Clouds, Friends and Experiments

Morning Group:

The weather report was for heavy rain on the way, so we made sure to get outside as soon as we could before it came.

Today's book was The Cloudspotter by Tom McLaughlin. We talked about shapes we imagined in the clouds, as well as how we sometimes like to be alone and at other times, with friends.

The sky was full of clouds, dark, grey and thick. So there weren't too many shapes to find, unless a blanket shape counts. But we had another mission today - to enjoy time with our friends and see how playing with each other made things more fun.

Friends up high

The Rubbish Catcher, designed and made by friends

Look at the hole in the ground we found!

Brooding clouds

Friends in high places!

The tide was high

Problem solving - how can we cross this water?

Problem solved with lots of team work

Swing discovery on the other side 

Some of us saw a little eel in this tunnel. It will need some serious exploration later!

For home:
- Enjoy looking up at the clouds one day. What shapes can you find? Why not make up a story, picture or song about what you discover?
- Think about your friends and why you like them. Who are your best friends and why? (Family does count too!) You might want to make something nice for one of them.

Afternoon Group:

Picture books can also be helpful for us older ones. What Floats in A Moat by Lynne Berry was a good story to help us think more about what actually makes things float and sink.

We experimented with floating 'barrels' like those in the story - full, empty and half filled, then discussed the results.

Another experiment was to see how much water was displaced when different objects were placed in a full tub. We also noticed that when we put our hands straight into the water, fingers first, there was much less resistance than if we submerged them horizontally, palm down. Everything displaces its own weight in water. The space it takes on the surface is what determines if it floats or sinks. If it can displace its weight in water before it sinks, it will float.

Our challenge for the afternoon was to work in teams with limited materials to create a boat that could hold the heaviest weight. Both teams worked hard and their boats were each able to float while holding half a jar of water. Well done!

For home:
Continue thinking about your own rafts - are you covering enough surface to ensure they float with your weights on them?
If it's sunny next week, bring your rafts so far so we can check them out and help out if needed.

Holes and Testing Theories

Morning Group:

Two of our group members brought a huge spade to the group last week and we were all impressed with how it made digging holes in the sand so much easier.

So when I found 'Sam and Dave Dig a Hole' by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen at the library, I knew we needed to 'dig deeper' and think about holes this week!

After reading the story, we talked about holes. If we were to dig through to the other side of the world, where would we end up? What would we find along the way?

We also discussed how deep we thought we could dig. Time to pull out the measuring tapes and rulers to talk about measurement and centimetres. We had a practise with estimating and measuring items around the room before we got ready to go to the beach for our challenge - dig the DEEPEST holes we could!

Practising estimating, then measuring lengths.

We got down to the beach and enjoyed a good dig and play. We measured the size of the holes we made along the way and collected any 'treasures' we discovered along the way. One really interesting find was a large brick about 45cm deep in one hole. Could it have been a part of the boat sheds that were destroyed in a big storm in the 1920s that we learned about from Alan last term?

We had a great time at the beach, digging and playing. All too soon, our time was up and we headed back to base for lunch and to end our time together.

Already, we can see differences in the sand with the very first dig!

How do we fairly measure a hole's depth?

Helping each other measure

It wasn't all about holes - we found mud and bugs too!

Playing with sand is fun!

Brick archaeology

The mighty brick!

Water at 60cm depth

Digging IN the hole!

What made this hole?

Mud art

Time to create a kingdom for little people!

A mini playground

Path to a little house

The kingdom for little people from above. See the butterfly shape?

Filling in the holes before we leave. Can't have anyone fall into them!

Afternoon Group:

After deciding last week to focus on Floating and Sinking, this week was all about figuring out what made things float or sink.

We created a Venn diagram of things that floated, sunk or did both. Some of our initial predictions, such as, 'Light things float and heavy things sink' were questioned. (A light pebble sinks and heavy ships float - why?)

Words like 'surface area', 'density', and 'air' came up as we tried to explain why we thought some things floated, some sank and some did either both or hovered mid-way in the water - what's that called?

It was time to test some of our theories by collecting items, predicting what they would do, then seeing whether they floated or sank.

Predicting what will float and sink - then trying

Many discoveries!

We then got given a piece of paper each and used ideas we discovered in our experimentation to try and create a 'super boat' that would stay afloat the longest, even when the water got rough!

The paper boat challenge. Which one will survive the whirlpool and storm?

We ended our time together by discussing our ideas for making rafts and making designs on paper. Wow - some fabulous ideas! Plan to make your rafts at home and we will use class time to experiment more with floating and sinking at first, then fine-tuning our rafts as the term progresses. The plan is to have a raft day at the end!

To think about at home: What makes things float or sink? Try and be as specific as you can. You may want to do some research and more experimentation to help you find out. 

One for the Birds

Welcome to Term 4! It was great to see so many of our group again, as well as welcoming some new children. We have changed things up a bit - now, the mornings are for the younger children and after lunch, the older ones have a chance to go a bit more in-depth with learning.


MORNING GROUP:

We started the day by imagining we could fly - it turns out that many of us have already imagined this. What would it be like to be a bird?

After reading Michael Morpugo's "All I Said Was", we realised that birds can have a rough time too.

Challenge time! We set out for the forest and beach with a mission - to notice anything to do with birds.

We didn't see too much at first, so enjoyed playing in the big tree and near the high tide mark, digging holes and watching them fill with water.

Then it was time to look carefully for evidence of birds as we walked down the beach to the tunnel and back. I challenged children to try and find ten things but some found more than 50!

We had a special treat on the way back - a duck with her three tiny ducklings came out of a tunnel near us, so we watched them for a long time.

Back at base, we discussed what things were good and not so good for the birds of Howick Beach. We noticed that rubbish and pollution were problems and looked at some of the rubbish we had found on the beach. One of the ducklings had a sore foot and we wondered if they had maybe stepped on glass.

We learned the song, "Three Little Birds" and talked about how we can help the birds around us to not 'worry about a thing', like the song says. Some children had great suggestions for making their gardens bird friendly, cleaning up litter in public places and letting others know how litter or pollution can hurt the birds.



Ideas for home:

- What evidence of birds do you see where you live? What positive and negative things do you see? Is there any way you can make the birds in your garden have a safer, better life?

- Be a bird watcher and listener! Birds are noisiest at dawn and dusk, but if you listen carefully, you can find them throughout the day. Many people make a hobby of bird watching. They sit very quietly and birds sometimes come right up to them because they don't feel threatened. Some bird watchers carry binoculars to see birds super close up!

- Imagine you are a bird for a day. What kind of bird would you be and what adventures would you have? You could write a story or make a video of it!


AFTERNOON GROUP

Today was a time to figure out what we enjoy learning, what are challenges and what we would like to work on together this term.

We walked down to the beach and wrote down the names of things we saw on a big piece of paper. Then we made questions for each word - the only catch was that we were not allowed to write questions that we already knew the answers for.

From then, we discussed the questions that interested us the most and ideas we had for exploring the learning areas more.

The group came up with so many good questions that it was hard to choose favourites. A voting process helped us narrow it down to six main themes: Birds, Floating and Sinking, Rocks and Sand, Trees and Plants, Water, and Light.

We settled on Floating and Sinking to be the first theme we would explore. The children would like to make rafts and boats while thinking about effective design, experience boating or kayaking, test different items to see what makes them float or sink and see if there is a difference with floating and sinking in fresh or salty water. Sounds like FUN!

The biggest challenge this week is to think about where and how to store a raft that we want to make together. Any ideas? Bring them next week! Any other ideas for activities are welcome - tell us next week or leave them in the comments.