Perimeter and Area Robots

I started the activity by pretending that our class had received a ‘Top Secret Mission’ from Rocket Lab. It was perfect because we had Shane Fleming from Rocket Lab come to school in the morning to talk about how Rockets work. I secretly handed him my envelope with the Room 3 maths mission in it. He presented it to Room 3 who were enthusiastic and couldn’t wait to see what was the mission was install for them.

I made a big deal out of opening the envelope. I acted very secretive, because of course, it’s a top-secret mission, and everyone always gets so involved in the project. Rocket Lab had asked students to create a robot using 1cm squared paper, in which the children would be able to calculate the area and perimeter of each body part. Each body part of the robot had to be a 4 sided shape that didn’t cut squares in half (therefore full square/rectangle shapes were needed).

Their robot needed to have:

• A head
• Two arms
• A body
• Two legs

I can definitely say that the tamariki did a splendid job counting the number of squares for each body part, the older kids saw them as arrays and used multiplication. The perimeter was a bit trickier counting the squares around each body part but they enjoyed this fun activity and were learning about perimeter and area at the same time. Tau kē, ngā tamariki o Ruma toru!!

Cats in their thinking hats!

We have a bunch of new Room 3 members....

Our Cats in their Thinking Hats!

These furry feline are in class to help us work out what sort of thinking we are going to be doing in our learning.

Introducing :

The Blue Hat Cat, Billy the bossy cat. He is used for thinking about thinking, like making summaries, conclusions and decisions.

The Black Hat Cat, Patsy the problem cat. She is very cautious about everything. She checks out all the problems that could go on.

The Yellow Hat Cat, Polly the Positive Cat. Polly has a positive view about things.

The Red Hat Cat,  Felix the Feeling Cat. Felix allows people to put forward their feelings when making a decision.

The White Hat Cat, Fred the Facts Cat. He relies on what he already knows about something. 

Green Hat Cat, Ivar the Ideas Cat. Ivar is a creative thinker, who creates new ideas about things. 

These cats come out when we need to put our thinking hats on. They remind us what colour hat does what type of thinking. They have been very helpful in class this week, especially Ivar who helped us come up with some ideas about our Science Project. 

Matariki in Room 3

This week in Room 3 we have been learning about and celebrating Matariki.

We read about Little Kiwi who wakes up the whole forest by running and telling them he can feel "it" coming. All of the forest animals don't know what Kiwi means but at last they come out of the forest and all gasp as they look up into the night sky to see the seven stars twinkling.
They each tell us why Matariki is important to them. It's important to Ruru because of whanau as all of her mokopuna come home to her. Tui enjoys singing and dancing to celebrate matariki. Weka has a feast of huhu grub to celebrate, and the Katipo celebrates by throwing her silk kite into the sky.

We enjoyed reading about Kiwi's matariki.

We've been celebrating Matariki by listening to all the legends as to how the stars got there, reading lots of books, as well as practising our Matariki dance, which helps us remember all of the stars names.

Room 3 singing Matariki star names

We have also been making our Matariki stars.

To make these we started by drawing in crayon, and pressing really hard. We made patterns and made sure there was no white paper showing.

Then we painted over the top of the crayon with black paint, which we left to dry over night.

Once the paint had dried we scratched out our seven Matariki stars. We have each made our own Matariki stories based on the ones we have read which we will put up with our stars!

Happy Matariki everyone!

Solving technological problems using materials – Tech Challenge

All teams were given a pre-planned challenge weeks prior to the technology challenge event to perform on the day, as well as a secret challenge that they would find out on the day too. Te Mahia School children were participating alongside children from Nuhaka, Wairoa Primary, Frasertown, and St Joseph’s school.

First up the year 3 & 4 teams had to make a ‘Raincoat’ using 6 plastic shopping bags and cellotape, what they didn’t tell us was that after constructing their raincoats those children wearing the raincoats were to run through a hose spraying water. The kids definitely had fun watching participating in that. The secret challenge for year 3 and 4 teams was the Marble Roll’. Using newspapers and cellotape the children had to design a device to roll or aim a marble along the floor to hit a target in the shortest possible time; the marble had to be dropped into your marble roller device. There were some very interesting constructions and our tamariki did extremely well constructing their devices. One of our teams experienced success and hit the target with the marble, ka mau te wehi. Our tamariki in both teams worked incredibly well together too!

Next up were the year 5 & 6 teams. A nomadic shelter construction was first on the agenda. The shelter that teams were constructing out of newspaper, cellotape and string had to be able to sleep 2 people (kids), and be transported (picked up and moved to another location) without falling over. Our team gave it their all but unluckily their shelter fell over just as time was called. I think reflecting back on their shelter the girls knew that they had to make a sturdier base for their shelter (newspaper needed to rolled tighter) so that it could stand on its own. They had constructed an awesome shelter at school the week before too. Will get it next time girls! The secret challenge for this year group was the ‘Egg drop’, where the team had to design a container out of materials (thin card, string, paper, masking tape and a plastic bag) that would carry the egg safely when dropped from a 4m height. With a cushion bed design our team’s egg looked like it was in for a safe drop. Unfortunately the egg smashed on impact with the ground as did most the other teams eggs. I think I only saw 2 successful egg drops out of 16 teams. Super proud of how our year 5 & 6 team worked and delegated their jobs within the group!

Last challenges for the day we had the year 7 & 8 teams. We had entered two teams in this section. The pre-planned challenge was the tallest flagpole. The challenging part of it was that you weren’t allowed to stick the base of the flagpole to the ground. One of our teams got their flagpole erected but the others flagpole fell over just as time ran out. Reflecting back on this challenge the children identified that they could have had wider bases for better support and the newspapers needed to be rolled tightly so they wouldn’t bend and sway. The secret challenge for year 7 & 8’s was to design a surveillance aircraft using paper, straws and blue tac. They had to use all the straws too and blue tac seemed an odd material to use as it was heavier in weight than cellotape. What the judges were looking for was distance and how long the plane could stay in the air for. Aerodynamics definitely came into play with this challenge. We had some very creative airplane designs from our tamariki and they had fun crafting their designs in their groups. Overall there were smiles on the children’s faces, and I could hear lots of laughter. Ka pai tamariki ma!

The children all had a fun day, it was definitely a learning experience for all involved, and it was great that the children were reflecting on what they could do or change next time if they were to do these challenges again. Thank you to Aunty Les and Cherie for coming along to support the children, and to Sandy our bus driver for transporting us to and from the tech challenge. A massive effort from all our tamariki, you should all be proud of how you worked as a team together and supported each other!

Year 3 & 4 challenges

Year 5 & 6 challenges

Year 7 & 8 challenges