Level 2 - Fun Friday - Science

It was great to have 12 students at school today as we welcomed in Level 2. 

Our focus today was on our favourite subject, SCIENCE. Today we did two experiments; one with water and one with milk.

The first experiment was called 'walking water'. We used water, food colouring and paper towels to show how water could 'walk' between the cups. The students learnt what a 'hypothesis' was and they made their own hypothesis about what would happen during this experiment. The students decided how many hours it would take for the water to get from one cup to another. It was a lot of fun! 

Our second experiment was called 'Magic Milk'. We used milk, food colouring and a stick with diswashing liquid on it. We waved our 'magic wands' and put the stick in the milk to watch an amazing chemical reaction. There were lots of oooooooooo's and ahhhhhhhhhh's while the dishing liquid made the milk swirl and move in all directions.

The students discussed what was happening and wondered if it would happen if we used water instead of milk. So we used water to see what would happen and it definately did not have the same reaction. The students decided there was something in the milk that made it react with the dishwashing soap. They brainstormed words like protein, calcium and fat. I was so impressed. They were right, when the dishwashing liquid touched the milk, it reacted with the fats. 

The soap molecules from the dishwashing liquid are trying to attach to the fat molecules in the milk which causes movement in the liquid as the molecules in the fat and soap bond together and expel the water and food colouring.

We can hardly wait for next Friday!

Level 3 - Learning from Home

We have been learning from home since last Wednesday due to a level change for the Far North. It has been great to connect with most of the students over this time during our google meets each morning from 9am - 10am. It's quite different from being in the classroom but we still manage to chat, connect and talk about learning.

Our online learning document gives the students options for what they can work on while they are learning from home. Everyone has a different situation at home, so the students are encouraged to read and do what they can manage whilst at home. School is back on Friday so we are looking forward to getting back to school to finish off our year with lots of fun activities!

Getting Ready for Term 4 (whatever level it might be!)

I hope everyone is having a lovely 'local' school holiday. 

Our classroom is all set up, ready for Term 4, however, as Northland is at Level 3 until next Monday, Term 4 will start on Tuesday. This will either be at school in Level 2 or online at Level 3. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone next week, whether it's at school or online. Enjoy the rest of your holidays Te Manga students and whanau.

Learning from Home - Weekly Certificates - Weeks 5 & 6

Overall the Te Manga students have done a great job carrying on their learning from home in different ways. In the first 2 weeks, these students have to earn themselves a class certificate. Congratulations to the following students ...

Math Home Learning

Our math learning looks a little different when we are learning from home but it is still happening. 

The students have been busy working on Mathletics, Math Buddy, Prodigy, Math Choices and their Math Google Slides, which are taking the place of the orange math books in class. 

Today a few of the students played a basic facts games using dice online. The students could choose how many dice they wanted to use and were great at challenging themselves.

Daniel, Jesse and Jackson's dad taught them a math game at home.  They made a video to share the game with the class. 

Click on the name to go to Dan's blog or Jesse's blog to watch the video.

Dan was learning how to embed the video on his blog.

Online Learning - Week 2

Today it was lovely to see so many smiling faces during our morning meet. We went through our learning expectations for the week. and where to find everything. Although we're all at home, it was great to hear that the class felt confident navigating their learning.

We had a few people who wanted to share which is fantastic. Jackson shared a wonderful lego creation that he had been working on. It is a very cool building site which also has a little portaloo. The class thought this was very funny!

Kaiora told us that he has been doing some more gardening. He has planted carrots which he is really looking forward to eating! 

Alaris found a box full of treasures from when she was younger. She showed us class photos from her old school in Auckland when she was only 5 and she had to wear a uniform and black shoes. 

Kylan has been working on a hut in the cowshed and has been making chocolate fudge. He loved it so much his face was covered with it! 

Elena and her family were working hard over the weekend to move a pile of dirt that was almost the size of Elena's room. Luckily there are 5 shovels so no one missed out on helping!

Donna has been super busy making movies with her mum and helping to build a new fence. Donna and her mum have brainstormed lots of ideas for making a movie and toegther they made an awesome video about our school values! Enjoy :-)

First Week of Online Learning!

Our first week of online learning is done and dusted. 

Thank you to all our Te Manga students who have been doing their best to be connected online and to self manage their learning at home. I thought everybody deserved the VALUES award this week!

Today it was really lovely to see so many of our class at our google meets and to also connect with Mrs Davan and Te Tinana as Te Whare Tui. Mrs Davan organised a Nearpod to play online and then we did another scavenger hunt which was a lot of fun! Here are some of our photo's from today.

We also had one more meet at 11am to do some 'Free Writing Friday'. It was great to have a few keen writers join in. Thank you to Jackson, Kieran and Kaiora for sharing to the group.