Frosted curls and a golden star

Despite today being the shortest day of 2016, we finally replanted our Room 10 garden! We read the information labels, planned our plot and measured the distance between each plant. Lots of digging, lots of earth and lots of smiles as we watched our garden take shape. We will water and watch to see how our native grasses and other plants grow. The coprosma, Golden Star, reminds us of Matariki.

What is the area of our garden?

We are learning about area. We are learning to measure the area of a rectangle. We started by working with a buddy to find out how many squares of paper it took to cover our paper "garden".  We all agreed that it took 18 squares.

Measuring my hand span - by Zion

What time is it?

The sun was shining ... we were thinking about Maui slowing the sun. We were reminded about the history of time, clocks ... and sundials. Can we tell the time using the sun?

We discovered that we can tell the time using a sundial ... on a sunny day ... but that the shadow moved "the wrong way" (anti-clockwise) because we live in the southern hemisphere!

Now that this time has passed, we're waiting for another sunny day to find out how challenging it is to harness the sun's energy.

Who has the longest perimeter?

To check what we know about measuring length, we each measured our perimeter.  We agreed that we would use centimetres as our unit of measurement. Most of us predicted that Bella would have the longest perimeter in Room 10 as she is quite tall.

We worked with two buddies so we could help each other.  First of all, while one of us made the biggest shape we could, our buddies drew the shape.  Next it was time to measure the four sides of the shape accurately.  We worked out the perimeter by adding the length of the four sides together.

After finding the longest perimeter in each group, we compared measurements to decide the longest perimeter in Room 10.  Yes, our prediction was correct: it was Bella.  She made a shape with a perimeter of 584 cm.

The next Valerie Adams?

Yesterday we practised throwing the shot putt before the opening of the Room 9 and 10 team games next week.  How far did they go?