Student of the Week - Lucy

Congratulations to Lucy who has had an amazing week in Room 4.  Lucy has been noticed by many teachers for her terrific work in lots of areas - reading, maths and helping others in the playground.  So for listening to instructions, a great focus on all of her learning and making pleasing progress in Bump It, Lucy is Room 4's Student of the Week.  Keep up the superb work Lucy!

Shining Star - ROOM 4!!!!!!

Room 4 got a great surprise at singing assembly today when we were awarded the Shining Star award for using our initiative.  When students in Room 4 noticed that the sandpit was getting very low and no longer had enough sand, they suggested that as a class we write a letter to Mr Auld and Mr Healy pleading our case for some more sand. 

Then.... once the sand arrived, Room 4 students lead the charge to fill the sandpit, as the sand had been tipped onto the stones of the adventure playground.  So armed with ice-cream containers and other pottles, they worked hard on the task of transferring all of the sand into the sandpit.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!

Mrs O and Mrs May are super-duper proud of you all.

How awesome to see a class show their initiative and doing something that benefits the whole school.

Sound experiments

Today in Room 4 we conducted some 'hands-on' science experiments where we soon discovered how sound is made.   This experiment allowed us to hear and feel sound vibrations as the rubber band pinged against the plastic cup.  The harder we pulled the rubber band (more energy), the louder the vibration.

 

 

We began this experiment by placing a blown up balloon against a speaker (with no sound).  The balloon did nothing.  We then turned the music on and felt the vibrations through the balloon.  The louder the music, the stronger the vibrations that we felt.

 

 

This was a fun experiment where we got to 'see' the sound vibrations, by watching rice dance when we hit the drum skin with a beater.

 

Making waves - for this experiment we had to break a toothpick into 3 or 4 pieces and lay them on some water in a dish.  We then wet a paper towel and squeezed a drip into the middle of the water.  We noticed the waves created by the dropping water and realised that this is similar to sound waves.

Which travels faster - light or sound?  For this experiment we had to use a funnel to put some flour into a balloon, blow the balloon up and tie it in a knot.  Then one group member went some distance away from the rest of the group and popped the balloon with a pin.  We noticed that we could see the flour exploding BEFORE hearing the sound of the balloon popping, so we concluded that light does travel faster than sound, just like lightning and thunder.

 

 

Student of the Week - Abby

Congratulations to our student of the week, Abby, for 'all-round awesomeness!!!'
Abby's sister Isla collected her award for her at presentation assembly this week as Abby was absent from school.

Our Nerdy Teachers

Check out our two nerdy teachers - they loved Alex's t-shirt and happily posed for a 'nerdy' shot.  

New Sand for the Sand Pit

 At the beginning of term three some of the children in Room 4 noticed that the sand in the sand pit was beginning to get a bit low. It was not as much fun to play in any more and it was a bit tricky when there were lots of people wanting to play.

 Luckily Room 4 had just begun a unit of learning about 'persuasive writing' so the class decided to put their new powerful skills to use and they wrote a letter to Mr Auld and Mr Healy, explaining the troubles that they were having with the existing sand, and the benefits there would be if there was to be some new sand.

 You can imagine the delight on the faces of all of the junior school when they arrived on Tuesday mornign to see that a large mountain of fresh sand had been dumped in the playground over night.

 Unfortunately the delivery truck could not get close enough to the sand pit to actually deposit the sand in its true destination. 

 However, this did not phase the children of Room 4. They set about immediately to the task of shifting the sand to the sand pit.

They used ice-cream containers, lunch box lids, rubbish tin lids, plastic bags, handfuls....whatever they could find...to get the sand moved from one spot to the other, and what a lot of fun they had. (More-so, possibly, than if the sand had been put directly in the sandpit!!)

The children were thrilled to see that their letter had paid off, and it was terrific to see them work so well together as a team, even enlisting chidlren from other classes, to get the

sand-shifting job done!!!

You make us proud every single day Room 4!!!

Extra special awards - University of New South Wales Competition

A huge congratulations to our Year 4 students Rylee, Mac and Lucy who participated recently in the ICAS assessments based out of the University of New South Wales.  It was a great achievement just to be selected to take part in these assessments, along with students from schools throughout New Zealand, Australia and other participating countries.


Today at presentation assembly these students were given their results and presented with their certificates:

Mac  - credit in Spelling (top 30% for his age group) 

Lucy  - participation in Writing

Rylee  - participation in Spelling and distinction in Writing (top 9% for her age group) 

These are outstanding results and we are EXTREMELY proud of you!!!!
We look forward to receiving the results for the Mathematics assessment.  These can't be too far away.

Balclutha Gymfest

 Today we sent two teams of gymnasts down to the Gymfest competition in Balclutha. We sent Lucie, Jenaya, Rubie, Jessica, Rylee, Connie, Kate and Venessa.

 They competed in three different events each and were given a mark for each event. The marks were then averaged out to give an overall team score. Both teams were awarded a bronze certificate for their amazing efforts. The girls have been training with Maria Jopp in their lunch hours for the past three weeks.

 Each girl had to learn a beam routine, a floor routine and a vault. They had a lot of fun learning the routines and really enjoyed the opportunity to compete at gymfest. Thank you so much to Maria for all of her time and effort in helping the girls prepare for todays event.

 Connie

 Jenaya

 Jessica

 Kate

 Lucie

 Rubie

 Rylee

Venessa

Otago Rescue Choppers Visit

 On Friday afternoon we were visited by the Otago Rescue Helicopter. It flew in just after lunch and landed down on Simpson Park.

 It was pretty windy as it landed so we were lucky that they were still able to make the flight.

 Lucy, Lucie, Jenaya and Alex are waiting patiently as they watch the helicopter land.

 Hamish, Toby, Blake, George, Emma and Paris all watch on. Jessica takes some photos of her own in the background.

 William and Mac bracing against the cold wind created by the helicopter.

 Alex and Rylee.

 Lucie and Jenaya.

 Kate watches on.

 Emma and Paris enjoy the excitement of the helicopter landing.

 Finally it has landed.

 Part of the proceedings was the Lawrence Lions Club handing over a donation to the 'Splash Out' pool committee.

 The pilots and paramedics answer the children's questions about the helicopter. There were heaps of really cool questions.

 The reason for the helicopter coming in was to collect a donation from the Lawrence Lions Club. They had helped Bill and Sharyn Bazley to run the Lawrence 'Stars in Your Eyes' competition. On the night the community raised $35,000 which was donated to the Otago Rescue Helicopter Trust. The rescue chopper is vital to our community, which was made clear by the number of students who knew someone who had ridden in the chopper due to accident or illness.

 Jenaya waits in line to have a look at the back of the chopper.

 Room 4 has a look in the back of the chopper and has an opportunity to ask some questions about the helicopter or about rescue missions.

 Students get a chance to ask some more questions as they look around the chopper. They were fascinated as some of the important features were pointed out to them.

 We had a close inspection of the cockpit and got to ask the pilot a few questions too.

It was a real treat to have such a cool visit from an amazing team of people. They left us with some posters to remind us of their visit.