Saturday, August 18, 2012

Same but Different

We've been learning about a way of showing that things can have similarities and differences.  It's called a Venn diagram.  We made two Venn diagrams on Friday.  The first one was quite large. 

We went up onto the court and everyone was given a little picture.  Some of us got a picture of a kitten, some got a picture of a puppy and some of us got a picture of a kitten AND a puppy.  Can you work out who got which picture?







The Dodgy Duckling
After morning tea we read "The Dodgy Duckling" again.  It's a New Zealand version of the traditional tale, "The Ugly Duckling".  

In the Kiwiana version, the extra large egg turns out to be ... 
a Kiwi.  He's big and has floppy feet and a long, pointy beak.  He can't catch dragonflies like the ducklings and when he tries to learn to swim, he sinks to the bottom of the pond like a soggy kumara.  He is described as being as blind as a short tailed bat and gets teased and laughed at for being different.  
The poor old dodgy duckling wanders off and finds a dark cave for a long sleep.  When he wakes up, it's night time and he is so excited because he can see!  He spots another bird strolling past and finds out that he isn't a dodgy duckling after all.  He's a cracker looking kiwi!!

We used another Venn diagram to show that, while the kiwi and the ducklings had some differences, they had many similarities too.  

During the Olympics we learned a little bit about many different countries.  Now we're going to be learning lots about Japan which is a country that is very special to a student in Room 4 and his family.  We're looking forward to learning some more about being a New Zealander and some of the similarities and differences between living in New Zealand and living in Japan.

See you next week Room 4.  Don't forget to ask at home for help to email me when you find out the name for the line that goes all the way around the middle of the earth.  Ms Little has my email address.
Remember there's a wee prize for anyone that emails me with the right answer before next Friday the 24th ...

Mrs B :) 

Monday, August 13, 2012

100m Sprints

Last week we watched clips of Usain Bolt winning a gold medal in the 100m sprint.  So on Friday we had a go ourselves.

First we had to carry on learning about measurement.  All that knowledge about measuring using non-standard units like cubes and rods came in very useful as we learned how to measure things in centimetres (or cm as we now know we can write it). 

Then we discovered that there are 100 cm on the big school rulers and we found out that 100cm is also known as 1 metre (1 m).  That came in really useful too because we worked out that we would need to put the big school ruler down 100 times to workout how far to run for the 100m race. 

After lunch we wandered up to the top field and began by estimating where we thought 100m would be.  It was really tricky. 

Luke had a great plan.  He used really big steps and counted to 100.  

There's Luke standing on the right of the picture.

It was an awesome plan Luke.  It turns out that Luke's stride was about 50cm.  (Hmmm - that's something we could have fun checking!)  When we used the 1m rulers to measure the distance, we discovered that it was only 50m to nearly the end of the field. 





We considered our options.  Isaac suggested that we head towards the bank on the other side and measure another 50m around the field.  Great suggestion Isaac.  That would have been a great solution to our problem.  Trouble is that the ground is rather boggy over that way.  Luke suggested putting a marker down and running straight back to the start line.  So that's what we did. 

Really, really fast.  Well ... not quite so fast as Usain Bolt but we think we did pretty well. 

I wonder just how far we can stride.  Lets find out ...