Monday, November 9, 2015

Get busy in the kitchen!

Cooking is the Week 5 Home Learning Task.

Washing, grating, opening, peeling, chopping, rolling, melting, boiling, frying, grilling, roasting, steaming…. 

Children are asked to help prepare a family meal this week instead of written homework.

  • You can chose which day to cook and you have until next Monday before we will talk about it at school.
  • You can choose what to cook and how easy or complicated the meal will be. 
  • You can use a recipe or learn a family favourite dish.


http://www.junipas.co.za/test/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/junipa-kids_5.jpg

Benefits of getting children involved with cooking include:
  • Using maths skills like measuring, weighing and timing
  • Discovering about balanced diets and healthy foods
  • Developing life skills
  • Learning about safety with appliances and equipment

Remember to:
  • Wash your hands, 
  • Listen to the grown up in charge
  • Ask questions 
  • Pay attention
  • HAVE FUN!

Optional: email Miss Rands-Trevor a photo of your meal or leave a comment below

Monday, September 28, 2015

Swimming 2015

I always love taking the kids to swimming. Despite their different range of abilities, every single child seems to progress in some way from the first lesson to the last.

Here are a few photos of the lessons to give you an idea of what we got up to in the pool this term.



 



 








Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Upper Nihotupu Dam Trip

Wow... we had a fabulous trip to the Upper Nihotupu Dam.

It was amazing to learn about how the rain that falls in the Waitakere Ranges makes it's way to our taps. It was incredible to actually see the water cycle instead of in the page of a book or the internet.

We also discovered so much about the forest (the landscape, the fresh smell, the trees, the bird calls, the grass whistles).

Plus we found out that we CAN walk for 40 minutes, break for lunch, and walk another 40 minutes without dying! True story! 

We just had so much fun.
Leaving Papatoetoe we were pretty excited
We traveled first to the Arataki Visitor Centre where we were met by the Auckland Council Educators. We had a quick break and borrowed a few raincoats and then got back on the coach for the final bus ride to the beginning of the track.

This was super exciting for so many of us! More than half of the children who came on the trip with us had never been for a walk in the New Zealand forest before. Their excitement was barely contained!

Ready!
Finding out how to be safe and all stay behind the leader but in front of "Tail End Charlie"
How tall a kauri grows in 10- 20 years.

Simon explaining what to take with you to be prepared on a bush walk (And I forgot to pack my torch!)
The stream was filled to bursting point
The second waterfall was so loud!
Fresh water flowing into the reservoir from every direction
After lunch we followed the tramlines up to the base of the dam.
 The water that collects in the reservoir is piped to the water treatment plant via massive gravity fed pipes. These pipes gently slope all the way down from the elevated dam to distribution points around Auckland. It's a very clever piece of engineering which saves a lot of electricity in pumping water for the city.

 The native bush was stunning and it felt strange walking on the tracks even though we knew the train doesn't run in winter!

The spillway allows the dam to release water when it is at 100% capacity when needed
 When we arrived at the base of the dam the children were amazed at the amount of water overflowing, the speed it was moving and the height of the dam. We can't believe a structure built around the time of WW1 is still so strong and functional. It surely is one of NZ's engineering marvels.

Brace yourselves - we're going up!

Easy peazy!
Arriving at the top, we all had to say how many steps we counted like handing money over to the toll master.
156!
157!
155!
156!
Me, too!
167
What?!
159
Nah, you must've counted some twice...
156!
Miss Rands-Trevor got 156 too so it must be right!
(Maybe... )
Not silver ferns but carried like golden treasures
Did you guys know that that waterfall is still going right this minute? Perhaps not so thunderous, but it hasn't stopped in thousands of years
The joy of discovering nature
We walked back to the coach feeling tired but energised. Bursting with new knowledge and feeling like real kiwi kids living the dream.

It was a truly awesome day out.

Get amongst it, kids and enjoy this beautiful country of ours.

Sunday, September 6, 2015

What are the most likely outcomes when rolliing a pair of dice?

Ooh, we do love Friday Maths! Recently we started a statistical investigation to work out what numbers are most likely to occur if we rolled two dice together.

Firstly, we worked out that 7 was the most likely total to roll because you can get 7 by rolling 1+6, 2+5, 3+4, 4+3, 5+2 or 6+1. That means 7 has a better chance of being rolled than 8 because to roll an 8 you would need a 2+6, 3+5, 4+4, 5+3 or 6+2 which is less possible combinations.

You can see this in the chart below.
Outcome Possible Combinations Total
2 1+1 1
3 1+2, 2+1 2
4 1+3, 2+2, 3+1 3
5 1+4, 2+3, 3+2, 4+1 4
6 1+5, 2+4, 3+3, 4+2, 5+1 5
7 1+6, 2+5, 3+4, 4+3, 5+2, 6+1 6
8 2+6, 3+5, 4+4, 5+3, 6+2 5
9 3+6, 4+5, 5+4, 6+3 4
10 4+6, 5+5, 6+4 3
11 5+6, 6+5 2
12 6+6 1

You can see the rolling a 2 or a 12 are least likely but also equally unlikely.

Next, we set up an random chance game to find out if this was true in real life.  We wanted to see if we could beat the odds and have another number be the one that gets rolled more.

So we ruled up a page with 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 across the bottom and then ruled squares to make a track.


Then we used blocks to "race" to the finish line when we rolled our dice. Every time we rolled a number the block in that column "raced" forward one square. The first block to the edge of the page was the winner.

Most teams coloured in the squares to show the distribution of the outcomes.
It was so fun! It was really interesting to see how even when you know there is a greater chance of something happening, it can never be guaranteed when you are relying on chance!

Here is one of the groups cheering on the winner which was not even number 8 but number 9!

It was really fab to see all the children really getting to understand how certain dice rolls are more likely or unlikely and how the statistical language of probability and chance can be applied to every day things, like playing board games.

So now we know that there is only a 1 in 36 chance of getting a double 1 or double 6 we can see why these are so hard to get when you really need them in a game like Ludo.









Sunday, June 21, 2015

Hockey Training

"What's hockey?" someone in Rm 18 asked me on Tuesday.

Well, in just a few minutes the class found out. We went over to the Papatoetoe Sports Club for our training with Counties Manukau on Tuesday afternoon. This was the first of three sessions we will have on hockey with at PSC.

The first thing that happened was we got a brief description of the game and how the sticks work from the coaches.


Our first lesson was mainly about learning the correct way to hold the hockey stick. Here's what we learned:

1. You have to hold the stick so that you only hit the ball with the flat side of the stick.

2. You hold onto it tightly with your left hand at the top (no limp wrists!)

3. You make a L  (a back to front one) with your thumb and index finger on your right hand and use this to hold on lower down the handle to control it.


Being shown how to make a L-shape with our right hand
Caleb, Arush and Ronnie show us how it's done
It doesn't matter if you are left handed; everybody holds the sticks the same way so no one gets hurt. And left handed people will have a good strong backhand.

Ready to play!
Practicing our swing

When we got a handle on how to hold the stack, we learned how to do a push pass. This meant we had to put our feet at a right angle to the way we wanted the ball to go and then put the stick against the ball and push the ball away. If you hear a whack when the stick hits the ball, then you are doing it wrong.

All lined up opposite our partners


Listening carefully to the coach's directions


After a few rounds of passing the ball to our partners we finished our lessons and went on back to class. Rm 18 can't wait to go back again next week and find out more hockey skills.