Creating our own complex machine

Today we sat outside and enjoyed the sun while we created and designed a complex machine for our kitchen.  We thought about the machines we currently find in our kitchens, and imagined a new machine.  We designed and then labeled our drawing and shared it with another group.

Fun in the sun!

 

Daffodil Day Happiness

The finished product!

We had lots of fun this afternoon playing with our lever animals.

They worked a treat, and the kids enjoyed acting out a story, posing them in the bushes and playground and trying to chew each other's fingers!

Great collaboration between Rm's 12 & 17!

Animal levers

Here are some photos of the animals we created in our Inquiry time this afternoon.
We have built a lever for the jaw of the animal.  They look pretty awesome!

 

 

Mr Robertson update

Hi everyone, wow....I've been looking at the blog, you have been busy this term!!

Black-fronted tern

I've also been busy in my new job as a trainee scientist.  I'm working for a company called Wildlife Management, they help to protect our endangered seabirds and shorebirds.

I checked traps in the Molesworth last week.  We are helping the endangered Black-fronted tern by catching its main predators cats, ferrets, stoats, weasels and hedgehogs.  Can you spot the two traps in the photo?

I studied these albatross to see if they were male/female, what they'd be eating and how old they were.  They were caught accidentally on hooks on big fishing boats.  They are beautiful birds and can live for around 40 years.

Congratulations Ruruka

Well done to Ruruka for being awarded two certificates at Assembly last week.
The first for her enthusiasm for learning, her creativity and dedication.  The second certificate was for her work with Mrs Holmes and the Arts Team on the mural on the potting shed.

Well done Ruruka... you are a treasure!

Brayshaw Stew

Using the ingredients from our Brayshaw Park visit we whipped up a stew in the slow cooker on Thursday afternoon.
Firstly, we put sliced onions in the pot with diced beef on top, we then added carrots and potatoes.  All in the pot with some stock and gravy mix.  We let it cook over night.  This is what it looked like at middy on Friday...

We sliced up some bread sticks and slathered them with butter, a big scoop of stew to give us all a tasty lunch time treat.  Mums and Dads - they loved it!  

Thank you Mrs Morrison!

A massive thank you to Mrs Morrison, Sarah's grandma for baking us two plates of pikelets to eat with our homemade butter!  There is only one plate in the photo because we ATE the other one very fast... too fast to get a photo!!!

Brayshaw Park visit

Marlborough is very fortunate to have the incredible John Orchard from the Marlborough Heritage Museum as a resource to schools within the area.  He so kindly set up a fantastic afternoon for us to experience how our everyday lives have changed so dramatically with the introduction of new machines and technology.

Here are some photos of our experience.
Firstly,  we watched a slideshow and listened to John introduce household items that existed when there was no electricity, things like, candles, kerosine lamps, early electric lamps and switches. Then we looked at stoves, ovens and kitchens throughout the early years.
Next we moved into the museum to watch Joh introduce some of the items from the slide show and lots more!  Butter churners, stoves, candle makers, enamel cups, plates, jugs and buckets, baths, even a tobacco cutter!

Then we moved to Beavertown to get started with the butter churning.  Cream was put into a big glass jar with a hand beater screwed on top.  We all had a chance to beat the cream before leaving  some of the adults to keep beating!

          

John the took us through to do some laundry.  Well, what a shock this was for everyone.  After we watched John demonstrate how the washing was done before electricity we had to have a go ourselves!  We were able to wash a piece of clothing in a tub with sunlight soap and a board, before squeezing out the water using a ringer.  They even hung them out to dry...

What else you ask!  Well, then we headed back into the kitchen to play with the apple peeler, meat grinder, onion and carrot grinder while we kept beating the cream!

     

ONIONS!!!!!!

                 

  

Still churning!

We did it!

Stay tuned in to see what we do with all this food and butter....

A huge thank you to John Orchard for taking time to teach us all and keep us connected to our past.

A massive special thank you though to our wonderful families who made the trip possible... Simon Clark, Kim Davis, Paula Stone, Kim Lee, Sue Bulman and Barbara and Dennis Morrison.  Hope you all had fun too!

Southern Jam 2017

Today we were thrilled to have Southern Jam visit us again.  We had a boys and a girls college from Christchurch visit up, here we are listening to their incredible instruments and their talented singer Will.  We also had a boogie!  Great fun!

Creating Tints & Shades

We have been continuing on with experimenting wth colours by creating tints and shades with primary colours.
By adding white to a colour you make a tint of that colour, by adding black, you make a shade.
We have expressed this by painting tints and shades around a silhouette of an animal.

Complex/ Compound Machines & Drama

This week we have started looking at complex/compound machines and finding examples of them in the classroom.
Complex/ Compound machines are machines that are made up of 2 or more simple machines.
Simple machines are lever, pulleys, inclined planes, wedges, screws, wheels.

We found that scissors are a complex/ compound machine as they are made up from a wedge and a lever. What else can you find around the house?

Here we are using our bodies to make complex machines... can you tell what we are?