Blast off!

Last term, the school's Integrated Learning topic was EXPLORATION.

In Room 5, we explored what happens when acids and bases are mixed, as well as the energy transformations that occur.

Using the common household acids and bases (ie. vinegar and baking soda), we had fun with some experiments. Some worked better than others but we didn't give up until we succeeded!

The bottle was half-filled with vinegar. A teaspoon of baking soda was placed into a tissue, then the tissue was carefully dropped inside the bottle. A cork was put over the top and, propped up by some pencils, the bottle was flipped over.

As the baking soda and vinegar mixed, a gas was released. This gas built up inside the bottle, increasing the pressure, and eventually BOOM! The bottle flew up into the air!

Here is a more successful attempt!

We invited our parents to school one afternoon in a Celebration of Learning. Our boards were all decorated with everything we learnt over the term. We also showed the parents our experiments and they were impressed with the results!

                      

If you want to find out in more detail the different things we did on the day, visit our individual blogs. We were asked to create and share a slideshow about what we did.

The vinegar/baking soda experiment is really easy - have a go yourself!!

Too much shredded paper!

Our school had a problem...

Too much shredded paper.

We began using the shredded paper in our worm farm and compost bins.. but there was still too much. Unfortunately, shredding paper was something that we could not stop. This is because documents with private information had to be thrown out in a specific way.

We thought about a good way to use the shredded paper. Paper mache? Art? Sculpture?

Then Mr Norman, our principal, gave us some strange looking things. They were heavy and clunky... What on earth were they?!

The Year 6 students in Rūma Rima had no idea what they were. Some thought they were juicers... some thought they were used to squeeze things.

We watched a video about these gadgets.. and found out they were used to make paper logs, or briquettes. The briquettes could be used like firewood and would burn a lot slower than just shredded paper!

The first thing we needed to do was soak the shredded paper in water for about 3-5 days.

Then we had to load the briquette maker with this soaked, shredded paper.

We then used the handles to squeeze out the excess water. This was difficult as some of us had to stand on the handles to get all the water out!

The briquette then was taken out of the mould and put in a tray to dry.

   

Unfortunately, when we went to test if they had dried solid, we found that they'd all fallen apart!

We discussed why this might have happened and also got some advice from our wise caretaker, Henk.

He suggested we add some newspaper or something similar to the white shredded paper. We were also advised to mix the soaking paper every day so that the paper would break down.

There were leftover Scholastic magazines that we also shredded and added to the soaking bins.

Keep watching this space to see how we go next week. Fingers crossed it works!

Bonkers About Basketball!

For the past four weeks, Rūma Rima was involved in a Basketball Programme. Two coaches came to each session and taught us ball skills, different types of passes and how to do a layup.

We were lucky to have Ashleigh taking the class for all four sessions, as well as Toby and Tom from the Canterbury Rams.

 

We found it difficult to control the ball when we were dribbling. We got much better at this by the fourth session!

One of the games we enjoyed was 'Numbers.'

The class was split in two and lined up along the side of half a basketball court. When Ashleigh called out a number, that number of students from each team had to run onto the court and try and get the ball into the hoop by passing, dribbling and shooting the ball.

 

We had fun shooting hoops and were amazed at Tom and Toby's dunk shots!

Heavenly really enjoyed the sessions and was a fantastic basketball player.

We all hope to have another opportunity learning about basketball and developing more skills and knowledge about the game.

We strongly recommend you have a go, too!

Hershey's Kisses

In Rūma Rima, we like to have fun in class!

During one of the lessons on persuasive writing, we were told to go back to our desk to write the next two paragraphs of our persuasive writing.

Mrs Lee had 20 minutes on the clock and we were furiously typing away. About halfway through, Mrs Lee walked around the classroom and placed a Hershey's Kiss on each of our heads. She said it was so that we would not hunch over our devices and improve our sitting posture. She added that, if we kept the chocolate on our head for the remaining time, we would be rewarded with another one!

    

  

Some of us succeeded and got our second chocolate. But some of us didn't.. because Mrs Lee made us nod or shake our heads!

We weren't too sure if the posture exercise was successful, but it sure got a lot of us thinking about different persuasive writing topics, eg. Mrs Lee should not distract us when we are working!

Nailed It!

To mark the end of our baking adventures, the Year 6 students of Room 5 had a 'Nailed It!' competition. The students were divided into four groups and given a vanilla cupcake recipe.

        

 

They also received a picture of what they had to recreate on their cupcakes.

Shall we have a look at the final creations?

Group 1: Sesame Street

This is what they created....

NAILED IT!

Group 2: Cute Dogs

This is what they created....

NAILED IT!

Group 3: Farmyard Animals

This is what they created...

NAILED IT!!

Group 4: Nature

This is what they created....

NAILED IT!!

The cupcakes were judged based on taste and how similar their finished products were to the picture.

Here are the winners:

Best Individual Decoration: Blue Dog (created by Kylie)

Best Overall Decoration: Sesame Street

Best Cupcake (taste): Cute Dogs

The decoration was created using white icing and... food colouring! There were many multi-coloured hands by the end of the session! The students found it much harder than they thought to model the icing. One group did not follow the recipe properly, making their cupcake batter very runny! Can you guess which group that was?

What do you think of our creations? Which cupcake would you judge as being the best?

Pink Shirt Day, 2019

On Friday, our school joined in with many other schools around the country, and had a Pink Shirt Mufti Day in support of the anti-bullying campaign. If we did not own a pink shirt, we were allowed to wear anything pink. We were also challenged to bring something pink for our lunchbox!

We had some very generous donations from parents and students, ranging from strawberry icing strawberry cake, to strawberry milk... to dessert skittles with pink packaging!

Luckily, we were able to use this sugar in our Cluster Winter Sports that afternoon (and not in the classroom).

Bullying is not ok!

Let's continue making a stand against bullying and respect everyone's differences, just as Jesus did.

Remember: We were all made perfectly by God! ♡

Baking Madness!

Last week, our school teachers went to a Paid Union Meeting on different days. We did this to stop having to close the school. Teachers who went to the meeting split their classes up among the remaining teachers.

When Miss Satherley went to her meeting, Rūma Rima was privileged to have half of Room 2 joining us after lunch.

Rūma Rima made gingerbread cookies in preparation for the little ones coming into our class.

Then we all decorated our own cookie, using lots (and lots!) of icing. We were also given some mini M&Ms and marshmallows, as well as some chocolate drops.

Here are our creations!

   

                 

Kia kaha, Christchurch!

In response to the horrific incident in Christchurch two weeks ago, Rūma Rima created a sign to put outside our school for cars and people passing by to see. The sign was made to show our support for the members of our community who were effected by the incident.

We discussed what it meant when Jesus told us to love one another. We also discussed what our school value of Compassion meant and applied this to specific examples in our lives.

With the only instruction being that the shape had to be a heart, each one of us chose to either write a word or draw a picture inside it to express love and compassion.

We collated all the images together into a slideshow.

If you were to draw something to represent love or compassion, what would it be?

What word do you associate with love and compassion?

May the peace of God be with you all!

With love,

Rūma Rima

Athletics Day 2019

Last Thursday, we had our annual Athletics Day.

All of our training and practice was put to the test: shot put, high jump, long distance running, sprints and relays. Many of us were nervous about the day, but we had a lot of fun overall.

We went in our year groups around four rotations but gathered as a school for sprints and relays.

We are all very proud of our achievements!

Here is a slideshow of what we enjoyed the most and what we were the most proud of!

Class Treaty 2019

Each year, the class learns about te Tiriti o te Waitangi.

We learn about the importance of a treaty in the classroom, too.

We used our school values of Compassion, Excellence, Responsibility and Respect to come up with some promises to keep in the classroom.

We wrote our names on a piece of paper to show we agree with the articles on our class treaty. If someone was to not follow the treaty, the whole class becomes responsible as we are all a collective group!

As part of our classroom treaty, we wrote when we belong at school and when we feel respected at school on the orange and blue feathers.

The feathers were cut out and the stencil used to create a background for the feathers to be layered on.

We have become more compassionate towards each other and respectful because of this treaty.

Do you have a class treaty?

Is there anything in your treaty that is similar to ours?