Windmills

In our theme, Always Take the Weather With You, we have discovered that wind is just moving air. This means that we can make wind!  We made windmills which we could turn by puffing.  However, it was much more exciting to go out on a windy day and let the real wind do the job for us!

Technology Challenge

The whole school was involved in a Technology Challenge.  In Room 19, our challenge was to use hydraulics to move an object.  We found that hydraulics works when a force is applied to one end of a closed system - this makes the other end rise up.  We used syringes, tubing and water to make our hydraulics systems.

We worked in small groups to design and make a machine that used hydraulics.  In total, we made rocket launch pads, drawbridges, a dump truck, a tissue puller, a houses lift, a boat lift and marble runs.  At the end of the week, we demonstrated how our inventions worked to Room 9, and they showed us their house designs.  After that, we had time to share our inventions with the other Year 3 classes.

Everyone working hard on their designs.

Always Take the Weather With You

The last theme of the year, called Always Take the Weather With You, was about weather; we worked out what weather actually is and how it works.

We poured water onto the concrete to make a puddle, and drew a chalk line around it.

When we cam out an hour later, we found the water had disappeared.  In fact, all that was left was the chalk line.  The water could not soak into concrete, but it could rise up into the air if the sun warmed it enough.  We thought that is what had happened.  Scientists call this phenomena evaporation.

Observing changes in the weather is sometimes difficult to do,  so we made models to help us we see the general idea in the classroom.  In this scientific model, water  is the atmosphere, shaving foam is the cloud, and water droplets that are in the cloud are represented by blue dye.  

Can you see what happened after you had waited for a while? The 'rain' is starting the fall through the 'cloud'.

For this scientific model, we had to use an aquarium full of tap water for the atmosphere.  We coloured hot water with red dye and poured some in a glass jar which we carefully lowered into the water using a string lassoed around the jar.  At the same time, we placed ice cubes which were coloured with blue dye on the surface of the water.  Then we sat back to observe.  We could see the red water rising, and the blue water sinking.  This models exactly what happens in a thunderstorm.  As hot air rises and cold air sinks, they swirl together which  results in a thunderstorm.

Science Tournament

Cockle Bay sent a Year 3 team and a Year 4 team to the Science Trumps Tournament 2016 at Point View.  The teams rotated around ten stations and played against ten teams from different schools.  It was a fabulous way to network with other schools who were also interested in Science.

We had to work out how to use magnetic forces to throw rings into the air.

We had to answer questions as a team to gain points against our opponents.

We were awarded the maximum of 10 points when we instructed the robot to walk with us around the set course.

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Ancient Rome

In our theme, Ancient Civilisations, we are learning about Ancient Rome.

We made catapults using soft drink cans, forks and rubber bands.  They projected tinfoil weapons in a similar way to the military catapults used by the armies in Ancient Rome.

Instead of books, people in Ancient Rom read from scrolls.  We made our own scrolls so we could read Roman numerals and phrases in Latin, like 'Adsum" which means "I am here" when we answer the roll.

Roman aqueduct

We made a model of a roman aqueduct.  We watched how water travelled from the mountains, across the valley to the hills and down into the reservoir in the city.  Here the sediments in the water sank to the bottom and the clean water at the top flowed through pipes into the house, and finally trickled into baths and sinks in the home.

Term 2 finished with a bang!

We made fizz bombs to end Term 2 with a bang!  First everyone wrote their own set of procedures to make a fizz bomb and numbered,  labelled diagrams.  When our written procedures were finished, we worked with a buddy.  We had to follow each step in the right sequence.  We had to work carefully to divide the film canister into thirds so that we could pour water up to the one third mark.  Next we had to break the Alka Seltzer tablet into quarters.  We found it was easier to first break it in half, and then break the half into half again, so that we ended up with four quarters.  It was important to add the tablet to the water outside, and very quickly snap the lid on tightly so no gas could escape.  To start with, we had a couple to explosions in the classroom when we weren't quick enough!

Shaun and Kylie marked their film cannister carefully into thirds; then Shaun snapped the tablet into quarters.

We let our fizz bombs explode outside; it was funny waiting because you couldn't predict accurately when they would explode.  We had enough materials left over to make more with the Junior Science Club at lunchtime - by then, we were experts!

Our work bench

We have set up a work bench in Room 19 with a range of screw drivers where we can dismantle electrical equipment to see what is inside and how it may work.  So far, we have worked on electric kettles, toasters, lap tops and mobile phones.   

UN-WANTED ELECTRICAL ITEMS OR PHONES ARE ALWAYS WANTED - 

PLEASE DONATE THEM TO ROOM 19 IF YOU NO LONGER NEED THEM.

Science investigation with water and salt

We investigated what would happened if we carefully added dye to water - first to plain water and secondly to water with salt added, that is a saturated salt solution.

We had to practise our close observation skills and really think about what we were seeing.
We were surprised by the different results.

Butterfly Hospital

We were surprised to find one lone chrysalis in our Butterfly Garden late in Autumn.  Unfortunately the chysalis dropped from its branch as the butterfly was emerging.  The butterfly's wings were bent over and unable to dry out properly so we very carefully brought it into Room 19 to dry out.

Mothers' Day flowers

For Mothers' Day, we gave our mums a flower, but not just any flower - a flower that we had created specially!  First we made different coloured solutions in test tubes, using dye from our art cupbaord.  Then we placed the white flowers in the test tubes.  The flowers sucked the dye up their stems by capillary action.  After a few hours, the dye travelled right up into the petals which changed colour, depending on the dye used - we created yellow, pink, red, blue and green flowers out of the original white ones.

Zones of the Ocean

We have been learning about the zones in the ocean and the different sea creatures that are adapted to live there: the sunlight zone where seaweed was grow, the twilight zone which still gets some sunlight filtering down and the midnight zone where they is no light at all (the vast layers of seawater above blocks it out completely).

We watched videos, read library books and researched on the internet to investigate the different environments and sea life.  Then we made out own classroom display of the ocean.

We started with the midnight zone.  We shaded the blue paint with black to get a very deep shade of blue.

The twilight zone was next,.

We blended in plenty of white paint to make the correct shade of blue for the sunlight zone.

We added the continental shelf, seaweed and weeds, but most importantly, all the sea creatures we had researched and grouped by zone.

Maritime Museum

On Wednesday we went to the Maritime Museum with Room 18 to find out about the sea that surround us in Auckland; how we can care for it and how we can enjoy it.

We travelled from Howick to the City by bus.

We identified sea creatures you could expect to find on the coast line.

We found out what it would be like to be caught in a fishing net, as catch or sadly as by-catch.

We had to wear life jackets when we were in or near the water.

We could try our hand at sailing in the museum. 

We looked closely at sea life under the pontoon.

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.