A Message from Nic

The Science of art

I am so proud of our efforts to put together our exhibition today.  Each person has 3 pieces to their section plus a written explanation. Here is Kaleb's explanation he wrote using the plan.  It is obvious Kaleb has thought about how he could engage his audience through his choice of language. Chur Kaleb, great job!  You'll find our exhibition outside Room 3 in the main block.

In our class we had an idea to make watercolor if you don’t know how to make watercolor read on. The w.a.l.t for us is to observe like a scientist.

We painted and crayoned all on one page and then we observed it. You wouldn’t believe how many patterns there was on the peace of paper. none of the patterns were the same not even the textures where the same. Here’s something cool when I aimed the magnifying glass on the crayon it looked like the sky with heaps of clouds.

You know how the watercolor is liquid yeah well it isn’t all the time because sooner or later the watercolor dry’s up and it evaporates into solid. then we broke up these peaces of white solid watercolor and it looked like a meringue.

first  we thought of what we would put in our watercolor to make it that color. Then we had to research a recipe to actually make it. And then we had to record it down on a peace of paper we made a list of all the ingredients and who would bring what. The scariest part was predicting what would happen because it could go terribly wrong but they all turned out great. The weird part is that one of the ingredients were cornstarch flour and we replaced it with honey or maple syrup. We made it with maple syrup vinegar eggs  food coloring baking soda bowl & spoon jars.

Then we shaded the painting so their would be dark bits and bright bits it looked awsome when we compered it with our original painting they didn’t look the same at all the one with our own color looked heaps better.

I recommend that you use the ingredients that I told you about and search up how to make the watercolor. If it doesn't work the first time try it again because scientists don’t always get it right the first time do they.

WALT Explain - using maps to plan for writing

Going through our writing samples and assessments, I have noticed that we need to do better at planning our ideas into paragraphs:

The sentences in a paragraph should all have the same idea; they should be connected.  If your paragraphs only have 2 sentences in them, you probably need to add a couple more.  Remember, all sentences don't need to be long and detailed. You can keep some of them short and sweet.

Here is an example of a fishbone map that we are using this week.  Each big bone is the "main idea" of the paragraph.  Each little bone is a sentence that connects to the main idea. We planned this together, as a class, so now you just need to follow the words around.  Each word needs a sentence or two, to explain it.

*Sorry for the typo; 'SCIENCE'

William's Writing

William has been making some great progress with his writing!  I am very proud of his progress!  Here is one of his latest stories... It is scary and funny at the same time!  Well done William :)

Grasshopper Tennis Assessment

Check out Olly's grasshopper tennis assessment.  Please use this WALT and focus questions to complete your PE portfolio sample.

What was your favourite part about Grasshopper tennis?

What was the hardest part?

Where to now? What could you do with your new skills?

Writing Assessments

Kia ora whanau, if you have checked you emails recently, you may have noticed an email from me telling you that you have been "shared into" a document called 'Writing L3' or something like that. 

These are the Russell Street School writing goals we have developed over the year.  The example below is from the Level 3 writing standard.  Over the next 2-3 months we will be using these documents to help track our writing progress.

What we are going to do is make a tally every time we complete one of the criteria.  When we reach 10 tallies next to one criteria then we can highlight the criteria 'Go for Gold!' It would be great if you could help with this, giving your child feedback about what they can do really well, and feedforward what their next goals are. 

Let's make this achievable so take only one step at a time!!  If you are unsure of any of the terms below, Dr Google can help!

e9 Does Gym!

I love how at Russell Street School, instead of asking to watch a video for a class prize, we ask to do Gymnastics!  OK!  Let's do gymnastics! Thanks Alex for putting this together!!

Digital Photography with Kendall

The Guitar

Book Trailers

Focus - Persuasive writing

Purpose (Why are we writing)- to persuade people to read my book.

W.A.L.T make a book trailer -

Think of a book trailer as something like a movie trailer. It is a short preview designed to get people excited about your book. When designing a book trailer, you should consider the following.

Success Criteria:

• Persuasive phrase - Words
• Good images from the book
• Not too long - 1 - 1 1/2 minutes
• The music fits the mood of the book - Catchy
• Use the main and most interesting parts
• Persuasive question? - Will the poison work?
• Make sure we don't use the imovie ready made trailers
• We need a plan
• We need a storyboard
  
  

Concrete poetry:

We were learning to write concrete poetry. Concrete poetry means that your writing looks like the thing you are writing about. Check out James' awesome mine craft poem!

30 days of Singing for Palmy

Hey! Check out MonaJh, Ashleigh and I jamming out to "Never take that away from me" by Jamie McDell.  This is for a 30 days of singing in Palmy - a project Jen is doing.  The mayor, Jono Naylor, is also a part of this!  Great job girls!