Chapter Chat for Term 1 is nearly over but not the fun it brings.

We are becoming expert users of twitter and thinking about how to write a quality tweet and like someone else's tweet.

Today we shared our technology activity for the week on Twitter - making catapults!
This required fine motor skills, problem solving and a growth mindset!

Our Get NZ Writing parcel is on its way to Long Beach School!

This is the finished product of all our postcards put together. On the other side are our written poems using metaphors to describe ourselves. You can read our poems in Google Docs under Writing.

Now we await the parcel from Long Beach School!

Twitter connections on Chapter Chat!

Answering questions about our Class Novel Tuesdays at the Castle is a great way to see how we have listened and understood the story so far. We can see what other children are talking about and agree or disagree with their answers.

We are also learning to give other children feedback on their work about the book. We have learned that it must be positive, encouraging and thoughtful feedback.

We have also practiced writing tweets in pairs and reading them to each other to edit before we tweet. We are being responsible Twitter Users using the Internet carefully just like we agreed to when we signed our Device Use Contract.

Clever Mussels! Room 20 is learning about how our actions affect our local sea environment.

Mussels in the sea water collected from the Tamaki Estuary. Can you spot the difference between the clarity of the water in the top and bottom picture?

This is the water as soon as the mussels were put in. Can you see how cloudy the water is with all the sediment and silt floating around? 

After half an hour we started to see the water become clearer where the mussels began to filter it through their shells. 

Did you know a mussel can filter 350 litres of sea water a day!

Unfortunately there are nowhere near enough mussels to do the filtering of the Hauraki Gulf like many years ago as there are very little reefs for the mussels to grow on.

The is a lot of pollution from Auckland storm water drains into the sea, like in the Tamaki Estuary. But if we can support the regrowth of mussels on the seabed the water can be cleaned up and sea life will come back to the Gulf.

Find more information at:

http://reviveourgulf.org.nz/

We have been thinking of ways in which we can stop pollution going down the drain. 

Can you help too?

who's who in those snorkels and masks?

Do you recognise these underwater creatures!?

wait there's more!

Fantastic Trip to the Millenium Centre today!

A giant thank you to Mrs Urlich, Mr Holmes, Mr Withers and Mr Monaghan for helping us all day - we really appreciate it!

Sitting in a kayak was new to lots of people today and everyone was rocking themselves and tipping upside down to feel what it was like to overturn in a kayak. Thanks to Mrs Urlich for swimming in the water and helping us swim our kayaks back to the pool wall.

Great listening everyone - the Pool Instructors complimented us on our wonderful manners and fantastic attitude to challenging ourselves! 

Wonderful team work everyone, those that climbed in first to pull the others out of the water by their life jackets and then those who stayed in the water to push and support those getting into the boat - well done!

Lockie was the last to be pulled in - great to see you helping out your classmates Lockie!!

Mr Holmes and Mr Withers were also getting pretty wet today and helping children push the kayaks in and out of the water!