Patterns

We have been learning about patterns this week in maths. We have been learning to create, describe and continue patterns. We have discovered that patterns repeat and that there is a rule to describe the repetition. (For instance, after you have clapped, you stomp your feet and after stomping your feet you clap)

Here are a couple of videos.  You can view all the videos in the media gallery at the top of this page.

See how many different patterns you can spot around home.

Laura Fairweather Paralympic Champion

Today we had a visit from paralympian Laura Fairweather she won a bronze, silver and GOLD medal at the paralympics earlier this year. She is the pilot of a paralympic tandem cycling team and rides with Phillipa Gray. She visited our school today and let us hold her medals it was very exciting, especially holding the gold medal. She spoke to us about achieving her goals and how hard she trains. 

Welcome to Rata Robotland

We have had a wonderful week creating robots. We came up with our design ideas and then we tried them out. We had to make some modifications because of the shape of the boxes. We then had to wrap all our boxes in paper or tinfoil. We then painted and added lots of recycled materials to create our spectacular robots. We are looking forward to writing stories about our robot adventures.

Welcome to Rata

This week we have begun to make our robots. We are lucky enough to have a new member in our class   for the next week. He has created a lot of excitement and is a stunning robot. Meet our class dalek.

St Patrick's School Fair

We have been busy painting pots in Rata to sell at the school fair. First we had to paint the pots white and wait for them to dry. Then we thought about the colours and design we wanted to paint on our pot. We looked at lots of other pots to get ideas. After we had painted our design on we looked at everyone else's pots to get some more ideas. Then we added more detail to our own pot including glitter and sparkles. Then Mrs McRandle sprayed the pots with some stinky clear spray paint to make the pots shiny. Last of all we put a beautiful pansy plant in our pots. We think they look spectacular and hope they all sell at the fair.

They are $5.00 each and made with lots of enthusiasm.

Worlds shortest man and woman

Today for current events we found out about the worlds smallest man and woman. Here are some of our facts.

Braydn - They are the shortest people in the world 

Sean - No one else is as small

Thomas - The shortest man is 73 years old

Matthew - Why is the man shorter than the woman even though he is older?

Cody - He comes from a different country

Lily - This is the shortest woman in the world

Rebekah - The man is smaller than the lady

Helena - She is wearing her native costume

Jorja - She is from India

Natalie - The man is older than the girl 

Lucy - The girl is really pretty

Brianna - She is 19

Saskia - She is 62.8 cm tall

Claudia - I wonder why she is so small

Charlotte - She is the littlest woman in the whole wide world

Katelyn - Why is the man so small?

Rebecca - I wonder how big she was when she was born

Caitlin - She has a different accent to us

Tanesha - We are taller than the shortest adults

Choosing Time Fun

Olympic Mascots

Today we explored a new ICT tool called Explain Me. Mrs McRandle took a photo of our olympic mascot then we wrote its name and explained all about it.

We are learning to speak confidently and clearly and this gave us the opportunity to practise these skills. 

Skip Counting

We are learning how to skip count in 2's. Today we used a variety of materials to practise our skip counting and patterning skills. All the children were skip counting and checking that their pattern was sequenced in groups of two.

Spinners

How to make a Spinner

One of our reading groups has been learning all about seeds. They have learned that seeds can travel by the wind and that the sycamore seed spins towards the ground.

One of our reading activities was to make a spinner that spins like a sycamore seed.

 We enjoyed this activity and decided to share it with the whole class.

 These are the instructions if you are keen to make another one at home.

Fractions

We have been learning all about fractions over the last couple of weeks. We know that a fraction is when you break something into equal parts. 


We have been learning to find halves and quarters of different shapes and sets of objects.


We learned a fraction poem to help us remember and would like to share it with you.

Welcome Back to Term 3

We meet Harold and Kathleen from Life Education this week and they have been helping us learn all about "Food For Energy".

Harold invited us to join him at his friend, Jacko's birthday party via video link. They had some problems and asked us to use our knowledge of the food pyramid to help explain what a balanced diet is and why we need it. We even got to talk on the cellphone with Jacko and help him make his healthy food shopping list.

Here are some photos of our time with Harold and Kathleen in the Life Education truck.

We had a great time with Harold and are looking forward to learning more about healthy eating over the next few weeks.

Here are some of the things we are wondering about: