Little Gardens

Everyone in Room 19 planted seeds to make a New World Little Garden.  Some planted seeds to grow herbs, other people to grow vegetables.  We drew one statistical graph to show how many different seeds we planted (19 in all), and another graph to show the rate at which the seeds sprouted (between 2 days and 3 weeks!)

We also have watched our sweet peas growing from tiny seedlings to thick wall of foliage.  There are enough flowers to pick a small bunch twice a week.  Sometimes we have some in Room 19, but other times we take a vase full to Mrs Bigwood, Mrs Gartland or our buddy class.

Lolly Butterflies for the CBS Carnival

Every class was responsible for making a particular treat for the carnival.  Room 19 made lolly butterflies.  After we had spent so much time and effort making them, many class members bought one in the Willy Wonka Sweet Factory on carnival day - Mrs Bear even bought two!

Paula wrote our beautiful signage for the Willy Wonka Sweet Factory

A finished lolly butterfly - (almost) too good to eat!

First we wriggled into surgical gloves, and then we choose 20 lollies - there were HUNDREDS to choose from!

It was important to make the butterfly wings symmetrical so we chose two of each colour and grouped them in two identical piles.

To make the wings, we carefully placed one half of the lollies in one corner of the bag, and the others in the opposite corner.   

We folded the bag in half and then clipped on a peg for the body.  We curled pipe cleaners to make antennae.  Zinay's Grandma helped us glue sparkly pompoms and googly eyes on the body with a hot glue gun.

When we had used up all the sweets, we counted how many lolly butterflies we had made - 88!  Then we calculated how much money we would make if we sold each one for $2.  Different people used different strategies to work out the correct answer - $176.

Nappy Science

We fused Science and Maths together to investigate the capacity of disposable nappies to hold liquid.  We decided to dye the water pale yellow so it would look more authentic.  The girls slowly poured water in small amounts of 200ml.  Their girls' nappy held 1,000mml or 1 litre before it overflowed.  The boys poured water in  larger 500ml amounts  They found that their boy nappy held 950ml before it overflowed.

Afterwards we shredded a nappy and found tiny crystals hidden in the fabric of the nappy.  We collected these crystals together into one plastic cup and left the other two empty.  Then we poured water into all three cups and switched them around.  Some people were unlucky and choose the wrong one - water poured out of the plastic cup onto their hair, but a few people choose the one with the crystals.  These had absorbed all the water and formed a white gel.  We enjoyed playing with this in our fingers - it felt cold and squishy.

Terrific Triangles

In Science Week, we fused Science into our Maths programme.  We used forces (which can be a push or a pull, although in this case we used a pull) to make triangles of every shape and size using elastic bands and string.  We knew our shapes were all triangles because, no matter the shape, they all had three straight sides.  When we had finished making triangles, we drew them using our rulers to keep the lines super straight.

Each person in our team pulled on their string to make a group triangle

We had to divide the string into thirds so we could cut three pieces which were all the same length.

We had to mark the elastic band into thirds, and then tie a piece of string on each mark.

Working with tens

Travis practised making tens using a number line on an ipad.

The Jet Streamers made all the numbers with ten up to 20 using peg boards - great co-operative work.

Our Butterfly Garden

We have converted the tub outside Room 19 into a Butterfly Garden.  Come and have a look at the Monarch caterpillars as they grow bigger and bigger.

First we spread the new garden soil evenly over the garden.  We checked that is was 3 centimetres all over using our rulers.

Then we spread the sheep pellets evenly over the new soil.  We measured the garden with a metre ruler and found that it was 1 metre wide and 2 1/2 metres long. Mrs Bear bought a 8kg bag of sheep pellets to make the soil super healthy for the swan plants.  Some strong people lifted it up to see how heavy 8 kilogram felt.  The instructions on the bag said we had to use 2 kg of pellets for each square metre so we used 5 kg.  Mrs Bear said that there was enough left over the make some tasty sheep pellet sandwiches, but we said that was OK, we would keep them to use in our next garden instead. 

After we had planted the swan plants we searched for caterpillars.  We had to use our eagle eyes and magnifying glasses because some baby ones were only one centimetre long.  We counted 22 altogether.

Our job now is to water the swan plants and keep the caterpillars safe, by using our eyes and not our fingers to follow their progress.

Cicada Maths

Our challenge was to collect as many cicada shells as we could . . . and we beat all earlier records by collecting 1,769.

First of all, we placed them on a 100s board and then sorted them into tubes of ten to make it easier to count such a huge number.  Next we counted out ten tubes of ten to make larger pots of one hundred. We had to carefully balance ten lots of one hundred to make one thousand.  Some people used the flip chart to show the final number, and other people used the magnetic number boards.

It was interesting to find out that the tubes of ten cicadas actually sounded a bit like cicadas chirping when we banged them together.

It has been very helpful using the cicada tubes of ten to count in tens when we have been working out doubles.

First we counted in ones.

When we had one hundred, we put cicadas in groups of ten.

The 100 frame helped us with our sorting 

This is what 1,769 cicada skins look like!

Some people showed the total on the flip board, while others used the magnetic number frames. 

We also wrote the total on the whiteboard.  We had to change the final total from 1 729 to 1 769
after someone found four tubes of ten  hidden under a table!

The noise we made when we banged the tubes together was very similar to cicadas chirping.

The Awesome Acrobatics used the cicadas to help them solve doubles with tens.

Maths about Me

 In Maths, we have all made a Maths About Me page.  We had to measure length in centimetres to work out how tall we were and what the circumference of our head was.  We used Mr Bear's bathroom scales to measure how heavy we were in Kilograms.  We checked the postcode app to find out the right postcode for our home address. You can see everyone's Maths About Me page on the Maths page.

Tesselations

You can see the longest tesselation (a pattern made of repeating shapes) we have made in Room 19 this  year - you can even see the makers peeking over the table!  

Statistics - our favourite things we like to do

We made a graph about our favourite things to do.  It was interesting to find out that some people liked the same things and others not.  However, the lines were sometimes difficult to follow so then we made a picture graph using the same criteria.  We found this easier to read and to make comparisons.  We found most people chose swimming as their favourite holiday activity, but we were able to make lots of other statistical statements based on the data