The Great Marble Challenge

Last week in Te Ngahere we did a Marble Run Challenge. We had to build ramps with any random objects around the class with our groups. As well as building the ramp we learnt new things like variables and friction. Variables are very important throughout testing because any change that we made was a variable and something that needed to be consistently done. Also we learnt about friction. We learnt that rolling the marble on a table is a different surface than rolling it on the ground, because the mat has more friction so the ball can come to a complete stop but the table will let the ball roll until it falls off. Before test day we had to write a list of instructions to give to another group to build your ramp. The instructions had to be simple but easy to understand so they can build the ramp quickly and easily. In the end Missy and Anyah won the challenge and was given a big chocolate. I hope we do more experiments in the future relating to science and collaborating with others.

Authors vist

At Paihia  School we had the  amazing opportunity  to meet an amazing lady named Jennifer Somerville. We were learning about the importance of writing and understanding what it means. She said that “ I had to go through my writing just like you”. She is the author of these  stories The day dad blew up the cowshed, The new old truck, The eel hunt ,old truck and Uncle Allen stink leg. The facts that she had learnt before she came to talk with us was so interesting. She said that she had the different parts of the story everywhere,  but she had to put them in order and the inspired me to do better pieces of writing. In the story Eel hunt she said that her brother got stranded in a dead cow and that it happened in real life. All her stories are based on real moments of time. What I enjoyed is she added detailed words in her book so that the people would get hooked into the story. What I think that I could do better is ask more interesting questions and pay attention in to the writing more. This was good for our class to learn about. Thank you  Jennifer Somervell for offering to explain her journey to us and for taking time to teach us the importance of writing.

Friday was a very sad day because Shirley, our librarian was leaving. The day before, we made feathers and wrote a note on the back of them. Miss Pou glued them onto a piece of cardboard and made a feather type wall. On Friday we all sat down in the whare waiting for the command. We all stood up and sang a waiata and sat back down. Miss Simmons firstly said her speech trying not to cry.  Some of the other teachers said there speeches and gave Shirley some gifts, some adults even said something to shirley. There were to girls who came up and had there own speech. When the day was over we all ran to Shirley and gave her a hug and a squeeze. She said she will come back to visit and keep the library in shape. I can’t wait until she visits again.