Wonderful Week 5

We are nearly half way through the second term! WOW! We have a busy week planned practicing for our winter sports day, which is next Friday June 1st. We are also starting some fun art in class that relates to our topic we have been studying - dairy farming. Look out for the pictures in the next couple of weeks! 

We are very, very, very sad to see James leaving us tomorrow - heading off to live and explore the beautiful South Island and live just down from Christchurch. We will be keeping up to date with his adventures by writing some letters to him. 

Here is a fun websites with amazing stories and games for you all to check out http://www.dogonews.com/

  Enjoy your week :)

Tony's Dairy Farm

What a day we had today!! It was a fantastic experience to explore the farm and to learn so much about milking and the roles and responsibilities of the farm. We had so much fun exploring the farm, climbing the hills, stomping in the mud, learning a lot about the cows, the milking , fencing and all the other things Tony and the farmers do on the farm.


Here are some photos from yesterday, enjoy!

Snakes - James' Report

Snakes

There are over 3000 kinds of snakes, this report will tell you about a few of them.

The king cobra of Asia is the world’s longest poisonous snake. It grows to be more than 5 meters long. In India cobras kill more than 7,000 people every year. The bite of a king cobra can kill an elephant in an hour.

A sitting cobra squirts venom into its attacker’s eyes, it is not deadly but it blinds the victim and is very painful. Constrictors are snakes that squeeze victims to death instead of poisoning them. A constrictor does do not crush its victim instead it winds itself around gradually tightening its coils until the victim suffocates. They include pythons, boas and wait hiding motionless under trees and waiting for victims to pass by. Boas capture their prey by lying. One species of snake is a deadly viper, which has been recorded swallowing prey that was 16 times its own body weight. All snakes can go for many weeks without eating.

By James

Aishlyns report on Horses

This is a report on horses and it will tell you what they eat, how fast they can go, and where they live. A horse is a mammal and they are an animal that lives on a farm and is taken care of by farmers

Why horses wear shoes?

Horseshoes stop hooves being damage by hard surfaces such as roads. The shoes are usually made of steel, and the person who makes and fits them is called a Ferrier.

How you tell a horses age?

Horses mainly eat grass, and munching away at this sort of though plant food is very hard on teeth. Experts can get a good idea of a hoses age by looking at the way its teeth are wearing as it gets older.

Foals

A baby horse is called a foal. Even though it can walk, when it is only two hours old, a foal will keep close by its mother when exploring the farm.

What are horses used for?

Most horses are used for trail rides .Some horses are ridden by farmers who herd the cattle or sheep.

Do horses like company?

The certainly do. Horses love hanging out in a herd-that’s what we all a group of horses.

Fastest horse

Racehorses are the king of speed. Galloping racehorses can pound around a Corse with a jockey on its back at over 60 kilometers per hour.

How many kinds of horses are there?

There are many breeds of horse and pony. Members of a breed share certain characteristics, such as colour and height, and pass them on to their foals

How we tell a horse is happy

Although a horses cant talk like we do,you can tell how a horse is feeling from its body language. A happy horse will    hold its head and  tail up high, for example

Are there any wild horses left today?

There’s only one breed of horse around now that’s descended from the wild horses of prehistoric times .It is called przewalkski’s horse, after the Russian explorer who rediscovered it in Mongolia in the 1880s.

Where they live…

Horses live on a farms, country sides, and paddocks

Guinea pigs by Jess P

Guinea pigs

Guinea pigs live happily in a cage and make great first pets that are quiet and easy to care for. They are playful and young animals will chase around their cage or run. They will investigate and use tunnels and play-houses.

A male is called a Boar. A female is called a Sow and young ones are called suckers. Short haired breeds include American Satin and the Crested.

Generally guinea pigs are reasonably easy to feed remembering two main things. Number one- they can`t make their own  in the vitamin c. Number two- they need to be made to work at their food as if they are in the wild  by grinding down roughage in order to  get sufficient nourishment. This will also help to keep the front teeth short preventing further problems.

There are now more than twenty five different breeds of guinea pigs. Guinea pigs come from South America. They can be attacked by meat-eating animals. They are shy and scared very quickly. They are named guinea pigs because the sailors sold them for one guinea and they make squeaking noises like a pig. The common guinea pig was first domesticated as early as 5000 BC for food by tribes in the Andean region of South America.  

 

By Jess P

Ben's report on War

War

War is an armed conflict that happens between different countries or groups. One of the most talked about wars was WW1. In August 1914 was one of the most eventful month of the war it was this month that the powerful European nations started attacking one another setting panic waves across the continent.

The idea of an armoured vehicle to repel machine gun fire was first conceived by Colonel Swinton and Colonel Maurice Hankey. In 1914 Swinton had described it as a petrol tractor on the caterpillar principle and armoured with hardened steel plates. Swinton he died on January 4, 1914  just a few months before World War 1 started.

WW1 ended on the 11^th of November 1918, when Germany signed an armistice with the Allies.

By Ben

Our Painting - Primary Coloured Flowers

Have a look at our beautiful artwork we have been creating. We are focusing on painting flowers using the techniques of tinting and blending colours. This week we only used primary colours and mixed them to create the darker colours you will see. I think we all have done a fantastic job :)

Jordan's Report - Rhinoceros

Rhinoceros

The Rhinoceros is a mammal that lives on their own in the grass lands in Africa. It grows up to 4 metres tall and almost 2 metres wide. It has two horns which are like your fingernails only much harder, but they are not made out of bone. The black rhino’s skin is very thick and grey in colour. 

The countries in Africa where the black rhino lives will not let them be killed. They have reserves to help save the black rhino. In the wild the black rhino has no real enemy. Sometimes a lion will take a baby for food.

Black rhinos have good hearing and good sense of smell they use their noses to follow the tracks of the other black rhinos. The black rhino has a pointed lip. This is used to hold the plant and push it into its mouth when eating. The black rhino does not eat meat, they eat twigs, leaves, and fruit from bushes. Black rhino like to cover themselves with wet mud to stay cool; this also stops the insects from biting them. The only real danger to the Black Rhino is human who kills them for their horns. The horns are sold in countries in Asia and the Middle East, they are used in Chinese medicine are also worn by Arab men as jewellery. 

The female black rhino can have a baby when she is six years old. The baby can stand up very soon after it is born. The mother will then have another baby and the first one will go off on its own. The mother feeds the baby rhino on milk for 1 to 2 years. When the baby is one week old it will also eat green plants. The baby goes everywhere with the mother, who makes sure the baby is always safe. The baby stays with the mother until it is 3 years old. 

Black rhinos have various habitats but mainly area with dense woody vegetation. White rhinos live in savannahs with water holes and mud wallows and shade trees. Conservationists have been working hard to save the rhino and its relatives from extinction. In some cases, their hard work has paid off. However all species are not completely safe from human greed, although it is illegal to kill rhinos. 

Zoos are places where animals that are unusually wild are kept in enclosures. Some zoos have a lot of space for animals to move about they are called open range zoos. Rhinos are communally found at these places.

The Woolly Rhino was a close relative of the Modern Sumatran Rhino, it was once found in Northern Europe and Eastern Asia.  This rhino had two horns and its body was covered with thick hair. It grazed on grass and shrubs. It lived during the ice age and was probably hunted by early humans. The species became extinct ten thousand years ago.

By Jordan

Dairy farming - go milking

We played this fun game in class the other day. It tells us all about the different ways we can milk a cow. It also shows us the different amounts of milk we can get from the cows, using the three techniques within a time limit.

http://www.godairyeducation.co.nz/resources/interactive-materials/digital-learning-objects/

We have been busy learning a lot about the day in the life of a farmer, how a cow makes milk and how the milk goes from the farm to the shelf. All in preparation for our field trip next week to a Dairy Farm in Matamata. On Thursday we will be heading out to talk to Tony about his life on the farm, have a good look around the dairy shed and some other parts of the farm.

OUR WEEK 3

Wow time has flown by! We have had a great week, full of learning and exciting things to do. We have been busy making mothers day cards - which I hope you all enjoy on Sunday! 

We have been learning how to write a instructional piece of writing over the past few weeks - making sure we include the materials or ingredients and instructions of what to do to make (in the correct order!). We all wrote our own instructions to make our own pizza - so today we got to make them! It was fun to be able to make something and then EAT it!! We also used all our knowledge about fractions when cutting our pizza. I was able to see you all have learned a lot!

We are also in the process of creating our own face mask - writing our own instructions and following them exactly, decorating them with sequins, feathers, paint, colour pencil, pipe cleaners and much more. Look out for the pictures next week of them completed!

 

With Ms Lyon room 6 has been busy painting beautiful pictures of flowers using primary colours, I was so impressed with the quality of the work, I was blown away by what I saw (photos will be up soon).

This week we also welcomed a new member to our class, which is always exciting! Its great to see everyone being so welcoming :)

Additon and subtraction

This will our maths focus for the first 6 weeks of term 2 - with a big emphasis on subtraction. Throughout last term and last weeks basic facts tests, a common trend has occurred with many students - our addition skills and knowledge are great but we need to focus and work on improving the strategies we are using when we are solving subtraction problems.

This is a fun website with numerous subtraction games that we have enjoyed using in class

http://www.fun4thebrain.com/subtraction.html

Rosies World

This term we are learning all about dairy farming, from what the farmers do everyday, how they milk the cows and what happens to the milk once it is transported away from the farm. 

We are also following Rosie the Cowbassador, who is going to be traveling all over New Zealand - and maybe even the world - to find out what makes our dairy industry one of the best in the world - how 'mooo-vellous'!

Visit her website at home http://www.rosiesworld.co.nz/about-rosie

On the website you can learn all about Rosie, where she has been, her favourite places and there is a huge amount of information about Dairy Farming. Also sign up to her club, play the games and enter the competitions :)