Term 3 Newletter

Here's a link to this term's newsletter. It looks like it's going to be another fun filled term of learning!

Click on the link here.

Bella's teach me Tuesday

Today we have another great lesson from one of our classmates. Bella taught us how to speak, read and write words in mandarin chinese. 
First she read a section from the english version of "Charlotte's Web". Next we learned how to write and pronouce some of the key words from the passage, (barn, hay, cow, horse, fish and cat). Then we highlighted these words from the chinese translation. It was really cool! Here are some photos showing our lesson. Thanks Bella! we really enjoyed learning more mandarin. 

How to write a great story!

Thanks to Peter Millett aka author extraordinaire we can all get a few tips to writing a great story. Here they are:

Paper plane design

Today we had a paper plane design challenge.

Each team had to build 2 different types of paper airplanes. One paper airplane had to be designed to fly as far as possible. The other airplane needed to stay in the air as long possible.

For the distance category, each team threw paper planes while we recorded with chalk the furtherest distance out of 3 chances. 

For the time in air category, each team threw their paper plane while Mrs Millett timed the flights.

All teams did a great job with their designs, making modifications to improve the speed and aerodynamics of their planes. 

The winning paper plane in the distance category was Brydie's team including herself, Eddy, Eliot and Felicia.

The winning paper plane for time in the air category was Leanne's team including herself, Beau and Amy!! Well done designers!

What is one of the most important inventions of all time and why?

Today for our thinking question we had to answer this question: What is one of the most important inventions of all time and why? It was a pretty tricky question. Some of our ideas were: the internet, robotics, the TV, cars, electricity, the incubator, computers and laptops, bags, the seat belt, the traquilizer dart, the flushable toilet and even war. The most popular suggestion was the phone. We had to think about why our choice was the MOST imporant- that was harder still. 

Here are two people's thinking about this question:

"One of the most important inventions of all time is the airplane. Airplanes can take you where you want to go in the world like Korea, Australia, China and NewZealand. The reason why it was so important is because it made the journey much faster. You can now travel to Korea in a few hours, instead of it taking days by ship. 
An airplane can also be used for sky diving and also the airplane can go up into the air and you can open the door and jump!
Airplanes also can be used for delivering products from one country to another."
By Daniel Kim


"In my opinion I think numbers are the most important invention of all time, because if there was no numbers there would be nothing at all!
Some poeple might think that medicine is better because it saves lives, but think about it...when people make medicine how do they know how much stuff to put in it without numbers? 
Also, telling the time would be hard. For example,
"See you later!" said Bob
"Later when?" asked John
"I don't know!" replied Bob
See? If there was no numbering system we would have nothing.
In conclusion, I think numbers are the greatest invention of all time!
By Eliot H

So what do you think? Make sure you justify your answer!

Waiouru Army museum surprise

When the Congdon family were on holiday they happened to go to the Waiouru Army museum. While they were there they spotted this! Thanks for taking the photo Taylor.