Tuesday 15th March 2016

Today we are learning about different habitats and how animals can adapt to their surroundings. We are learning about why we are now called habitats instead of rooms and what makes us feel like we belong to our habitat. 

We are reading the book 'Which Habitat' by John Carr. This book is on Sunshine Online if the children wish to read it for homelink. 

This is what the children thought a habitat was before we read the book.

• Where there are birds - Josh
• A place where lots of people are - Riley
• Planets - Jason 
• Animals live there - Frank
• A building or construction - Jack
• A group of things live there - Gaby
• A class - Piper
• Where animals live - Piper
• A group of people or animals - Riley
• Where things live - Zayne
• Our environment - Frank
• Where people go - Jack
• Where we live - Joshua A, Kourtneay

We now think that a habitat is: 

• Somewhere where animals live
• A habitat has everything that animals need to survive/live
• Animals adapt/change to suit their habitats

We think we are called a habitat because we spend lots of time in our room. We have everything we need to survive and learn in our habitat. We have adapted to our habitat because we have a new teacher, we have made new friends and some of us are in a new learning environment. 

For maths today we did our basic facts assessment. Please check our homelink books to see the questions that we need to work on. The assessment tests what equations we know straight away, not what we can work out. 

It was our library day today so we will have new library books to read. Remember these are due back to school each Tuesday :) 

We started a new shared reading book about seeds. We talked about what we already know about seeds and made predictions about the different ways seeds move. We also used the index page to help us find relevant information. 

Each of our shared reading books will be linked to our concept of sustainability. 

This is what we already knew about seeds:

• They grow plants
• They make flowers
• When plants die, seeds fall out
• They make trees
• Seeds move
• Rain and sun helps seeds to grow
• Wind moves seeds
• You plant seeds
• Soil help seeds grow
• Bees help seeds move.

These are our predictions about how seeds move:

Animals

• Animals might shake the ground or trees and the seeds would fall of
• They could use their mouths to move seeds
• They might catch flower stems and shake them
• When animals stomp the seeds might fall
• They might stand on flowers and the seeds would get stuck to them and then they move to different places

Birds

• They eat the seeds from the flowers and then bury them somewhere else
• By getting them out of the flower with their beaks
• They could hold flowers with their beaks and then fly and drop the flower somewhere else
• They use their feet 
• They might use their wings to make air to move seeds

Explosions

• Lots of wind comes out when there is an explosion so this would move seeds

People

• They pull out seeds from flowers and plant them
• They use their hands to plant seeds
• They might accidentally kick flowers and the seeds might fall out 
• They might get stuck in peoples shoes

Sun

• The sun makes the flowers grow and makes the seeds fall out
• The sun makes things hot so it might make the seeds fly out
• The sun might kill the flowers because it gets too hot and then the seeds will fall to the floor

Water

• When water falls on flowers it makes them vibrate and the seeds might fall out
• The seeds could float on the water to different places
• When lots of rain goes onto the flowers or plants it might make the seeds pop out

Wind

• Gusts of wind might blow seeds around or make them fall out of plants or flowers 
• The wind might move seeds or flowers from the ground. 

Tomorrow we will be updating our important word writing assessment to see how many more words we have learnt how to spell. - This would be a great idea to work on these for homelink :) 

I will glue copies of this assessment into their homelink books :) 

It is hat day next Thursday 24th March - this is to raise money for our World Vision child. The theme for this years hat day is sustainability. We are encouraging you to not purchase anything new to make the hat, but instead think of ways to reuse or recycle other materials. The hat parade will be on Thursday morning at 10.15am on the top court after the whole school assembly. Prizes will be rewarded to the most creative hats that reflect the children's learning around sustainability. 

Here is Finn's recount. 

On Saturday I went to tree adventures. We went on four courses at tree adventures some of the courses were wobbly. My mum and dad were there my brother was there and I was there. I saw lots of trees there. I heard lots of people chatting in the hut which was at the start of tree adventures. There was a flying fox at the end of every course. I did course one, two, three and four. I smelt fresh air. I felt awesome at tree adventures. I was very tired at the end of course four so we went home and it was nearly dinner time so in a little while we had dinner then I had a shower then I brushed my teeth and then I went to sleep.
Finn 

Here is Isaac's recount.

I went to the pools and we jumped into the pool then
we jumped to get the ball and my dad was watching us jump in. I heard noise. I saw lots of people. I smelt the water. I was with my dad and Lucas and River. We all jumped in the pool. Then we went home and I felt happy and then I felt hungry. I then went to sleep because it was school in the morning. When I got to school I was happy because it was my turn on the computer. 
Isaac