Busy Room 5

On Monday's we do buddy reading with the children in Mrs O'Donnell's and Miss Little's class. First we listen to our buddy read their story. Then we choose a picture book from the box and we read to our buddy.

We are learning how to make the reading interesting by asking our buddy some questions either about the story or about the pictures. Asking questions is sometimes hard because it is hard to think of a question.

We like buddy reading because it makes us feel important when we read to the little kids.






On Wednesday we participated in World Maths Day. Lots of children from lots of countries used the internet to answer maths questions. First we had to create our character by choosing a hair type, what shape and colour eyes we wanted, what clothes we wanted to wear, etc.

When you signed in, you competed against people from all over the world. We had to answer as many questions as we could in one minute. There was a bar on the screen that moved across if you got the questions right and you could see if you were beating the other people.

Most of us were really good. We had an hour each to see how many questions we could answer. The World Maths Day was trying to get 5 000 000 answers. We don't know if they made it but we helped.

It was fun and it was good for our maths.

Harold Visit

Do you know who this is? That's right. It's Harold.

Harold and the Life Education bus came to visit us at school this week. All the classes will be going to see Harold.







Jacob is looking confused and no wonder! He is looking at all the ooey bits that we have inside us, like our heart, liver, lungs and kidneys.

We are learning what these parts do and how to keep them healthy. Do you know that your brain feels like mushed-up avocado, looks like a walnut and smells like blue cheese.

We also looked at drugs. All medicines are drugs but not all drugs are medicines. Some drugs are helpful because they can help you get better, but some are harmful. You should never, ever take anyone elses medicine because it has not been made especially for you.

We like Harold coming to school because we learn heaps.

Sky High 2008

Look at this lovely, luscious lot!

This is the cool crew in Room 5 this year. Some of these children are in Year 5 and some are in Year 6.

We have been busy creating our CV's so that we can apply for all the jobs that the senior class has to do.

Our first unit this year is 'Amazing Me! What Lies Beneath?' We are going to be looking at all the important parts that we have inside our body. Stay tuned and you may find out some interesting (and yucky!) facts.

How to Bokashi!

We decided we'd collect all our scrap food in a 'Bokashi Day Bucket'. You can put just about any food you like in a bokashi as long as there is no liquid like orange juice or left over coffee etc. It also won't compost bones.





Each afternoon our Bokashi Boys sprinkle some magic zing into the bokashi bucket.








They cut up the food so that it is in smaller pieces and add that to the bucket.







Then they use their hands to push the food down - this takes the air out.


Pop the lid back on tightly and wait until the next day's food is added.



When the bucket is full, you keep the lid on for two weeks and then your compost should be ready. We will leave ours over the holidays and see what happens.

KNZB

Yesterday we took part in Keep New Zealand Beautiful clean up week. Some people brought gum boots to school so they could jump the fence and collected rubbish from the swampy creek in the paddock next door. Some of our rubbish blows through the fence and into neighbours paddock so we thought we'd better pick it up for him. After that the rest of the class went down Bradford Street collecting rubbish. We collected three bags full of rubbish, not much from the street though.

Blogged by Gabby & Elliot

Our Compost Journey

How exciting! Look at this big long box that has just arrived. We can't wait to see what's inside so Nikita, Troi and Christina are opening it.







We've found some buckets and some bags of sawdust stuff.







And some instructions.
These guys will have us all up and working in no time.

Our Compost Journey

WOW! Look at the amazing pile of food that we throw in our rubbish bin each day. There must be a better way to deal with all this unwanted food.

We decided that composting would be the best solution but we had some questions / concerns as to whether an outside compost bin would be best:
1. Where do we put it? Too close to school and it may smell or attract unwanted animals. Too far away and it would become a problem to add each days food.
2. Who would be responsible for it? As well as adding the food each day, who is going to be responsible for turning the compost to keep the air in it?
3. Do we have enough other materials to make really 'good' compost? We learnt that a compost system needs 3 layers - a green layer (which could be grass), a brown layer (which could be twigs and bits from trees) and a food layer. We'll definitely have enough food but would we have enough of the others?

So ... we were thinking that it may not be the best idea after all when Mrs Tobin said - 'Bokashi'.

What's bokashi? Connor looked it up on the internet when he got home and found out that it was a composting system that could be kept inside and that uses ONLY food. That sounded perfect so we ordered one.

Now we'll have to wait and see what we get.