FORCES - GRAVITATIONAL WATER EXPERIMENT

The first step is to fill up the glass or plastic cup with water to the brim, then put the cardboard on the top and tip it over.  Last let it go!

WHAT HAPPENS!!!
The cardboard stays put.  This is because there is no gravity in the glass because there is no air.
We tried with less water and it worked with about 3-4cm of air in glass, but anymore their was too much gravity in the glass.

UP UP AND AWAY - OUR FIRST THOUGHTS

We made paper planes to learn about flight.

We found out that the wings have to be symmetrical - balanced on each side.

Wind can affect flight.  A tail wind gives you an extra boost, so having the wind behind us makes them go further.

Some planes glide - these are called gliders - they don't have engines and propellers.

Sometimes paper planes with large wings, didn't fly very well because the wind caught the wings and pushed them back.

A paper plane that had a blunt nose worked better - we think this is because it made the front heavier and go further.

To many folds makes it slow down as the wind has more surfaces to catch.

The paper plane needs to be stiff not flimsy.  If it was flimsy it would just crash, it had no resistance against the wind.

Lane had a skinny plane and it flew further and throwing it upwards also helped.

FOOTBALL SUCCESS - WELL DONE LANE AND LEVI

Well done to Lane and Levi with their football this season.  They were both in the Waimak United 11th Grade Kingfish Team.  They won their Mainland Football competition on Saturday.  Awesome result guys - who knows maybe future All Whites in the making.

The Shadow Underneath - Of our Handmade Hovercrafts

This term for science week, Room 15 made some handmade hovercrafts.  First we had to research about how hovercrafts work and what they are used for.  We found out some facts, like they are amphibious - they can go on both land and water.  A hovercraft has a skirt that inflates into an air cushion.  The skirt has a hole or holes in it to push the air out and create the hover.  This lifts the hovercraft off the ground and allows it to hover.  Hovercrafts have propellors (fans), they cause thrust to make it move and they put air into the skirt.  They also have engines that power the propellors.  

We decided to make our own hovercrafts to test out our knowledge.  First we got all the supplies, (old CD, drink bottle lid (pump bottle), a balloon and some really strong glue). Next we glued the lid onto the CD so it covered the hole, we had to wait for the glue to dry.  Once the glue was dry we blew up our balloons  and carefully placed them over the bottle lid.  We made sure the lid was open and then we let go of our balloon.  The air coming out the bottom caused the hovercraft to hover and move.  

Tips: have the hovercraft on a flat and smooth surface.

Check out some of our footage of us using our hovercrafts.

BOOK CHARACTER DRESS UP

Well done to those who made the effort and dressed up for our book day, it was fun, and a really good way for some to show their creativity skills.  

JUMP JAM CHAMPIONS!!!

Room 15 children did a fantastic job with their jump jam performance, so good we won the Year 5/6 part of the competition.  It was great to see everyone dressed up.  All the practices that we had paid off!  Enjoy the photos and short video, hopefully it works.

Rock 'n' Roll Dancing

We are learning Rock and Roll dancing this term, because it is the type of dancing that people would have been doing when Kaiapoi North started 50 years ago.

So far we have learnt that it is loose, that you don't hold onto your partner to tight, so that they can move freely.

Some of the songs we are dancing to are Elvis songs.

We have four great teachers from the Kaiapoi Rock and Roll Club who are giving up their time to come and teach us.

Last week we learnt to do the basic step and the  girls learnt to do turns.

We were a bit embarrassed having to dance with boys and girls together.  It reminds Mikaela a bit of ballroom dancing.  Its lots of fun and we are looking forward to our lesson today!