In Room 4 we are learning to act as packaging engineers. To win the job or “situation vacant” we had to brainstorm, design, build and test our ideas for packaging to protect a raw egg in transit by ship to Australia. Mrs Millar’s  “Ship - It - Quick”  company  required the engineers ( us !!! ) to consider our packages weight and size ( crucial for economy ), its ability to tessellate or stack, its effectiveness against being dropped ( 30cm, 60cm, 100cm ) and crushed ( large boulder !!!). Only several groups met the challenge. An exceptionally effective learning process for protecting against rough seas, forklift incidents, damage and packaging in transit !!!

Hello from Room 4 ! We have been very busy this past few weeks working on our sculptures and creations for our Grand Design evening. Mrs Millar instructed us to work in groups so we could learn to co-operate and make a team effort. We had to decide on an environment to create for our group ( this was hard enough !) It was a challenge cause we all think we know best!! We then had to design a sculpture out of packaging or recycled goods of our own which contributed towards the group environment.

As you can see this also caused a mess all over again ! I think we are champions at creating a massive mess. We hope you all come along and see what we have made.

Mrs Millar erupted our volcano last week and I was able to take photos to show the process. We used baking soda, warm water, detergent, red food colouring and vinegar.

Wow !!! We have just had a super afternoon at Peel Forest exploring sooooo many different aspects of our very own Kahikatea Walk. I feel so privileged to be part of this school and the guardianship we have been given over this magical piece of Peel Forest. Our groups rotated with ease and excitement and I'm sure we all feel more connected to "our" Kahikatea Walk now. A  MASSIVE  thank you to Mrs Rayner for all the organising and co-ordinating she did to make this such a dream afternoon. Thanks also to our fabulous parents, bus drivers and Hilary and George for their expertise and support. By the way - here are a few questions just to make sure you were listening :

What is the tallest part ( the chimney ) of the forest structure called ?
What is the job of the canopy layer ? What would happen if we removed the canopy  layer ?
Name three pests that are a problem in our Kahikatea Walk.
What insects live on the floor of our bush ?

As we walked out we passed the other groups that had been working at the opposite end of the walkway. In the middle we lay down and looked up at the canopy and emergent layers of the forest. It was cool as we could see the most enormous kahikatea looming high in to the sky above us. As we got near the end of the track Mrs Millar showed us the bush lawyer plant and we brushed ourselves past it and felt it grab our shirts. This was an awesome experience.

In our class we are starting a reading theme on spiders. So far we have made connections with what we already know and we have had to fill out a data gathering sheet to show the different places we are going to go to in search of our information. We will use our library, our internet, people and information from home. Some of us are researching projects, others are selecting main ideas in text and others are reading and making inferences. Below is the start of our reading display and Mrs Millar  has put two chocolate spiders on our web - mean !!!

In writing we have abandoned our recounts for a week as the senior speeches have popped up !!! We are trying to have our recount plans and final published works done by the end of next week. So far our speech plans are going well and we are now putting our information on to cue cards. Our class finals are this Thursday and the Lions Club finals are on Friday in Room 3 at 11.00 am. Our speeches can only be 2- 3 minutes long. If you are visiting school come in to Room 4 and read our cool stories and recounts on our wall.

If you have been to school lately you may have seen our works of art in the sandpit. Room 4 studied the height of each of the three volcanoes and we have tried to recreate them in out pit. Watch out for eruptions though and boiling hot crater lakes - enter at your own risk !!! There is also a lovely zoo under creation in one corner of the sandpit.

HELL0  EVERYONE ! WE ARE EXPERTS AT FACTS ABOUT THE OLYMPICS NOW !! TRY OUR QUIZ AND SEE IF YOU ARE AN EXPERT TOO... There will be a box of jaffa shotputs for the first person with them all correct !!!

1. When were the first Olympic Games held ?
2. Which people were not allowed to enter in the Ancient Olympics Games ?
3. How often are the Olympic Games held ?
4. Who designed the Olympic flag ?
5. What do the Olympic rings represent ?
6. Why were the colours yellow, black, green, red and blue chosen for the rings ?
7. How long is the Olympic marathon ?
8. Which city is hosting the next Olympic Games ?
9. Which country enters the stadium first in every opening ceremony at the Olympic Games ?
10. What did Britain place on rooftops for security in London ?
11. How many medals did New Zealand get in total in the London Olympic Games ?
12. Where was New Zealand placed in the world on the medal table after Valerie Adams was granted her gold ?

GOOD  LUCK !!!  

Hello ! In Room 4 we have been thinking about how we relate to others. Our main topic for this year is co-operation. We have talked about how we often need to work through issues or disagreements by negotiating. This means we all have our say and we all listen to each other and then we work out a plan together. Sometimes this doesn't always work ! We also talked about how we sometimes have to compromise. This means we only get some of our way and we meet in the middle with a bit of each others ideas. In class we are learning to co-operate by supporting each other in gymnastics and making sure we are "alert catchers" to make sure our friends are safe when they are learning new techniques like handstands, headstands and backward rolls.

We are working hard to learn the new techniques in gymnastics and for some of us these are new skills.  Some of us have done lots of gymnastics and we are really enjoying showing our skills and helping teach our friends. Mrs Millar took us for our warm ups as she said it is really important to warm up our neck and spine and our wrists and ankles but now we are taking our own warm ups and it is cool. Next week we are starting on our flight movement and we will work towards using the box or vault, the springboards and the mini trampoline - it will be fun !

Hello everyone ! Room Four have been working hard on Olympic research. We have been using our ipads and computers to find specific information about the ancient Olympics and our modern day Olympics. Mrs Millar has challenged us to find out information each day following the links on our websites.

We are watching the news and reading the newspaper to keep an eye on which New Zealand competitors are succeeding in London. We are also learning about mapping and we have to draw in the boundaries of England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic Of Ireland. This was sort of tricky !!! We also had to put in the capital cities on our map of United Kingdom and this made us think !!!

This unit is awesome and we love watching Mark Todd and the rowing. Our canoers and women's black sticks are going well.

Our Mihimihi.

Room Four have been "busy as bees" creating their own personal mihimihis. A mihimihi is a traditional form of Maori speech making. We have chosen to use fabric to tell our stories. Our mihimihi show who we are, what is important to us and where we are from. It shows our two mountains - Tarahaoa and Huatekerekere and our river - the Rangitata.

I whanau ai au i Aotearoa                       -  I was born in New Zealand.
I noho ana au i  Carew/ Peel Forest        -  I live in Carew/ Peel Forest.
Ko Tarahaoa/huatekerekere te maunga   -  Tarahaoa / Huatekerekere is my mountain.
Ko Rangitata te awa                                -  Rangitata is my river.

Our first step in the creation of our mihimihi was to make a plan in our topic books of the features that we were important to us and form an illustration of our end result. We then selected a piece of hessian that suited our plan and attached two wooden batons to the top and bottom with the staplegun to form a wall-hanging. We then began layering the background, hills and sky.

We then followed our original outline and plan and began working with the different fabric textures, colours and patterns to create our picture. We had to be very careful with the glue guns and several of us got a sharp reminder of how hot the glue was ( including Mrs Millar !!! ). We scouted around and found bark, wool and cotton balls to help us build up our mihimihi.
    

We worked hard and had to concentrate so we told the story that was important to us. It was fun watching the mihimihi come together. We managed to make a massive mess and Mrs Millar would look at it and laugh but every time  Mrs Millar was blown away by how well we always cleaned the classroom back up !!!

Our end results are special - we are special !!!

The Team In Room 4 !