Room 4's awesome camp - Climbing Baldwin St

 Our next stop was Baldwin St, the world's steepest street.

 We posed for a photo at the bottom of the hill before we all set off for the top.

 It was no trouble at all to the fit and spritely legs of Room 4, who bounded quickly to the top.

 We stood for a moment looking down and pondered a few thoughts:

Who lives on Baldwin St?

What must it be like in the frost and the snow?

What if you didn't have a driveway and had to park at the bottom?

Who is the postie for Balwin Street? Do they walk up and down each day?

 And then, in true Baldwin Street fashion, we held our own JAFFA RACE.

Each participanty had a jaffa with a unique number on it. We stood ready at the top then let our lollies go!!

They were off!! Down the hill they raced....

Luckily Maria and Konica were waiting at the bottom and they scooped up the winning jaffas for us. The first three to cross the line belonged to Lucie, Hamish and Mrs O.

Climbing Baldwin St was good fun.

Room 4's Awesome Camp - Museum Motion Activity

Charlie gave us a lesson in motion and forces. She used the catapult to demonstrate how the energy was held in the rope when it was extended backwards and this is called 'potential energy' or tension.

Then as she released the catapult the energy travelled from the rope up the catapult and then was released out of the ball as the ball flew through the air.

After this demonstration we all split into groups and created role plays that showed how energy is transferred from one thing to another as they interact, and how motion, energy and forces can be influenced and changed by other forces.

It was a very interesting session and we all enjoyed it very much.



Room 4's Awesome Camp - Ten Pin Bowling

On Thursday Room 4 departed LAS and headed off on our class camp. Everyone was really excited. For our year 3's it was their first overnight camp, and they eagerly anticipated what lay ahead for them in the coming two days.

We left school in the cars of parents' who were coming along and headed to Dunedin. We had a car challenge to complete on the way through, and each car load of children had to find the answers and make observations as they travelled down the road.  

 Our first activity for the day was Ten Pin Bowling. It was such terrific fun. We have been studying motion at school and this was a great opportunity to see the effects that motion, speed, friction, and direction all play.  The children did have the added advantage of bumper bars coming up while they bowled.  Sadly for the parents and teachers, the bumper bars disappeared, which meant there were several gutter balls!

 Everyone had a great time, and it is definitely an activity that we will do as a class again.

Ten Pin bowling is AWESOME!!!!!!!

Congratulations to Abby who was the star student scoring the most points by far!

And also to Phil, who was the winning adult.

Planting to help out our native fish

On May 13, Lawrence Area School children and teachers took part in a “Meet the Galaxiids” day when they helped Lan from DOC to search Boundary Creek, which runs near the school, for Clutha flathead galaxiids. The stream runs through the Goldpark Motor Camp and owners Jock and Marie Martin are pleased to give the school access as they are keen to protect the rare galaxiids.

Image from the DOC website

We even feature on the DOC website!  If you want to find out more, click on the link below:
DOC website

Today the Year 1-8 students returned to the creek and helped the DOC rangers to plant numerous native plants along the creek running through the motor camp.  These are to help protect the clutha flathead galaxiids by increasing shade, reducing weeds and lowering water temperatures.

Firstly we were shown how to plant the natives, including the depth of the hole, crumbling the soil around the plant, pushing the soil down, placing a weed mat around the base and then placing plastic over four stakes to protect the plant from sprays and wind.

After the planting demonstration we set off in groups of three to get planting.  Check it out....

 

 

 

 

What a sight it was seeing nearly 100 students focused, engaged and doing something positive to help out our local environment!

 

 

 

 

Some of our finished work!

 After we had finished planting, the DOC rangers gave every student a special punnet which contained six kowhai seeds, which had been gathered from the South Otago area, to grow and plant at home.

Ukuleles

It has been FABULOUS to see the interest shown by the Room 4 children in learning to play the ukulele.  Better still, several students have asked their parents to purchase them a ukulele to play at home.

For those of you who are considering purchasing one I would highly recommend either the Mahalo or Makala brands.  These retail for approximately $50.  Cheap ukuleles are designed to be toys, rather than tuned instruments.  As you will notice with these two brands they have cogs at the back to tighten the tuners and keep the strings in tune.  There is nothing more frustrating for the students than not being able to keep their ukuleles in tune.  From personal experience I would also recommend purchasing an electronic tuner (which clips onto the end of the ukulele).  These retail for under $20 and are well worth purchasing.  If you require any more information about either the ukuleles or tuners feel free to contact Mrs O at school.

Student of the Week - Room 4

Well we just couldn't choose only one student for this week's Student of the Week, especially after Mrs Carter and Kate both told us how wonderful ALL of Room 4 had behaved for the Ripper Rugby tournament last week - from on the bus, to playing on the field.  Top job Room 4 - Mrs May and Mrs O are super proud of you all.  You represented Lawrence Area School and Room 4 with pride.

Student of the Week - Amber-Rose

Super well done to Amber-Rose for working really hard at making sure she understands what she is reading and answering lots of comprehension questions about texts read.  It is great to see students working so hard to achieve their classroom goals.  Top job Amber-Rose!

Front page news

Wow - look who is on the front page of today's Clutha Leader!!!!! Ryan and Alesana from Room 4.

Student of the week - Ryan

Congratulations to Ryan for being awarded 'Student of the Week' in Room 4.  We are especially pleased of the progress that you are making in writing Ryan - keep it up!

Happy Birthday Lanie

Happy Birthday Lanie!!!

Today was Lanie's 8th birthday, and her mum treated the whole class to a very special birthday cake.

It was DE-LIC-IOUS!!!!

We all hope you had a truly wonderful birthday, and we were glad to be a part of it with you. :-)