations got to the actual measurement- which just shows, Perseverance and a Growth Mindset, really helps!

Sometimes we measure using non- standard measures, like blocks, or rods, or cubes.

And sometimes we measured using a ruler.

Bush Builders

Last week we welcomed guests from the zoo.  As past of the  Bush Builders project from Term One we spent time in the school grounds identifying animals, plants, and we also managed a bit of clean up along the way!



The enthusiasm the students show for creatures and the environment is fantastic. There was a lot of excitement about spiders, worms, and we even saved a butterfly!



Being Kaitiaki of the environment means that we were very careful about returning anything we found back to its home and taking care with where we stepped.