WEEK 4 and 5 TERM 3

This week we have been beginning to prepare for our learning conferences.  We have been learning our mihi, which is how we introduce ourselves and our whanau (family) in maori.  The children will share this with you at the conference.  

We have also begun looking at multiplication and what it means.  to be able to multiply numbers, we need to be able to skip count.  The children have begun learning their skip counting sequences in 5s and 10s confidently, forwards and backwards. We will extend this learning to include 2s and 3s.  This knowledge will help us when learning how to multiply numbers.

We have also been looking at instructions, and as ignition to this unit have been making popcorn and jelly using instructions to help us.  We are now beginning to write our own instructions.

We have begun the next part of our Energise me unit on Keeping ourselves warm.  We conducted an experiment to see how heat affects water.  We first got a bottle, filled it to 3/4 full, added some food colouring and put a straw into the water.  We secured this with playdough, to keep it airtight.  Then we faced a heater towards the bottle and waited to see what was going to happen.  The water began to rise in the straw until it eventually overflowed.  When we took the heat away, we predicted that the water was going to go back down the straw.  our predictions were correct.  When we took away the heat, the water began to cool and therefore dropped back down.  It was fun!