Planning our experiments

Today we learnt more about the experiment part of the scientific method. Each group learnt how to plan an experiment and the steps that go towards making them rigorous and accurate.

Here's a video of one team arranging their 'experiment steps cards' that we learnt about - before I mixed them up! Karen will explain why she's not talking in the video...

"I wasn't allowed to talk cause I was always putting up my hand and being the expert. The only way I was allowed to communicate with my team was by nodding or shaking my head - and I banged my head on the table!" Karen thought that was pretty clever.

The Scientific Method

We're just about up to planning our project experiments! Here's a vid to help you remember and understand the process we'll be using to answer our questions - using the scientific method!

Persisting Punk Talkers

Animation Scooter Guys

By Travis, Liam and Ben

Lego Animation Success!

Here's our first animation on our new Youtube account. There will be many more coming for you to view soon. Watch on youtube and add a 'like' to vote for your favourites!

GSPI - What's the 'I' again?

Let's use this site to help us understand and get better at the 'I!'

Now use this version and make your own!

Force of Attraction - Matter and Method

Today we dug deeper into the big ideas of what matter is and how we can find out using the scientific method.

We've been learning about solids, liquids and gases and what makes them different. Sophie has been able to draw and explain what is different about the atoms in each form of matter.Next we wanted to have a go at putting the scientific method into action - observe, question, hypothesis,test, review and explain. We observed a glass of water that was fill to the top. Next we wondered what would happen if we added a little bit more water to the glass. Would it spill over or would the water stay on the top? We were divided on the answer.

Here's a picture of what happened when we tested our hypothesis.
We saw that the water formed a kind of bubble on the top. We kept adding very small amounts of water and the curved water grew with it until at last it spilled over. Here's our Cause and effect map - a butterfly thinking tool.

We were able to see that the atoms have a 'force of attraction' that kept them holding onto each other - until there was too much weight and gravity pulled them over the edge. Our thinking box helped us gather our thoughts and create a definition / description of what was happening.

Stay tuned for some amazing science in our independent 'tri teams' - coming up next week!

Animation Projects

Today was one of our filming days for the animation projects we've been working on. They are based on a theme from a Habit of Mind. Three weeks of storyboarding, narrative writing and preparing our sets and characters has led to a great day of group co-operation and problem solving.

Next week we'll be adding our sound effects and music. You can see our movies on youtube soon - the most number of hits, combined with a criteria grade will determine who has the best film!

Here are some shots from today's action.

Decimal Rap - Assembly

Room 8 performed the decimal rap we found on youtube at assembly today. What do you think of our actions?

Animation Video = How to

Let's watch this vid and start a 'helpful steps' chart of how to make a great stop animation.

Blogging Circles

Here's this weeks trial to help us read and comment on each others blogs. Read and post on your circle's blogs at least once a week! Remember to comment with a positive and a 'have you thought / suggestion' style comment.

What is Science?

We've been using 'Hot Tools' to help us order our thinking. Today we used the Thinking box which helped us define what science is. Below are Ruby B's and Aleisha's definitions. You can read it at the top of their boxes.

Reading with expression

We're going to learn how to read with fluency and expression. Let's watch this talking book and see what makes a great reading! We'll add the criteria below the vid.

Decimal Rap

Will this help us remember what the places after the decimal point are?

Area Video

Andrew is becoming an expert on using showme, an ipad app that is great for explaining. Here's one he made with Travis and Jack today about finding the area of a 2D shape. Great work, boys!

Animated Movies examples

Storyboard example
The imagination of Mackenzie

The Elevator

Area and Perimeter

Use this site to help prepare you for the area and perimeter test this afternoon. Work in groups of three. You have 25 mins to 'fine tune' your skills - once you've written an understanding reflection first.

How to find the Perimeter of a shape

Hitting the target

Yesterday we started setting our L.P. goals for the next 3 weeks. We played a game where we had to let a stretchy band go at the same time an make it land on a paper target.

We learnt that we have to have a target to aim for and we have to be really focussed to reach it - not act silly and just fun all the time. Guess what? We did it - but only after we worked together and tried our hardest. Here are some of the goals that we're working towards.

WE can animate!

This term we are going to use our street scenes to make some short animated films - in a narrative style. Here's an example of a professional animation that uses the same setting as ours.

Here's a great slideshow that explains what makes a great story.

How to write Narratives

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