How does yeast grow you wonder?

Room 1 tamariki were very busy indeeed yesterday morning making ginger beer with Mr Hoek. The purpose of the lesson was to investigate and research how yeast grows?

The classroom discussion was around biotechnology – looking at the reaction involved with yeast – which is a living organism.

What is Bio? The science of living things.

What is tech? We can use biology to make things.

Watch youtube clip How to make homemade ginger beer the link to the video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSBb7bCCbNY

 The tamariki were provided with all the ingredients and equipment to make ginger beer in small groups. They all had a lot of fun and it was their first time making ginger beer believe it or not!

Research and note taking

Tamariki were using class technology (iPads and Macbooks) for research and investigation into how and why does yeast grow?

They were asked questions such as:

1) What in the ginger beer mixture reacts?

2) How does the yeast and sugar dissolve?

3) How are the bubbles made?

4) How does yeast make carbon dioxide?

These questions will help form their explanations of how yeast grows..

Deconstruction

When writing the tamariki need to think about:

What is involved in explanation writing?

Explain what is happening (topic)

Linking paragraphs – First, then, next, now, finally etc (one idea per paragraph)

Use topic specific vocabulary

Last but not least the tamariki were deciding on how they would present their findings. Can’t wait to read/see and listen/hear their final explanations of how yeast grows!!

Goal Setting Growth Mindset

How To Be A Scientist?

Over the last week Room 1 tamariki have been songwriting and working in small groups to come up with their own raps about being a scientist. They all came up with attributes that they think you need to have as a scientist, some were you need to be open-minded, persistent with trial and error, dedicated, communicate easily with others, curious, creative, investigative and the list is endless. Their challenge was to incorporate their selected attributes into their very own scientist rap.



Stay tuned for our very own science raps produced and recorded by Room 1 tamariki!!

Goal Setting The SMART Way

We are on a mission to be focused, engaged and motivated learners with our maths learning this year. Miss O'B has given us our assessment results to talk about, compare, analyse and identify what we need to do next. We have talked about strategy stages we are currently working on to solve addition/subtraction problems. We have completed a basic facts test, an attitude interest survey and a PAT maths assessment. With all of this data and information we have looked closely at what we are already good at doing and what we need to focus on.

Our SMART goals are completed and we are busy displaying them, talking about them, writing about them, reflecting about them... (you get the point). Here are two photos that have helped us to write SMART goals for term one. Some are in the area of basic facts, some are about strategies we use, some are about statistical literacy we will learn about later on in the term.

What do you think?

One-step-at-a-time - goal achieving cartoon doodle video

The Transparent Egg Experiment

 For this experiment you'll need:

Materials

• a raw egg (you may want to do a few in case your egg breaks)
• a hard boiled egg (so we could compare it to the raw egg)
• white vinegar (poured 200ml vinegar in each jar)
• 2 glass jars or plastic containers with lid (we used glass jars)

Method 

Place your raw egg in a jar and cover it with vinegar do the same in a separate jar with the hard-boiled egg. You will notice the reaction of the egg shell with calcium carbonate and vinegar.  It will bubble for the first day (below) 

The second day you need to change the vinegar. After 48 hours we carefully rinsed the raw egg and noticed it was transparent! Cool! Isn't it amazing? Basically it is an egg without a shell! I will let your curious minds figure out how the egg shells disappeared..

Bet you the tamariki can't wait to get their hands on the raw egg to see if it bounces!!

Watch this space for some of the tamariki's hypothesis and conclusions...

“Mad Scientists”

Our inquiry learning this term is based around better understanding the skills/attributes a scientist needs to have – wonderings, hypothesizing, forming questions, following methods/procedures, recording data, looking at controls, observational drawings, writing conclusions etc.

This week Room 1 tamariki have been delving in some science experiments.

The first experiment the tamariki looked at during the week was ‘Colourful Chaos’. The tamariki were in small groups and had to come up with a question as to what they wanted to find out when mixing detergent with the milk that had food colouring in it. They then had to predict what they thought would happen, write down their equipment list, method, observations and lastly form conclusions at the end of the experiment (based on their question and hypothesis).

There were lots of surprised reactions when the children saw what was happening. By the end of the lesson the students having done further research were able to describe the changes they saw, explain what is happening to the milk, explain that detergent particles have two ends one that likes fat and the other water, and also discuss the differences and similarities of the different types of milk used in the experiment.