Monday 30 March 2015

Frogs!

7/8T have had the pleasure and wonder of watching the science room tadpoles become frogs.  We now have five Whistling Tree frogs in the science room and the boys love watching out for them.

Can you spot four of our frogs?



Living Things

Year One have just had their first science sessions with me.

In their classroom they have been having amazing experiences and discussions based around their monarch butterflies and frogs that live in their classroom.  The boys have learnt about metamorphosis and watched as the two have changed from caterpillars and tadpoles into butterflies and frogs.







Carrying on with the living world, we looked at plants and what they need to grow.  The boys then got to make their own grass head man and we have planted some beans seeds to watch them grow.  I can't wait to see the little men begin to sprout hair!


Seaweek

Being right on the edge of the sea, we couldn't let Seaweek pass without appreciating our amazing environment.
Seaweek is a nation wide event where community groups and schools participate in a range of activities.  Around Wellington, there were a number of events that the public were invited to attend.

At Wellesley, the Year 4 classes and 5P ventured down to the rock pools on Wednesday during low tide.  Many of the boys had never spent time in our rock pools and boy were they in for a surprise!  They were amazed at the large number and huge variety of species that they found.  Boys were able to catch all sorts of small fish and small crayfish.  Of course we also saw the usual sea anemones, limpets, chitons, starfish, crabs and snails.







I finished Seaweek in Year 5P for the day so we decided to go down and clean up the beach.  We always make the most of Days Bay and always get some much enjoyment from being down there so this time it was nice to do something back.
The boys were very enthusiastic and armed with rubber gloves and plastic bags, we scoured the beach and collected a surprising amount of rubbish.  Thank you 5P.





Our Stream Study

The Year Five classes have just finished learning about our stream.  They've done all sorts of research in their classroom and then with me, we've done some practical investigations in the stream.
Using various equipment, the classes have learnt how to measure the speed of the stream, how to take the temperature, how to conduct a quadrant count and how to use a water clarity meter.




The boys really enjoyed getting into the stream and it was great to see them beginning to take note of the condition of the stream and what they could do to improve it.




One of the highlights had to be feeding the eels.  Depending on how quiet we could be, at times we saw up to four different eels.  The boys loved hearing them swim upstream, splashing and swimming over the rocks and logs.



Monday 9 March 2015

Dr Stirling's Rockets

A couple of weeks ago we were really lucky to have Jack's Dad come in to our science and technology session and share his love of rockets with us.  He had made all sorts of bottle rockets and talked to the boys about different design shapes and construction ideas.

We  then went outside to watch how the different rockets travelled.  Dr Stirling had made a special rocket launcher and some of the boys were able to help him launch the rockets.  It was so much fun.  His rockets went really high, the boys thought it was great!







We came back into class all inspired and ready to make our own rockets.  Dr Stirling stayed to help us make our rockets so we would be all ready to launch next week.


Thank you Dr Stirling for coming in and share your rockets and enthusiasm!