Thursday 3 September 2020

Rocket Lab, We know how you feel.

 Our Rocket Challenge has grown into a total class focus that we can't seem to shake.   Having Belinda's bottle go almost 800mts,  (its like a fishing story,  the distance grows every day),  over Mr Martin's fence and into his tree was fantastic.  Thank you also to Mr M for getting his ladder out too.   



We decided to attach a tiny camera onto the side of the Rocket and launch it again.   First Launch,  not great,  the angle of our launcher was too low.  The second launch was much better,  almost straight up.  BUT,  it did a 180 turn and headed up into the tailings behind school.   Mr A went for a walk after school from both all angles and found the bush was too thick to access.  We thought our rocket might be lost forever. 

Mrs King knew a wonderful man by the name of Mr Hustwick who had an amazing Drone.  He send that up and took high definition video of the area our rocket went into.   We spend the next hour spotting bears, bodies,  yetis and cranes in the high definition videos.   See if you can spot any of those, or our bottle.  Good Luck


Thursday 27 August 2020

 Our Rocket Challenge still has time to go but Wednesday the 26th is the day we achieved one of our Goals.  We Blasted a rocket across the school grounds and out of the School Property.  Belinda was the successful engineer who achieved our biggest goal yet.  We had managed to cross the netball court,   cross our classroom,  cross the school field and finally cross into a neighbouring property.  Check out our video.


Because we still have time to go, we will get a group of our best engineers together to spend a bit of time looking at our designs and talking with some experts. We know that we had to add weight to our rockets nose and that we have to consider how much water to add. Our water to weight ratio seems to have an affect on how far our rockets travel. The more water we add the heavier our rockets are. We are also considering takeoff angle and pressure as well. It seems our Laucher has a pressure release valve on it that lets pressure out at 120psi. 

  Next Steps. 
Safety - Have our safety officer make sure that our area is safe and that all observers are back at a safe distance. 
Launch Control - We want to make maximum use of the pressure we have. We want to launch just before reaching 120psi. 
 Payload Specialist - We want to do further testing on how much water is the perfect amount.
 Communications Specialist - We have located a very very small camera that we will fit to our rocket to video it's path. Fitting this so it safely makes the complete flight without being damaged will be important.

Learn, Create Share, Share more.

It is clearly evident that in my first year at Kaniere School I am loving the Learn, Create and Share philosophy. It is also clear that I haven't quite got the "Share" part right yet. I need to do this more. So here goes. 
 Our Egg Challenge last week got us thinking that we need to go above and beyond all the other classes. Kererū is no ordinary class, we are the best and we need to think like that. The challenge was to see how high you could bounce an egg. We did the research and put our egg in the bath of vinegar for a week and did what everyone else was doing. Then some bright spark said, "what is a real egg?" I could see how our focus on Critical Thinking was turning us into creative thinkers. The idea being that was a 'Rubber Egg' a real egg? Was an easter egg a real egg? We decided that a rubber egg was a real egg as it was real, it was just rubber egg real.

Tuesday 4 August 2020

What we do in a normal week in Kererū.



It was timely to stop at week 3 and look at all we do in a week in our class.  
Our West-A-Math team have been working hard to improve for Wednesday's competition in Westport. 
We have been practicing hard for the Rip Rugby with Helen on a Tuesday, and our big topic focus for energy at the moment is our Rocket Challenge.
Schools all over NZ all take part in the 'Rocket challenge' that sees us trying to launch a rocket higher and further than anyone else using just water and pressure.   
 We got our engineering experts on the case and decided that we had some "pressure leaks"  in our launch machine, that had to be remedied before we went any further.  After that we were dying to try to launch even the simplest bottle.  This was fun but far from perfect as they spun out and went all over the place.  The focus then was on how to improve them.  Simple nose cones and fins had some success but then we had to consider weight and the amount of water in our rockets and what the effect was on how far they travel.  Our biggest taste of success was Tuesday when we concentrated on weight on the front of Liam Cuff's Rocket.  We launched it and it took off hitting and denting the door of the Bike shed.   (Well thats our story).  Stay turned for an update on our goal to win New Zealand's Rocket Challenge.   

Tuesday 23 June 2020

Morphing fake to real ...

We have been very busy making an animation as we learn the difference between fake and real. We really enjoyed sharing them with each other and have published them on our own blogs for others to see. Please go into our blogs on the side to see our creations. Mr A was really proud of our efforts, what do you think?

Wednesday 22 April 2020

Daily Quizizz - Have a go.



                                     NZ General Knowledge Quiz

Into week 2 and one of the most popular parts of our day seems to be the daily Quizizz Challenge.  The first one was an Anzac Quizz.  Parent's and students are welcome and it seems like  there are a few having multiple attempts at being top dog.  Come online and have a go.  At the time of writing this blog it seems like 'Jacks Mum' is in the lead of the Anzac Quiz.   Have a look at the links above to join us.  This is a challenge to the other classes.






                                                    

Thursday 16 April 2020

New Learning.

Has been a wild ride over the last few weeks.   The 'official holidays'  ended and as of Wednesday the 15th we were into Term 2.  The holidays saw us doing a little 'Online Learning,'  (O.L), here and there just to whet our appetite, but the real stuff starts now.
Our Learning Site is the first port of call for our students and it is a wonderful idea for parents to go in and have a look around.   The first page is the hub for Kereru.  It has the blackboard at the top which acts as a quick reminder of whats up for the day.  There is also a calendar below that displays meetings and important events,  and a set of links to the learning areas.

Children should be doing a Google Hangout at least once every two or three school days.  It is understandable that things happen and that they may miss out.  In that case there are recordings of the Hangouts in the Media section of our Learning Site, and I will endeavor to catch up with them. Students should be able to self manage, (with your help),  in areas such as Reading,  writing and maths, and during the Hangouts I will be checking on all areas with the kids.

Although we are a school that uses many valuable resources online and we are connected and used to O.L. things will change and get easier.  Don't be afraid to send an email or ask questions.


Tuesday 17 March 2020

Science Roadshow.


On Monday we all jumped on a bus and went to visit the Science Roadshow at Hokitika Primary School.  It was a wonderful experience with a show at the start and end of the visit and workstations in between where you could experience all sorts of scientific tasks and challenges.
One of the best workstations was the Wind Force workstation that looked at the force of the wind and friction.
The Boys seemed to really love the augers and conveyer belts where you had to get stainless steel ball bearings around the circuit.


Each workstation really made us think.  The Earthquake simulation showed us how buildings could be built to better handle earthquakes.

Friday 13 March 2020

Facts about the Coast to Coast



We have been discussing the difference between a fact and an opinion. We looked into the Coast to Coast Website and each of us found a fact and we made a slide to illustrate it. We hope you learn some new facts about this amazing South Island event.

Wednesday 4 March 2020

Bits and Pieces.

 
Getting into the Learn, Create, Share aspect of our work in our class and we have been looking at creating posters for our Kawa of Care principles.   We integrated our work with a bit of technology and looked at what we call a Design Process.   A Design Process, (DP), is a set of steps that help us to make sure we are creating 'Quality Projects.'   
For step one,  our 'Identified Need or Opportunity'. We wanted to take a very boring list of Kawa of Care bullet points and create interesting and professional looking posters.
We learnt that a Brief is like a list of what we wanted to achieve in our posters.  We wanted them to be bright and interesting and look professional.  We also wanted them to have the correct spelling and have some kind of hook to draw in peoples attention.   After we had finished our designs we went back to our brief to make sure we had achieved what we wanted to. (Evaluation).  We hope to get good at using a design process to create all of our work.  What do you think?