Goodbye 2015

We wish you a merry Christmas! 

May the peace of God's unconditional love, fill your homes and hearts this festive season. 

Thank you
for all that your family
has contributed to
St Johns and 3/4 BK
throughout 2015.

Much love,
"Mrs Berrykrock"
xxooxx

WE ARE  RICH SO LET'S SHARE

"Whenever you did it to the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me."
Jesus

In 3/4 BK we have been learning about the uneven distribution of the resources of our beautiful world. We found out that, unlike us, there are millions of people in the world who don't have what they need, to live the full and beautiful life which gave wants all of His people to enjoy. For example, some don't have clean water or enough healthy food. Some don't even have a toilet!

Toilet in a poor part of India - no toilet paper either!

We have plenty of clean water but not everyone is so lucky!

Here are some URLs for some excellent video clips showing that even one person can make a huge difference.

How are YOU going to make a difference???

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPeeZ6viNgY
(Lead India -The Tree)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWFJsvBiRE 

Ryan's Well

Solar System

During our Science Changeover, we are learning about our incredible solar system. 

We watched a video about orbiting planets and took visual notes. (These are notes that you make using symbols.)

We also discovered information in other ways. For example, some children read some information from their completed jigsaw puzzle. Others, in their Guided Reading session, were reading a play called 'Alive in Space' then they presented it as Readers' Theatre to the class. 

Our teachers say they try to link our learning so that we make great connections.

Some children completed a solar system jigsaw puzzle, then they read the information in the yellow boxes.

Fractions

FRACTIONS the FUN WAY!

This week we investigated fractions, using play dough made by Mrs Berrybush,  to make equal parts of a whole. We realised that we needed ALL the parts to make the whole.

This means that we need 2/2 (two halves), 3/3 (three thirds), 4/4 (four quarters), 5/5 (five fifths), ... 10/10 (ten tenths), ...20/20 (twenty twentieths) and even 32/32 (thirty-two thirty-seconds!) to make a whole.

We have also been comparing fractions and adding fractions with the same denominator - the number at the bottom which tells how many equal parts the whole was divided into. We found out that some fractions of the same sized whole are EQUIVALENT - the same amount e.g. 2/4, 4/8, 3/6 and 16/32 are all equivalent to 1/2.

Here are some of the fraction models we made:

8/8

 32/32

 2/2

 20/20

 4/4

 8/8

Can you think of some times when we need to use fractions in real life?
We would love to hear your findings!
Please post them as comments on our blog.

THANK YOU!!!

What is the Matter

What's the Matter? 

In science we have been learning about Matter. 

Matter is what everything in the whole world is made of, including pencils, mountains, air and even us! The 3 states of matter are SOLID, LIQUID and GAS. 

We did an experiment to see how things change from one state of matter to another.

In an ice cube tray we put samples of :
water    vinegar  banana   bread  rice  butter   tomato sauce

These are our ice cubes trays containing a variety of ingredients.

Then we put the trays in the freezer. We waited for two days to see what would happen.

In the meantime, we made predictions. Some students predicted that the banana would go hard, some people predicted that the sauce would not freeze and others predicted that bread would go mouldy. Everyone predicted that water would turn into ice because we all have had this experience. Most people also thought the rice would freeze together.

On Thursday we made our observations and wrote and drew our results onto our report sheet. We were surprised that the banana became very soggy, the tomato sauce was icy but not quite solid and the bread shrunk a bit and went hard. The rice surprisingly only got cold and otherwise was not affected. No-one was surprised that the water became ice! The vinegar froze too.

When things freeze, they become SOLID.
Next lesson we will explore the reasons for these changes so stay tuned!

Can you think of other foods that might freeze? Try it and let us know what you discovered.

Holding Crosses

Holding Crosses

We worked with the wonderful members of the Friendship Group from SJB Parish. They taught us the process of making wooden Holding Crosses. They are made especially for sick or lonely people or anyone who is facing difficult struggles in their lives. We even got to take some home for our sick family members.

Thank you to Mrs Delio, and all the kind, patient helpers. We loved spending time with these generous parishioners and we learned how to sand and oil the crosses. We also learned that there are many volunteers who give up their time to help others and that they do this to be followers of Jesus.

Equipment needed for sanding and oiling

Lorna demonstrating sanding

Varnishing the crosses carefully

Twinkling Synonym Poems

Twinkling Synonym Poems

We have been learning to use synonyms to improve our writing. Synonyms are words that have a similar meaning.

We started with the well-known children's poem, 

"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".

In case anyone has forgotten the original words, here they are:

Twinkle twinkle little star

How I wonder what you are

Up above the world so high

Like a diamond in the sky

Twinkle twinkle little star

How I wonder what you are

We used dictionaries, thesauruses and thesausus.com on the ipad to find synonyms.

Here are some of the excellent poems that students came up with:

Sparkle,sparkle tiny spark 
How I imagine what you are 
Higher up than the sphere 
So far up like clear glass in space
Sparkle,sparkle tiny spark
How I imagine what you are.
(Written by Scutty and Jacko)

 

GLISTEN, GLISTEN, TEENY STAR,

HOW I ADMIRE WHAT YOU OBTAIN,
ABOVE THE EARTH JUST SO UP-RAISED,

 LIKE A JEWEL, UP IN THE BLUE.

GLISTEN, GLISTEN, TEENY STAR,

HOW I ADMIRE WHAT YOU OBTAIN!

                                                    (Written by Hunter and Roger)

Forces

Inquiry Unit - FORCES

We have worked co-operatively in small groups to design a Rube Goldberg-style machine to perform some simple tasks. At our Expo on Wednesday 24th June, families can see our finished machines in action! We next need to refine our designs as we trial our ideas.

View this video of one group in our class, to see some of the exciting ideas they came up with for their machine! Can you see which simple machines (wheel, lever, screw, inclined plane, wedge and pulley) they are trying to incorporate?

Learning Through Play

 We learn through play as well as through direct teaching. Look at the M.A.B. building constructed by Curtis, Harrison, Claudia, Kyle and Adam.

"We  learned how to build and construct. We tested it's strength a few times.We tried to make sure it didn't collapse by checking how strong it would be if something got thrown at it.

We also counted how many blocks there were all together. There were 5642 altogether! 

Can you see if we counted correctly?"

(Written by Harry and Curtis)

High tea

‘High Tea’ by Hunter 

[learning about how people celebrate occasions, successes and special events]

If I had a high tea, it would have a big pile of lightly dusted cinnamon doughnuts and a delicious big apple pie. Gourmet food galore it would be. On my table I would have a very delicate cloth, fancy cups, plates and teapots. Gourmet indeed!

IRA

Interactive   Read  Aloud

A student's reflection on learning...

During Interactive Read Aloud I have been learning to take more notice of the pictures when reading story books. I have also learnt to re-read the question when taking a test. Our teacher Mrs Crennan  has listened to our opinions fairly and given us all a chance to speak. I have enjoyed Interactive Read Aloud because it is helpful to learn these things.
(Written by Hanna)

Thanks for Helping

Thanks so much to all the parents who helped with the banner and all the families who voted at the Knox Festival - great community effort! 

Banner thanks

YEAR 3/4 Banner entry for Knox Festival 2015
Winner of People's Choice Award

Brilliance Happens

Welcome to the 3/4 BK classroom blog!

We hope that you enjoy reading about our class, now that we can use this technology to tell you about our learning and messages to the world.

In Term One, Reconciliation was a focus that involved many discussions about fairness, justice and community.

For the Knox Festival, every class member designed, and drew and painted on the banner that the 3 / 4 level submitted. Great excitement burst from our proud chests when we won the People's Choice award. Wow!