All About Me Photos

These are some of Room 3's photos with some special words about the children on them. Come in and look at some of the others closer up.

Welcome to Room 3 2016

Welcome to a new year!  This year we have a straight Year 2 class with 23 lovely children.  We have been busy learning our routines and settling back into school. Last week we looked quickly at Waitangi Day and why it is important to us as New Zealanders, as well as 'All About Me'.  We are starting our Swim for Life program today for 10 days trying to improve on our swimming confidence.

Contraction action

Since the start of the term, we have been learning all about contractions.

This will help us with our reading and writing.

Look at some of the activities we have been doing:

We have been learning this poem:

Click on this link to sing a contraction action song:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbBf21ZuJGQ

Can we make M & M letters float?

Science Experiment

How do we use science to learn about the world?
Question/Aim	Can we make the letters on M & M’s float?
Hypothesis	Jakeb thinks it won’t work. Teagan think it won’t work as you would have to scratch it off. Chase thinks no because it can’t come off and will melt.
Equipment	M & M’s, water, cup
Method	Put the M & M’s into the cup with the letters facing up.  Carefully pour the water over the top and watch what happens.
Testing	We tried this in pairs.
Results	The food colouring came off the M & M’s first and then the letters floated to the top of the water.
Conclusion	The water dissolves the sugar on the food colouring which makes it disappear.  The letters float as they are made from edible paper which is not dissolvable.
What might happen next, I wonder…?	If we leave the M and M’s we think: they might turn grey, crack open, melt. If we left it for two whole days ….. The chocolate might melt, colours will be all blended together, chocolate will still be in balls.

Can we make a reaction with sugar?

Science Experiment

How do we use science to learn about the world?
Question/Aim	Can make a chemical reaction using just sugar as an ingredient?
Hypothesis	No because we will need something else.
Equipment	Sugar, stick, candy floss machine
Method	Heat up the machine.  Put some sugar into the inside bowl.  Watch what happens.  Collect floss from sides of big bowl with a stick.
Testing	We tested this as a whole class.
Results	We made candy floss from the machine.
Conclusion	The sugar heats up and melts.  This is spun really quickly and comes out the small holes, so reacts with air to make long spider like webs of sugar that is fluffy.
What might happen next, I wonder…?	We wonder what would happen if we add different food colours? I wonder what might happen if we squash the floss?

Wonderful World of Science

This term our inquiry topic is 'Wonderful World of Science'

We have been doing lots of little experiments as immersion (our base camp).  These are just some of them.

Science Experiment

How do we use science to learn about the world?
Question/Aim	Can we make raisins dance?
Hypothesis	No because raisins can’t dance.
Equipment	Raisins, lemonade, cup
Method	Put lemonade into a cup. Put some raisins in the lemonade and watch.
Testing	We tested this as a whole class.
Results	The raisins bobbed up and down in the lemonade like they were dancing.
Conclusion	The bubbles in the lemonade stick to the wrinkles on the raisins.  This causes them to lift up to the top.  Then the bubbles pop and they go back down.
What might happen next, I wonder…?	We wonder if this would work using different dried fruit. Would this work using a different soft drink?

Writing in Room 3

This term we have been trying to include different words into our writing to make it more interesting.
We have been learning about similes and we have been practicing writing them.

Can you think of any similes that you could share with us?