Keeping ourselves organised

Term 3 has led us to think about how we keep ourselves organised in Room 7 so that we can make the most of our learning time. We talked about what we need to do to be organised throughout the day. 
Below are the ideas that we came up with:

Over the past few days we have been focusing on doing these things without having to be reminded. We have been getting better and better at managing ourselves, and this means that we have been making better use of our learning time. 

Look how beautifully organised our class was this morning before the bell rang! 

Some of us have also made posters to display as reminders of how to be organised. 

Learning to take charge of our own learning.

In Room 7 we are learning how to be good learners. How to take charge and responsibility for our own learning. 
Today during literacy learning time, while Mrs Parker was with one reading group, the other groups were taking charge of their own learning. Some were reading and blogging about KiwiKids news articles, others were seeing what other people had been learning about by reading and commenting on blogs, while another group was reciprocally reading. 

Reciprocal reading is a cool strategy that we use to lead our reading groups without a teacher. As a group we take turns being the 'leader' and predicting, clarifying, questioning, and summarising what we have read. This helps us to help each other make understanding. 

Reciprocally reading Weka Group (from left: Vainikolo, Sean, Fasi and Danny)

 Pukeko Reading Group (clockwise from left: Charlie, Newsam, Salote, McKenzie, Trent) 

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.