Shadows, Sun and Scientists

We were doing a whole lot of noticing this morning being the keen scientists that we are.  Did you know that leaves have lines like our palms have lines!? (Thanks Sarah for making that link).  While we were playing shadow tag for fitness we thought, hey why don't we draw around our shadows and see what happens to them over the day!   The shadows in the photo's below are at 2pm. The blue outline was drawn at 10am.  We made sure we stood in the same place both times.

We noticed:

• The sun was on a different side of the sky at 2pm.  Everyone said the sun moved - this will be something to explore while we study space this term.
• The sun was 'behind' (on the base side of) the shadow both times.  If you are facing your shadow the sun is behind you.  
• At 10am we could see the moon.  It was shaped like a banana and was almost opposite the sun.
• Our shadows were a little bit shorter at 2pm.  They were still gigantic though compared to us!
• At 2pm we had no shadow sometimes.  This happened when there was 'no sun'.  We decided this was because the clouds covered the sun.  We are sure now the sun makes our shadows.

When we looked at this photo we noticed Aikona, Elina, Tayla and Luque's shadows are all going in the same direction.  They all look like they are standing in a line, but the four of them are not!  Hmmm...

Aikona came up with a great idea to draw an arrow showing the direction his shadow moved.  The yellow outline is at 2pm.

We wonder what happens to our shadow, between the two shadows?  Some of us think our shadows will get bigger, some of us think they will get smaller and some of us think they will disappear.  We will have to see tomorrow and have a look at 12pm!  What do you think?

Other thoughts we had were: are there shadows at night - we think yes because of the moon.  We also started to think about how Jemima (our wonderful friend who moved to England) sleeps when we are awake - in some parts of the world it is night while in others it is day.  Something to explore!!!!!

Until next time, this is A3 Mad Scientists over and out.

There's an arachnid in the class!

Our wonderful Jonathan LOVES bugs.  He delights us with them every week.  Jonathan has showcased a huge variety of local insect life for us to inspect!!!

Today he brought in the biggest spider we've ever seen with our own eyes.  It is called a Miturga in Australia, and a Uliodon in New Zealand.  It's common names are a Vagrant Spider or a Prowling Spider. 

We had to take this photo super fast because we could only open the lid for a short time... and we didn't want to get too close (they bite, but are not poisonous).  You can see how big it is compared to a lavender head!!!

Use the link below for close up photo's.
http://www.terrain.net.nz/friends-of-te-henui-group/spiders/vagrant-spider.html

Bubble, bubble, pop!

B is for Bubbles!

We had a lot of fun blowing bubbles while thinking about the sound 'b'.  We briefly brainstormed our first ideas and words about bubbles, and what we saw and experienced.  Here are just a few...

• "a floating marble"
• "slippery"
• "colourful"
• "bubbles all colours of the rainbow"
• "flying everywhere, a bubble passed Bree"
• "the bubble is like a balloon and it popped in my face"
• "heaps of bubbles everywhere"
• "I saw one in Aikona's hair.  I popped it, and he didn't notice."
• "swirly metalic colours"
• "a bubble sat at the end of my stick"
• "POP!"
• "I tried blowing on a bubble and it didn't pop!"
• "the bubble mixture is gooey"
• "bubbles pushed together"

Can you think of anymore ideas? - post a comment!

Tomorrow we will think more about how they move, what they look and feel like and what it might be like to be a bubble.  I can't wait to see what amazing stories everyone writes tomorrow.  We will post a few once we have written them.

April's Calendar Challenge

Here are the winning entries (in no particular order) for April's 'name and place that wild animal' challenge.  You all went above and beyond.

Congratulations Samuel C! We loved the photo's, and super cool to see you presenting it in your own handwriting (...and in your rather fantastic self inspired home writing book, what an inspiration!!!)

Congratulations, Luque!  The cool thing about your entry is how you asked questions and answered them, "5 facts about Orangutan's" is a really catchy title.  You alerted us to orangutan's being an endangered animal and why.  These kinds of issues are really important to talk about because God gave us all the job of looking after the earth and what he made.

Congratulations Sarah!  It is really fabulous how you brought together facts, an acrostic poem you wrote, diagrams and pictures.  A superb variety, showing creativity and a personal touch.  An AWESOME entry!