The Science Fair

Friday afternoon was buzzing with chatter as parents and fellow students were entertained, and informed, about the workings of various complex machines. Displays included the corkscrew, the robot, the digger, the tower crane, the bicycle, the cannon, the power drill, the escalator, and the vacuum cleaner. The displays were assembled carefully and looked stunning. Mrs. Patten was impressed at the depth of explanations provided by the students, showing that students had made big steps in their learning about their complex machine. The working models were interesting and well explained, too. Students should all be very proud with what they have achieved over the past weeks, preparing for this event.

Little River School Science Fair

The action is increasing as the date for this event approaches. Students have chosen a complex machine to investigate. They have researched its history, developments and uses. They are also required to explain the workings of the simple machines in the complex machine using diagrams, models and explanations. Most groups are at the publishing and presentation stage now. There is alot of chatter, collaboration and deep thinking going in the groups, their aim being to achieve excellences on the marking rubric.
On Friday 22 June at 2 pm all will be revealed, we hope you can be there to share in the childrens' learning!!

Room 2’s Assembly 1 June

What a thrill it was to see so many of our parents at our class assembly.
We were very excited about sharing our work completed in the first part of the year. For those of you unable to attend some items we shared were:
1. A movie of our dreams for the future, containing still digital photos taken by the students, stunning photos they were, too!!
2. Movies about our class camp at South Brighton.
3. Raps we had written about ourselves. There was some great rhyme, rhythm and action in those presented.
4. Reflective writing about what it would be like to be a machine. Here is one person’s writing:
If I was a machine
I would be a… computer.
I would love the feel of waking up
from an eternal like sleep.
I would hum soothingly when the
buttons on my keyboard were pressed.
Like being tickled.
I’d be able to search every website
I’d help my owners
I’d have answers to everything.
But after every day I would be
put back to eternal sleep yet again,
after all my hard work
I’d be deserving it.
5. Our thoughts about looking after a fresh egg for a week, as part of the Keeping Ourselves Safe programme. E.g. It was hard to keep track of my egg all the time.
I learnt how hard it is for Mum and Dad to look after me.
6. Each Maths group explained their current learning goal and knowledge gained in the current Multiplication and Division topic. Eg understanding how powers work with numbers; halving and doubling, trebling and thirding numbers to make equations easier to solve; and how the order of the factors doesn’t change the product. Great presentation skills and stunning use of Power Point!
7. We showed paintings and drawings of simple and complex machines.
8. A dance we created, using the actions of simple machines, which we called "Mechanical Moves".
Thanks so much to everyone including the presenters and the Tech Crew for their awesome work. The Assembly went smoothly and was presented professionally!!
☺ ☺ ☺ ☺

Simple Machines

We have been using Lego to learn about some of the simple machines. We have experimented with models to find out how pulleys, levers, gears and wheels and axles work. Gears and pulleys can be followers and drivers. We learnt that with gears the follower goes in the opposite direction to the followers, except if it has a gear (an idler) in between.

The Kids Congress May 2007

I recently had the privilege to be able to attend this “ICT Skills Workshop” for South Island primary school children. More than 200 9-12 yr olds gathered at Ferrymead Historic Park for 2 days of ICT learning. They each chose a workshop to follow for this time. Workshops, of which there were 21, taught skills using i-Movie, Photoshop, Podcasting, Comic Life, Google, Blogging, Digital Stories, Reality Games, Still and moving digital images, iPods, etc; in order to complete a learning task related to the context of the Venue. The finished products included 3D drawings of buildings, Wild West movies, designer t shirts, comics, podcasts of how life has changed over time, Who dunit movies, Newspapers of yesteryear, olden day Ferrymead postage stamps, a time machine and news reports, to name a few!!
The place was buzzing with chat, collaboration, problem solving and laughter amongst students, many of whom, had just met for the first time.
The paradox for me was seeing Ferrymead, the place we perceive as being representative of yesteryear, alive and buzzing with children using the latest in ICT gear to achieve their learning goals……and yes you are right, there certainly was evidence of Web 2.0 assisting learning!! Although in Jocelyn’s case the wireless network was variable-causing problems with her students posting their blogs.
It was an enlightening day of PD for me, and I hope that students and/or teachers from our Cluster schools may be able to attend this Congress in future years. Check out the website for more information. http://www.kidscongress.org.nz/christchurch
In the meantime I have unfinished business with Google tools, Comic Life and Garage band………….to begin with!! ☺ ☺