Kererū Hapori News-Week 3, Term 2

By Bridget McDowall | Posted: Thursday May 16, 2024

Ka whāngaia, ka tupu, ka puāwai-That which is nurtured grows then blossoms. This whakatauakī reminds us that if we take the time to nurture and support, then growth will occur.

Welcome, Mr Lopas!

Kererū Hapori would like to extend a warm Kaikorai welcome to our new support staff member, Ben Lopas.

Term 2

What’s On this Term?

-Road Safety Awareness Week 20th-26th May. Dress up as your favourite superhero on Wednesday, the 22nd of May.

-Class visits to Otago Girl’s High School to work in the science laboratory start next week.

-Art lessons with John Neumegen from the Outreach Programme.

-Life Education Bus visits

THANK YOU!

Our team would like to thank Renae, Jill and Ben for being such amazing members of our team. They support our classes each day and go above and beyond to help our students shine. Thank you for all that you do; we appreciate you!

PBL

Our new PBL is in full swing, and we are having exciting experiences with a science and math focus in the classroom. These have included making paper planes, designing returning boomerangs, oobleck, chromatography, engineering challenges, and extracting DNA from bananas.

We would like to thank Peter Hill and Renae Barnes for visiting each class to teach our students various science and maths skills and planning exciting science experiments for our team.

Another highlight has been participating in a Q&A session with Dr Joel Rindelaub. Dr Rindelaub is strongly interested in environmental science and was on Celebrity Treasure Island.

Over the next few weeks, each class will visit Otago Girls High School to take part in science experiments in the science laboratory. Please ensure you have completed the Google Form to grant permission for this trip.

https://forms.gle/99gJyytCDXWQZa8Z9

Polyfest

We have registered our Kapa Haka group for Polyfest 2024. This year, over 100 year 3-6 students will perform. Our performance date for September will be confirmed soon. Thank you, Anh, Grace, and Amanda, for making new skirts and headbands for the group.

Year 6 Fundraising for Camp

From Tuesday, November 26th, to Friday, November 29th, our Year 6 students will embark on an exciting adventure to Camp Columba. To help reduce the cost of camp for our students, we're seeking enthusiastic parent volunteers to help with fundraising. If you can spare some time and energy to help with fundraising, please email [email protected].

Unfortunately, we have only had one parent volunteer for the sausage sizzle, so these will not happen at this stage. If you have any great fundraising ideas, please get in touch.

We will soon be asking for parent volunteers for camp. A Google Form will be sent out for parents to fill in. Unfortunately, we cannot take all parent volunteers due to space, cost and need. We will prioritise those who can attend for the whole week and those with skills and experience in the outdoors. All parents are required to be Police Vetted before attending camp.

Matter is Everything

By Scarlett

Matter is everything that has weight and takes up space. Matter is made up of petite, little particles that we can't see. Particles are the tiny building blocks of the world.

Matter comes in three states: solids, liquids, and gases. In a solid, the particles are packed so tightly together that they can't move, so you can't walk through a wall. Liquids have particles that are spread out a bit more, so they swirl around, so you can put stuff in a liquid. Gas particles are far away from each other; it's like they’re social distancing.

Can states change?

Yes, they can!

When you light a candle, it is a solid; the particles loosen up, so a solid can turn into a liquid. On a cold morning, the gas turns to a solid by turning into frost. Lastly, liquids turn to gas when heated.

So, to conclude…

Matter makes up everything!

What is Matter?

By Betty

Matter is anything that has weight and takes up space. Matter is made of particles. Everything is made out of particles, even you, yes you!

Matter comes in three states: solids, liquids, and gases. In solids, particles cannot move around because there are a lot of particles in a small space. In liquids, particles can move around a bit. In gases, particles can move around freely because there are not a lot of particles.

Well, can solids, liquids, and gases change their form? Let's see! If you boil a pot of water, it starts off as a liquid, then it turns into steam, and steam is a gas. So, liquids can turn to gas. Then, if it's cold at night, water moisture doesn't just magically turn into frost. Frost starts from gas, so gas can turn into a solid.