We are a class of Year 3 & 4 children at Vardon School in Hamilton, NZ. The purpose of this blog is to share what we are learning with others. Click into our individual blogs to see samples of our learning and our reflections. WE LOVE LEARNING!!! We also love commenting, so please leave us a comment!!!



Friday, December 13, 2013

Goodbye 2013!

Good bye everyone!

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

See you in 2014! We start back at school on February the 3rd.


Thursday, December 12, 2013

Skyping with a school in Florida, USA

This morning we came to school at 8am to skpye with a school in Florida, USA.
It was 8am for us, but 2pm the previous day for them!

The school we skyped with was South Mckeel Academy in Lakeland, Florida, USA.




The purpose of our skpye was to learn about how another country and culture celebrate Christmas.

We learnt that we have both similarities and differences with how we both celebrate Christmas.







Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Swimsafe at Waterworld

Last week we had our Swimsafe lessons at Waterworld.
We learnt a range of skills....

  • freestyle
  • backstroke
  • dolphin dives
  • floating
  • breast-stroke (frog legs)
  • how to rescue people who are in danger
  • how to keep safe in deep water
  • and lot's more!
Here is a video of our swimming.

Monday, December 9, 2013

Christmas around the world

In room 7 we are learning about how other cultures around the world celebrate Christmas.

Here is a website that a teacher (Suzanne Williams)  from Florida, USA has set up for us to learn from each other.


On Thursday we are skyping with South Mckeel Academy. They are in Lakeland, Florida, USA.




Here is a Padlet of how we celebrate in NZ so that other children around the world can learn from us! We are adding our ideas in during this week.


What is your favourite part about Christmas and why?

Keep coming back to this post.... we are adding more....

Friday, November 29, 2013

Our 2013 assembly

This morning we performed our assembly to the school. Our theme was "Celebrating  2013"

Listen to our favourite part of our assembly!



Here is a movie about our assembly.....


Wednesday, November 27, 2013

WFW

Today was wrap free Wednesday and we only had 8 people wrap free!!!!! Then we had 24 wraps out of 21 people!!!!!: (  I hope we get a much much much better score next week. Good luck to all the other classes ;  )
From Leah

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

WFW

Today room7 had twelve out of nineteen people wrap free. That is . . . . . 63%. I'm sad to say that we had tewnty wraps out of nineteen!!!! I hope we don't have that much wraps next week. Let's see who wins wrap free wednesday ;)

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Golf Lessons


Here is a video that Aaron put together about our second lesson of golf!

Flying teabag experiment

This is a flying tea bag!!! Try this at home (With an adult).

Why does the teabag fly?
Lighting the top of the teabag cylinder heats the air inside the cylinder. The air molecules start to move more quickly and spread out to take up more space. As the air molecules spread out, the air inside the cylinder becomes less dense. Warm, less dense air rises above cool, dense air. The ash of the teabag is light and doesn't require much force to lift it. As the warm, less dense air rises, it has enough force to lift the ash of the teabag.

Here is the link to the experiment http://www.planet-science.com/categories/experiments/surprise/2011/03/make-a-teabag-fly.aspx


Monday, November 4, 2013

Friday, November 1, 2013

Floating orange Experiment

Yesterday we conducted an experiment using oranges.

We asked the question "Will an orange float in water?" "Will a peeled orange float?"
First we predicted what we thought would happen.



We were amazed that the peeled orange sank to the bottom and the unpeeled oranges floated!!! It was because the orange that still had it's skin has air pockets in it's skin and therefore floats! Wow!

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

WFW

Today in room7 we had 15 out of 20!!!!! WOW that is 75%. The bad thing is that we had 18 wrappers! Hope room7 doesen't have that much wrappers next week!

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Egg Experiment

Today we conducted an egg experiment. We put an egg in regular water and an egg in vinegar to see what would happen.



Look at the changes so far to our egg experiment! It only took half a day for us to notice changes!
What do you notice?
What do you think will happen next?

Throwing Practice


Monday, October 28, 2013

Did you know that raisins can dance?

On Friday we asked the question "Can raisins dance?

Here we are making predictions. Most of us thought 'No, raisins cannot dance!"

Mrs Natusch then explained that we would conduct an experiment to see if raisins could dance using fizzy drink.

We used our prior knowledge from a previous experiment and knew that fizzy drink has CO2/carbon dioxide in it and we knew that made it fizz and produced bubbles!

Here are photos of our experiment;

Raisins in normal water.
We found out that raisins in water sink to the bottom because raisins are more dense than water, therefore they sink. 

Adding raisins to fizzy drink.

Comparing raisins in normal water and fizzy drink. 
 You can the see the bubbles from the fizzy (co2 gas) sticking to the raisins and causing the raisins to rise to the top (dancing on the way). The bubbles pop and release the co2 into the air and then the raisins sink. This process continues until there is no more co2 left in the fizzy drink.

Watch our experiment in action.....






Here is a video explaining how raisins dance; starring Leah and Thomas, produced by Zaric.

This is their first attempt at explaining our experiment  Do you have any questions for them, is there anything that you need clarified or perhaps you would like to just leave them a comment?

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Quadblogging Aotearoa

This week we begin our second round of Quadblogging Aotearoa! Yay!


Each week we visit a new class blog from around NZ, view their work and leave them a comment.

Week 1: Room 4 at Winton School
Week 2: Room 7 at Vardon School.... that's US!!
Week 3: Room 3 at Tauranga Primary   
Week 4:  Room 9 at Takaro School

So this week we visit Room 4 at Winton School. I wonder where this school is? I wonder what other questions we have about Winton School?


Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Wrap free Wednesday

Today it is wrap free Wednesday. We have 11 people wrap free and only 20 people here today. We have a percentage of 55% wrap free.
We only had 3 chippy packets so that means we have achieved our goal of decreasing the number of chippy packets.

Our new goal is to try not to get over 15 wrappers.

By Titus

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Holiday Highlights!

Welcome back to school! It's Term 4 and a busy term is in store for us all!

We hope everyone had a great holiday! Here our are Holiday Highlights below.

Please leave a comment (either on the voicethread or in the blog comment box) about what your holiday highlight was.


Friday, September 27, 2013

End of Term 3

We hope everyone has a great holiday!

See you back in two weeks time ready for a fun, exciting Term 4!

Sneak peek....

  • athletics
  • science experiments 
  • paper mache and screen printing
  • swimsafe lessons
  • End of year picnic in Ngaruawahia
  • and more!!!!

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Kidsedchatnz

Well done to all the children in room 7 today that took part in Kidsedchatnz!

Check out the chosen tweets and the TWEET of the WEEK!

(Thanks to Stephen Baker from RSS for making this cool video!)

Wrap free Wednesday

Today for wrap free Wednesday we had 13 out of 20 people wrap free. We had 18 wrappers. Last week we set a goal that we would have less than 10 chippy wrappers, and today we had 5 chippy wrappers, so mostly we just halfed it. For wrap free Wednesday we got 65%. That is the 3rd highest percentage that we have had so far!!
by Leah

Rakau Sticks




We made our own patterns with the rakau sticks. watch our video to see what patterns we created. 

Monday, September 23, 2013

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Wrap Free Wednesday

Today is Wrap free Wednesday.
We had a 11 wraps out of out of 22 people.
We had 33 wraps in our class.We had 3 gladwrap,10 chip packets, 5 museli bars, 2 strings, 2 biscuit wrappers, 1 pie wrapper and one other wrapper.
 Our goal is reduce our number of chip packets.

written by Tegan

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

#kidsedchatnz

Wednesday 4th September - Topic: Maths

 This week's topic for #kidsedchatnz is Maths! 

 Q1. What have you been learning about in Maths?

 Q2. Tell/Explain a Maths strategy that you have learnt this year?

 Q3. What are some of your favourite activities that you have done in Maths this year?

 Q4. Why is it important to learn about Maths?

 Q5. What are some of your favourite Maths Apps that you use in class?

Here is just a little snapshot of our twitter chat! 






Monday, September 2, 2013

Gym Sport Dance Competition

Today some of us competed in a dance competition. Here are some photos and videos clips of us competing.

 Funky Hip Hoppers



 The Glory Girls (year 3/4)

 2nd Pace for the Cheerleading Team (The Glory Girls)






Ways to make 20

Today the Pentagon's maths group learnt about the ways to make 20. They are learning to recall these facts quickly.






Cross Country

On Friday we had our Junior and Middle Cross Country. 

made by Poppy

made by Thomas

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Our NZ Flag

Should we change the NZ flag?

There has been talk for a while now about changing NZ's flag.
What are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree?



Here are our new designs for a NZ flag.








Sunday, August 25, 2013

Daffodil Day 2013

What amazing and creative ideas do you have for Room 7 to raise awareness for Daffodil day 2013?

We are having a "Daffodil Day" at school on Thursday 29th August (since it's cross country on Friday the 30th). I wonder what we can do to raise awareness on Daffodil day? Add your ideas to our voicethread.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

#kidsedchatNZ

Today at 2pm we have our first #kidsedchatNZ for this term. The topic this week is all about Technology.

Q1. What is your favourite piece of technology you have in the classroom? How do you use it?
Q2. What other technology would you like to have in your classroom?
Q3. What ways have you used technology in the classroom?
Q4. What are your favourite apps/programmes? Why?

Start thinking about how you will answer these questions.
I look forward to reading your tweets! 

Mrs Natusch 

Sunday, August 11, 2013

100 Word Challenge

Look at all the clever writers in room 7!

17 children managed to publish their writing on their blogs and then upload it to the 100WC blog. 

Here is the link to the 100WC blog if you want to visit, read their writing and then make a comment! CLICK HERE