Our trip to Willowbank

How many children would fit in our classroom?

This is the problem Room 15 had to solve in Maths this week. Here is Catherine to explain how we did it...We had to find the area of the classroom to see how many kids can fit in so we made some square meters out of newspaper.Then we laid them down one side of the classroom and found that it was eleven meters that way and then did the same down the other which made seven.We know that seven times eleven is seventy seven.So that we could finish the problem we found how many children   could fit on one square meter.After squishing thirteen kids on we worked out that thirteen times seventy seven was one thousand and one!Thats a lot of kids that can fit in our classroom.

Freddo the Frog

We had a new friend in our class today. Freddo the frog joined us. Matson found him clinging to a stick outside Room 4 and brought him in to show us. Everyone was very excited especially when Freddo hopped across the mat. The children researched frogs on the internet and decided that Freddo looked like a Whistling Tree Frog, found in New Zealand and Australia. We found out that frogs die if their skin dries out. We decided that he had strayed into the school grounds because of all the puddles from the heavy rain. Freddo seemed comfortable in the habitat we created for him: twigs, leaves, stones and a little pond inside a plastic container. We noticed that he liked hiding under the rocks and leaves. He might have been a bit frightened. We could see his heart beating. His skin was light brown when it was dry but changed to a much darker brown in the wet environment. We thought he might be camouflaging himself among the stones and twigs. We found out that frogs like to eat mealworms and flies and they don't have eyelids. The children gathered lots of information about frogs. They selected the keywords in the information they were reading and then used the keywords to write their own sentences. We decided it wouldn't be a good idea to leave Freddo in the classroom on his own overnight so Matson took him home and he will either set him free or bring him in again tomorrow. Thanks so much to Matson's mum for being a great sport!

Archaeologists at work in Ancient Greece

Excavations in Athens have uncovered the remains of an Ancient Greek dwelling. Archaeologists have found pottery dating back thousands of years and they have been using the decorations on these pots to find out about life in Ancient Greece. The pottery was in broken pieces and all the fragments had to be carefully matched. Archaeologists then studied the pots carefully and tried to work out what the pictures showed. 

Archaeologists Shanae and Ryan carefully match the broken fragments.

Archaeologist Jackson is right... the picture shows a baby on a potty (which is also a highchair!)

Archaeologist Emma tries to decide whether this pot shows Olympic runners or men fighting or dancing.

The archaeologists try to decide whether this pot shows a horse race or men going to war on horseback.

Archaeologists Lauren and Luke puzzle over this pot that has missing pieces.

Archaeologists Blake and James decide that this pot shows two men wrestling.

At first the archaeologists think this picture shows a slave being punished.

The fragments of pottery that were found

Archaeologists at the excavation site

Life in Ancient Greece

We launched our new topic by travelling back in time to Ancient Greece. The children experienced a little bit of what life might have been like in Athens, thousands of years ago. The rich boys paid to go to school where they wrote the Greek alphabet, recited poetry and competed in wrestling and running competitions. The girls weren't allowed to go to school and they stayed at home and did sewing and cooking. They braided their hair and made ambrosia (which was served to the boys first). Then there were the slaves, who had to do whatever was asked of them: cleaning, sweeping, running errands, collecting up rubbish and peeling grapes. A lot of respect (or was it a little bit of fear?) was shown towards the adults. The school teacher at the palaestra found it very easy to teach the boys when they were so silent in class!!!

The girls make braids for their hair

A slave prepares the clay at school.

A slave gives out writing materials while the boys are learning.

The boys learn to write the Greek alphabet

Paper Planes

The wonderful Greeks