Thursday 24 March 2016

Thinking about Easter - Science and devotions go together!

WHAT JESUS DID ON THE CROSS

We conducted a science experiment today to illustrate what Jesus dying on the cross means for us. This is the second experiment we have conducted to do this now. Science is great!

Here is what we did...


The coin represents us. We have value. The coloured water represents our sin
   






The candle represents Jesus.







Jesus took our sin away.







We tried the experiment a couple of times to see what happened if we added more or less water.








You can see the sin disappearing. 
Jesus is amazing!









A few scientific ponderings...
We noticed:
  • the flame was yellow/orange
  • the flame moved
  • it was shaped like part of an oval
  • the flame went out after a little bit of time, once the glass had been put over the candle.
  • the water went into the glass much quicker when there was more of it.
We wondered why the flame went out. A few students came up with a few ideas...
  • "Maybe it is cold inside the glass" Amber
  • "Maybe because of the air" Peter
We wondered if we could make the flame come back if we pulled the glass away quick enough - WE COULD, but you had to be quick before the flame completely disappeared.

We wondered how the coloured water got into the glass?
Micah said, "maybe there are tunnels in the glass". He used a magnifying glass to see if he could see any but he couldn't. He felt around the rim and felt a tiny dip that could not be seen. It still remains a mystery...something to think about :)

After our experiments, everyone is pretty keen to study Science as our theme next term. I'll see what I can do A5. I have to say, I like your chances. You are definitely showing signs of being super scientists!

Recycling Centre Visit (Reduce, Reuse, RECYCLE)


We're off! On the bus... exciting!
Listening to Pip our educator in the Recycling Centre's Education Room
Our recycling goes all over the world to be made into new things.
That mound you can see out the window is the old landfill covered over. The Recycling Centre site used to be a landfill for 57 years.
Safety glasses... check! High vis vests... check! Covered shoes... check! We are safe to go inside the Recycling Centre...

It smells in here!
Keeping together, keeping safe.
Workers sort the recycling travelling on a conveyor belt.


The end of the conveyor belt.
This is the landfill pile. Sometimes people put things in their recycling that cannot be recycled :(
Soooooo much rubbish!!! ...and this is just the Manawatu's! Pretty eye opening.
This is the paper recycling pile. Pretty glad this gets reused!


Outside the milk bottles are squashed and put in bales for shipping.

Imagine if our City Council did not have a way of managing our rubbish. Our houses might start to look like this! Rubbish is hard to keep tidy. The wild wind will whistle and blow wherever it pleases. Not very safe and healthy for us or God's animals. We really need to be good caretakers of God's beautiful world!

What we can recycle (left) and what we can't recycle (right) in Palmerston North.


Goodbye Pip and our Recyling Centre. We learnt a lot and loved our visit!

LITTERLESS LUNCH BOX (REDUCE, Reuse, Recycle)

Our theme topic this term is:
'CARETAKERS OF GOD'S WORLD'
We are learning how to be good caretakers of God's beautiful creation. We're not just leaving it to the adults! God gave the job to everyone.

Mrs Goodall from Zerowaste came to talk to us about rubbish; what it is, where it goes and how to REDUCE it. We especially learnt how to reduce rubbish in our lunch boxes. She came over two sessions.

In the first session we counted how many pieces of rubbish we were sending to the landfill (aka into God's soil) from our lunch boxes. We also looked at what we could RECYCLE or REUSE.

In session two we talked about better packaging choices, while still eating around-about the same things. Here are some photo's of session two...
















Mrs Goodall gave us some awesome information. Here she is showing us the landfill options.



Mrs Goodall showed us how we can create less rubbish while still having our chippie treat. She suggested buying a big packet of chips instead of the small ones and to put a few in a plastic container.


The litterless options are on the left and the litter options are on the right.

We worked in groups to test our knowledge and see if we could sort lunch options into litterless or landfill.


Tuesday 22 March 2016

So proud of these pirates!

This was just too gorgeous not to share! 
Mele and Sophia did an AMAZING job of their reading today. They read three books about Jolly Roger: two warm up books they had read before and one new one.

They put their words together so their reading sounded like talking - great phrasing girls. You are becoming fantastically fluent. I loved your expression!
...I also spy others in the background working hard on their Reading activities (well done you guys!)



You can see towards the end of their reading how many strategies Mele and Sophia used to work out any tricky words. Not only that, but they also thought about what would make sense with the story. They had a really good handle on what was going on in all three books. Honestly, I was so blown away I almost fell over. Talk about doing what good readers do. You guys rock! I am so proud.
Mrs Forrest xx


Tuesday 8 March 2016