Bathing Baby Havana

Everybody was very excited to have Coco's baby sister in the classroom this afternoon for her bath. We  were amazed at how little she is (and so very very cute) and enjoyed taking turns to help wash her. Thank you to Leah for bringing her along.

I see RED!

As a thank you to the Red Cross for their recent donation to our school we held a 'Red' mufti day. The class also enjoyed learning the song "I see red" by Split Enz.

Memory Game

Do you have a memory like an elephant? We looked at a collection of items used to keep ourselves squeaky clean for 1 minute, then we had to write down as many as we could remember. How well did you do???

Super Readers T2W4

Congratulations to Amelia, Brooke M, Lexi and Lily who have earned reading stickers. That is a lot of reading! Keep up the great learning girls.

Fraction Toast

The tantalising aroma of hot toast greeted visitors to our classroom today. We have been learning about fractions, and the best way to do that is with FOOD! We looked at cutting our toast into halves and quarters. How do you cut your toast? I like to put jam on one half and honey on the other half. What do you put on your toast?

Coke & Mentos

One of the highlights of science week was the coke and mentos geyser.

Check out the you tube clip below for more information.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwyMcV9emmc

To make this an experiment (not just a fun mess) we looked at some of the things we could change - the variables. To make it a fair test, you only change one variable at a time.

Our first test was;

• Diet coke & peppermint mentos

Our second test was:

• Diet coke and fruit flavoured mentos

Our third test was

• Diet lemonade and peppermint mentos

We observed that:

• You could still see the mentos lollies in the bottom of the bottle.
• It didn't make any difference when we used fruit flavoured mentos lollies.
• The diet lemonade went higher than the coke.
• The coke and lemonade didn't taste very good afterwards.

If you want to see what this experiment would be like with 158 bottles - click on the link below.

http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/content/science-video/geyser-tube-158-bottles

The Steve Spangler site has some great experiments you can try at home, but you do need to log in. This is a simple process - but make sure mum/dad do it for you!

AND ASK MUM/DAD BEFORE YOU TRY ANY OF THESE AT HOME!!!

Sensational Science

Thank you to the parents who were able to help us on Wednesday with our science activities. We explored the force of friction by making origami yachts and flying balloons down a string. The forces of gravity and air resistance were explored by making parachutes and o-ring gliders. We also looked at magnetism and how we could make things move with magnets and ball bearings.

News Reporters

Today Brooke M, Coco and Matthias presented their news items to the class. Brooke M talked about an amazing 'machine' we all have in our bodies - our hearts. She brought two stethoscopes so we could hear our own heart beats. Coco told us all about a tree house that they are building and showed us a sample of the wood and a map of where it will be going. Matthias shared his experience of 'Going Digital' and had some great details in his report.

T2W3 Assembly

Thank you to Room 7 for hosting the Year 2 Assembly this week. Congratulations to Matthew and Vianca who received certificates this week. Keep up the great work!

Building Bridges

The Tuatara Reading group were reading 'The Impossible Bridge' for reading today. We learnt about beam bridges, arch bridges, truss bridges and suspension bridges.

Ruby got home and decided to build a bridge of her own. She brought it into class today and shared it with us. Well done Ruby, and thanks for the photos of the construction process!

What's in the box?

What is going on inside the box?

We poured red liquid into the funnel on the top and green liquid came out the tube at the bottom.

1. Can you explain what might be happening? Remember to use 'because' in your answer.
2. Can you draw a diagram of what might be happening? Remember to use labels.
3. Test out your hypothethsis - does it work? If not - what could you change?

Unfortunately the video clip we took today has not turned out very well - but below is a link to a similar one from a couple of years ago where we used blue water in and clear water came out?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=F2DybbJ5Mmo

Online Physics Games

Assembly - T2W2

How exciting! This week was our turn to host the Year 2 Assembly. First we had to select nine presenters to speak at the front. Mrs D used the stick names to choose people who had not yet had a turn. Next we chose 2 songs to sing. This was tricky. We offered ideas and then had a class vote. The winning songs were Fireworks and Hey Crocodile. The audience enjoyed learning the new song and we saw lots of children playing the air-saxaphone during the instrumental section. For our item to share we have been very busy finishing off our silver birch trees. Lily did a great job of explaining the process and we heard exclamations of delight when we lifted up our pictures to show the audience. Shiako and Brooke M were awarded the assembly certificates this week and we all clapped and congratulated them. We all felt very proud of our assembly.

Below is an email from Mrs Pelham

Dear Room 19

I thought you did a fantastic job of presenting assembly on Friday.

I loved the songs you chose - Amelia has been practicing Hey Crocodile at home 

all week because she loves it so much.

The art work you shared was amazing - you are a talented class of artists.

Thanks for sharing such a great assembly with us.

Love from

Amelia's Mum
xx

Squeaky Clean!

This term we have new Learning Groups. Each group has a different coloured robot and we get points (using tally marks) for great work, excellent behaviour and wonderful listening. Being able to work well with a variety of other people is very important and links to the Values and Key Competencies in the NZ Curriculum.

For each group activity, every person in the group has a job to do;

Material Manager: collects and returns equipment
Recorder: Writes up the ideas of the whole group
Time Keeper: Keeps an eye on the stopwatch and makes sure everyone is contributing ideas
Reporter: Reads out the group's ideas

Today we did group brainstorms on what we know about keeping ourselves clean and healthy. We only had 5 minutes to get our ideas down then we shared our ideas with the class. We were impressed at how many ideas we could get by working together.

1. Brush your teeth
2. Have a bath
3. Take a shower
4. Clean your house
5. Use soap
6. Take medicine (like pamol) if you are sick
7. Use tissues for blowing your nose 
8. Wash your face
9. Brush your hair
10. Wash your pets
11. Clean your clothes
12. Wear clean knickers/undies
13. Wash your hands with soap/sanitiser
14. Wash your hair with shampoo & conditioner
15. Clean your armpits
16. Clean shoes inside
17. Clean socks
18. Eating healthy food
19. Clean feet
20. Tidy garden - don't leave rubbish or water lying about
21. Hang clothes to dry on washing line
22. Tidy garden with no rubbish lying around
23. Exercise
24. Wear a raincoat and gumboots to keep you warm and dry

Cross Country

Wow, I am so impressed at the way everyone has improved their fitness since the beginning of the year! You did great in the Cross Country today and your behaviour and support for the other runners made me proud.

Congratulations to our place getters :

Matthew - 1st Year 2 Boys
Riley      - 2nd Year 2 Boys
Lexie     - 2nd Year 2 Girls

Year 2 Choir

Congratulations to Alannah, Brooke M, Hasini, Lily, Ruby and Vianca who have been chosen for the Year 2 choir. Remember to get to practices on Thursdays. We are looking forward to hearing your performance in week 10.

Coco's news

On Friday afternoon Coco talked about her new baby sister, Havanah. We found out that she is now 5 weeks old and has grown 7cm and put on 500g since she was born - that is as much as a packet of butter! We all marvelled at her tiny fingers and toes and some lucky children even got to have a cuddle.

Assembly Term 2 Week 1

Thank you to Room 18 for hosting the Year 2 Assembly this week. We really enjoyed your recounts on 'Move That Truck'. I hope you heard us cheering for you in the tug-o-war! Well done.

Congratulations to Alannah, Brooke N and Hasini who received certificates at assembly. We are all very proud of you.

Machines in motion!

What machines do you have at your house? We worked in our Inquiry groups to act out a machine. See if you can identify the;
1. Toaster
2. Light bulb
3. Microwave
4. Popcorn maker
5. Television
6. Scooter