Matariki art

Today we did a piece of art that had to do with Matariki.

First we made a mountain shape out of scrap paper and covered part of our black paper. Next we created an Aurora Borealis effect using pastels. The third step was to put on the 7 stars of Matariki, and lastly to put other small stars or shooting stars in the sky.

Here are out artworks.

Fraction problems

Today we had two DMIC problems that were about fractions.

Here is the first question - 

A bakery makes ⅛ strawberry cupcakes, ¼ vanilla cupcakes and ½ chocolate cupcakes.

If there are 50 cupcakes altogether, how many would there be of each flavour? What is the chance getting a chocolate one?

These drawings were from Janett's group. They used equal sharing to find out that 1/2 of 50 is 25, 1/4 of 50 made 2 boxes of 12 and 2 boxes of 13 (not equal!), and 1/8 of 60 wasn't equal either. Miss Ashley said to make the boxes equal, even if you have to leave some cupcakes out of it. So they found out that 1/4 of 50 was 48, which had 2 left over. They found out that 1/8 of 50 was 6, with 2 cupcakes left over there as well. 

With help from Fereti's group, we learnt that 50/2=25 was a faster way than equal sharing. Together we figured out what the number sentences/equations would be for the other cupcakes and wrote these. Then Miss Ashley challenged us to flip the divided bys into times tables and write that as well.

Then Miss Ashley changed the numbers and we had to only use times tables to figure it out. Then we had to write it two ways. It was easy now that we knew how to do it.

Here is the second question (a different group)

Jasmine is fundraising for her netball trip to Samoa. She has 60 tickets at $4 each. She sold half to her nana, ¼ to her uncle, ⅛ to her sister and ⅛ to her classmates. How many did each get? Who has the greatest chance of winning the prize?

Welsey's group shared how they solved the first two bits - 1/2 of 60 and 1/4 of 60. Some of us didn't understand why it made sense to divide by 2 when its talking about halves.

Junefia, Maria, Ana and Lily's group shared their drawing of how they tried to find 1/8 of 60, but again this wasn't a simple equation and it wasn't even. Wesley's group came close to figuring out that it was a decimal number, but wasn't sure what number. Miss Ashley helped out a little to help us figure out that it was 7.5 or 7 and a half per box.

Junefia's group wrote this. 

Earlier Lily had identified that 15 was half of 30 and this made sense because 1/4 was half of a 1/2. Miss Ashley helped everyone to realise that 1/8 was half of a 1/4, so they could have just halved 15 and solved it easily instead of drawing. 

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Chocolate game (recount)

Today we did a fun game which Miss Ashley called the chocolate game. 

We split into 3 groups of 7 or 8 people and each group had 3 items of clothing and a chocolate bar. 

The way it worked was each group had one dice, and each person took turns rolling the dice. If you rolled a six, you had to put on the three items of clothing (one jumper, one hat/beanie and one scarf/tie) as quickly as you could and then use the knife and fork to cut up the block of chocolate. You had to use the knife and fork so your germs didn't get on it (because otherwise other people would eat it after you touched it) and also because it makes it harder. After each individual piece was cut you could eat it using your hands, and you could keep going and cut/eat as many pieces as you could before somebody else in your group rolled a six. Then you had to take the 3 items off, stop eating and give it to the next person. 

It was hilarious. It was very interesting to note that one group, the middle group made up of Lily, Ana, Maria, Marilyn, Janett, Junefia, Luisa and Anittah was very calm and patient, even helping each other to put the 3 items on. The other two groups were very competitive and were pulling the items of clothing off each others heads and shoulders. This patient group was the last to finish as you could probably tell. They also weren't cutting it while they were eating like the other groups were. 

Learning about fossils

Today we gathered our prior knowledge about our inquiry. 

Here is what we knew about dinosaurs - 

Dinosaurs

• Animal

• Predator
• Dino is the root word
• ‘Saurs’ means something
• Species
• Extinct
• Huge
• Large bones
• Long necks
• Eggs
• Sharp teeth
• Long tails
• Eat people
• Different kinds
• Spikes
• Horns
• Mammals
• 4 legs
• Some are vegetarians
• Locked up in a cage
• Eat grass
• Some have wings
• Died in the 19’s
• Different colours
• Roar loud
• Different names
• Tall
• Scare people away
• Spikes around their head
• Two arms
• Some are friendly
• Similar to dragons
• Shell
• Extinct long before Christ  - BC
• Hunt food
• People killed dinosaurs with hunting rifles
• Dinosaurs got short hands and bite them with their mouth
• Fight other dinosaurs
• Rough
• Strong long bones
• Big and long
• Muscles
• Faster then flash
• Fast and have long teeth
• Eat other dinosaurs
• Big feet
• Didn’t eat people - Ana.
• Eat other species.

Here is our prior knowledge about fossils -

In the afternoon we used this slideshow to learn about fossils -



We wrote sentences as we read through and talked about the new/difficult words and wrote what they meant. 

Here is what we wrote - 

Fossils are dead animals or plants. They are usually skeletons found embedded in rock. Sometimes fossils are footprints or poo. Small animals or insects get stuck in tree sap which hardens and traps them forever. Large animals can get trapped in ice, or their carcass gets trapped in layers of rock. Over thousands of years, pressure builds up and the ground. Next the mould left is filled with minerals that form rock. This rock shape is the fossil - an exact replica of the dinosaurs. This process takes 10,000 years. Palaeontologists find fossils when the top layer of dirt or rock washes away.

Carcass - dead body

Dissolved - when something disappears in water

Mould - a shape that can be filled

Erode -

Vital - important, critical, crucial, necessary

Climate - weather

Siberia - a country near Russia where a fossil was found

Mammoth - a giant animal that looks like an elephant, but it is hairy and has big tusks. they are extinct now.