Moving Milk Mysteries

Every Friday we put on our lab coats and become scientists for the morning. We are learning how to make observations and predictions. For the next few weeks we are discovering how molecules behave. You can't see molecules but you can change them to observe their behaviour.

Last Friday we looked at molecules moving. We did this by colouring water molecules in some milk and then observing as we put drops of dishwashing liquid. We watched the water molecules getting moved around as the dishwash liquid collected up all the fat molecules.

Cool aye?

Then Luke C. asked "What if we used something else instead of milk?"

This Friday we tried cream, strawberry milk and oil.

The results? There was no reaction in the oil. This is because oil is all fat and no water. There was a VERY slow reaction in the cream. This is because there is very little water in the cream and not enough to be moved around easily. The strawberry milk had a reaction but the standard milk was the fastest. From our observations we could tell there was more fat in the strawberry milk than in the standard milk.




What will we find out next week?

Welcome to 2011!!!

Hey there everyone. Well it's back to school time again! Over the last couple of days I have been lucky enough to meet a whole heap of amazing children and their parents. We have a new class in Whanau Whitu and a new teacher!

I'm Tania and I have moved to Christchurch from Whangarei. I used to live here years ago and now I have come back so that my husband can study here at the university. I am so excited to be here and look forward to having an awesome year with a fantastic bunch of kids!

Today we learned about each other a little bit, and learned how to behave in the classroom. We had lots of fun and even had time for some art! We made name bugs. It was a test of our imaginations at first but we got the hang of it and they have turned out amazing!

Watch this space!

Beach Day to finish the year

With the choir heading off to perform at the Pier, Room 7 (plus Toby, Jak, Thomas and Seth from Room 8) took our lunch down to the beach. Regan won our beach flags, and the sack races didn't work too well because some of the sacks had holes in the end of them!!

Our 'sand structure' creations showed great original ideas, and there was even one that looked like a pupil from our class!

Thanks to all our helpers who came along and got sand between their toes. 

Grant's surprise shared lunch!

I was working in the school office today when Stella came over to say that Aroha needed me over to the classroom to help her with something.  Imagine what a surprise I had waiting for me when I popped over and found a room full of parents (and children, of course!!), waiting to jump out at me!

My lovely lot had been planning a farewell shared lunch, and presented me with some lovely presents - tau ke!!

Kia ora Room 7 whanau!

Room 7 X-Factor auditions

These are some of our contestants, trying their best to show us their 'X' factor!

Unfortunately, the clip of our winner (Ryan B) playing his guitar and singing is not loading onto the blog, so we cannot see his awesome effort - sorry Ryan.

Who has been looking at our Blog??

As a point of interest (well, for me anyway!), here is a summary of where people have been looking at our blog from since it was created earlier this year.The number refers to how many times our Blog has been accessed from that place.

New Zealand     726

United States        28

France                 19

Slovakia               19

Russia                    8

United Kingdom     7

Germany                6

Czech Republic      3

Japan                     2

Slovenia                 2
Australia                 1

Your homework challenge for this week is to find these places on the globe, and to tell me what each country's capital city is. As I am only asking this question on the blog, I will only be awarding prizes to those who email me their answers!! grant@freeville.school.nz

Grooving to the beats at QEII gymnastics

When we head over to QEII on Tuesday afternoons, this is how we warm up before starting our gymnastics work.

Jamie Oliver in schools

Have a look at the 'Links' page for Jamie's presentation to TED.

Want to know more about TED.....

Our mission: Spreading ideas.

We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other. (click here to go to TED website)

Our Day at the A&P Show

Click here to read about our leapfrogging on www.stuff.co.nz

Leap frog line-up!

Here we all are, lined up in Row 13 and ready to let our frogs do the leaping!
Do you recognise any of us??

Here we are, just 24 of us in the middle of 1325 children from lots of Canterbury schools... Go Freeville!!

What a nuisance - I didn't check Brandon's camera when I borrowed it from Room 3.. and it didn't have any batteries!! Grrrrrr....

Wow, it was 26 degrees at the Show. Luckily Abby, Maison, Amelia and Maddison were all able to find some shade at lunch time! (Nice sunnies!!)

 

Here are the leapfroggers in action! Tetairawhiti has taken the lead with a MASSIVE leap... Go Tetai!

Our class project to 'Express Oursleves'

Here is an excerpt from a presentation Room 7 researched, prepared and is about to present to the school council. It is about how we want to look after our school, how we think our school should look, our rights and responsibilities as students at Freeville, and how we think we can help encourage the other students at Freeville to look after our school too.

Unfortunatley there were a few absences on the day of filming, but we all worked on this together - as a whole class - to express ourselves.

Earthquake Stories

On Saturday morning at 4:30 my dad got me out of bed and my dad said are you alright and I said yes I am alright and then my dad said to me go in mum’s bed and we do not have any power and mum and dad used their phone to see.

On Saturday I was in my bed, watching a movie. When the earthquake happened my Dad ran into my bedroom and grabbed me. One of the pots fell off and smashed on the lino. My Nana and Grandad were holding each other and their tv almost smashed. The power cut off. My Dad was scared but I thought it was cool. The power turned on again. I thought it was the wind. I went to sleep in my Dad’s room.

When the earthquake happened I was crying. After the earthquake finished I went into my Mum's bed and my Dad went into my sister's bed [Chelsea] and I couldn’t get back to sleep. The next day we went and gave some clothes to the homeless people. I felt good.

When the earthquake happened I did not do anything, until Mum told me to get under a table. I did that but I would not come out. Four days later I moved to Casebrook. I am staying there for a few months.

When the earthquake came at 4:30am, my Dad and Brother and Mum woke me up, and I said, “What is that?’’ Dad said, "It’s the earthquake." Then my Dad said, “Go to Ed’s room and sleep there.” My Dad went to get the emergency light. Then we went back to sleep.

When the earthquake came on Saturday morning, I was in bed and Dad came  into my room. He tried to get me out of  bed and  I said "I can’t see", because it was dark. I felt scared because it felt like strong wind.