What's been happening in Room 7

What a whirlwind the last few weeks have been. This blog post is a quick update on what we've been up.

Buddied up with our teina

Last week we had two trips out of school. On Wednesday the whole school went to the Manaiakalani Film Festival at Hoyts Xtreme Screen in Sylvia Park. We went there tuakana - teina style, so Room 7 got to take care of our new entrants children in Room 4. There we got to sit in the plush seats and see all Glenbrae School's films on the big screen. When we got back to school we got to re-watch our favourites and some we'd missed, and post thoughtful positive comments on people's films. If you would like to check out some of the films yourself you can view them on the Manaiakalani website.  Be sure to watch Room 7's "We're going to be friends" and "They're Coming"  




On Thursday last week we went on another trip, this time to the Auckland Stardome. Here we learned lots about the Solar System and in particular the way the earth spins on it's axis and orbits the sun. We discovered that this is what causes the seasons: Summer, Winter, Autumn and Spring. 
Unfortunately we were unable to take pictures inside the Stardome, but we do have some wonderful pictures of us reading books on the bus ride there and playing in the playground during lunch time! 

Also yesterday, half of Room 7, along with half of Rooms 8 and 5, got to go on a special science adventure to Auckland University. Here we went into the Chemistry lab and got to participate in 5 awesome science experiments. It was pretty high-tech stuff, and I'm sure we have a few budding scientists in our midst. 

Science Week: Light

This week we have been doing science rotations among the senior classes learning about different elements of the physical world. 

In Room 10 we were learning about floating and sinking with Mrs Tofa
In Room 9 we were learning about electricity with Mr Nath
In Room 8 we were learning about sound with Mrs Moopanar 
and in Room 7 Mrs Parker was teaching about light. 

First we learned some of the key vocabulary we would need to know to be able to explore the experiments that were set up around the class. 

a)  Focus

To bring light rays to a meeting point

 

b)  Lens

A piece of plastic or glass that changes the direction of light rays

 

c)  Shadow

A dark patch caused by little or no light falling on a surface

 

d)  Prism

A piece of shaped glass or plastic that splits light rays into different groups 

 

e)  Reflect

To cause light rays to bounce off a surface 

 

f)  Refract

To bend or change the direction of light rays. 

We discussed some common myths about light, for example, even though the moon glows bright, it does not actually make light. The light we see on the moon is actually light from the sun being reflected off the moon. 

Next we explored the experiments about colour & light rays, and refractions of light through lens and prisms. 

Spinning rainbow coloured wheels really fast to make the colour turn white. 

The convex lens made things look closer,
and blurry and upsidedown

But the concave lens zoomed out
and made things look further away 

Shining a green, red and blue torch onto the white paper, the light didn't get darker like we predicted.
Instead it went brighter and whiter... 

Shining light into a prism makes the light refract and split into different rays. 

We were really surprised by the way the light changed and reacted during our experiments. We learned that the light that comes from the sun and light bulbs is known as ‘white light’ but white light is actually made up of all of the colours of the rainbow!

Red

Orange

Yellow

Green

Blue

Indigo and ,

Violet

When it rains the light hits the raindrops and refracts, splitting into its original colours. This is why we see a rainbow when the sun shines.

When we spin this coloured wheel quick enough it colours merge and are reflected back at us as white.

Inquiry Roadshow

This morning Glenbrae School had our inquiry roadshow. This is so that each class can share the learning that they have done throughout the term. We create presentations, posters, diagrams, movies and hands-on activities to share with whānau, friends and classmates. 
We took turns sharing and practicing our presentation skills, making our teacher, Principal and families very proud. 

In case you missed the roadshow, or wanted to see more, view our personal blogs. 

This term's inquiry focus was in theme with the recent 100 year anniversary of Anzac Day, learning about WW1, weaponry, medicine, and NZ history. 

Science Week @ Glenbrae School

This week we have been focusing on Science. Room 7 students have been moving around all the senior classrooms learning with the different teachers about chemical changes. 

Also each class has come to Room 7 to learn about the chemical change that happens when you bake bread using yeast or baking soda. 

We followed the scientific process and practiced asking questions and hypothesising. 

We asked How does yeast make bread rise?

We hypothesised that Heat and time make the yeast rise/produce gas. 

We observed a lot of things with the bread making process. We observed the yeast foaming, it looked like oatmeal/porridge and smelled yuck - like beer! 

When we added the flour, we all got to help knead the dough and feel the elastic-ness of it. It turns out that some of us have the potential to be master bakers and were very good at this step. 

Once we had kneaded the dough, we decided to test our hypothesis and split the dough in two. One part of dough was set aside to rise (time) as per the recipe, and the other dough was put straight in the oven (heat) to rise and cook. 

Meanwhile we did another experiment using two plastic bottles and balloons.

In one bottle we put a mixture similar to the bread (1tbsp yeast, 1/2 tsp sugar and 1 tbsp warm water), and put it aside for an hour on the sunny windowsill

In another bottle we put a vinegar and baking soda. 

What we observed was that both balloons blew up, filled up with air. But how could the air get into the balloon, while it was sealing the top of the bottle? It was a chemical change. 

The vinegar and the sodium bicarbonate mixed and the elements changed their chemical bonds to create different chemicals. 

CH3COOH + NaHCO3  → CH3COONa + H2CO3

vinegar + baking-soda (sodium bicarbonate) → sodium acetate + carbonic acid

We created sodium acetate and carbonic acid. But the carbonic acid isn't very stable on its own and breaks down into carbon dioxide and water, we could see the bubbles of the carbon dioxide.

H2CO3  → H2O + CO2

carbonic acid → water + carbon dioxide

 We discovered that is a living organism that needs sugar to react. Together they change into water, H2O, and alcohol (just a little bit - which burns off in the baking process).

We also observed that the two breads we baked were very different.

The bread that went straight into the oven was smaller, denser (more tightly packed) and had a slightly sweet/sour taste - probably from the under-developed yeast.

The bread that was allowed to rest before baking was lighter, less dense and had little air holes throughout from where the carbon dioxide had formed. It also didn't have the sweet/sour taste like the other one. This was our favourite.

To enjoy our bread we also made fresh butter from shaking cream and a pinch of salt in jars. We were left with lovely soft delicious butter and a milky liquid called 'buttermilk'.

Stay tuned to our personal blogs for actual photo's of the experiments that we conducted throughout the week.