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!

TERM ONE OVERVIEW

Wow what a busy term, camp, swimming, talent quest, lots of learning, goal setting interviews, rugby league and cricket and the disco.

It has been a hectic start to the year, hopefully term two will be a little less full on. Though we do have the KNS Jubilee at Queens Birthday weekend.

TALENT QUEST

What an event, what amazingly talented children we have at Kaiapoi North and very courageous to get up on stage in front of the whole school and perform. Well done to the Room 15 entries: Cheyenne, Mikaela, Alex and the 4 Elvis's.

Great performances!!!

SWIMMING AT DUDLEY POOL

So far Room 15 have enjoyed their time swimming at Dudley Aquatic Centre. We had a great lesson a few weeks ago where we got to learn some survival skills wearing life jackets. The children wrote some short recounts about the experience.

"Wet, wet, wet, wet," I said a I felt water trickling down my back. The life jackets were soaking wet from the other children that had worn them. I wanted to jump in but the instructors said no. My whole class stood there while drops of water trickled over all of us. Some life jackets were small and even some tiny. "SPLASH!" "PLOP!" I had jumped in like there was no tomorrow. After I jumped in I bobbled around like a big bouncy ball on concrete, but it wasn't hard. I loved it.

By Katie Falgar-Simms

Yay, we're here at the most coolest pool every, its Dudley Park Pool. Well we got changed, then we got called up. I have the biggest butterflies ever, I'm terrified. We each grab a life jacket. I put mine on. Ooouu its slimy, so icky, cold and sticky. We took a step in. I nearly screamed it was so cold. I can't believe it. Well I got over that but we had to sing our ABC's and huddle up and then scream. It felt like I just went deaf. I hopped out of the pool to get changed.

By Matthew Rawlin

NIKAU CAMP 2012

We had a great time at camp this year at Living Springs. We were extremely busy doing lots of fun activities. We learnt about many different things in the bush, we learnt how to work together as a team on the initiatives and low ropes courses. Some of the other cool things we did were bouldering wall, the monorail, the balanz bikes, swimming on the swimming pool doing our camp skits and much more.

OUR FIRST DAY IN ROOM 15

Today was the first day back at school. YAY!!!!! We have two new people in our class, they are Emma from Kaiapoi Borough and Ashleigh from Waitere Bay in the Marlborogh Sounds, we are very lucky to have them.

We did do some learning today, we learnt how to do borders and titles on our title pages and make them look really good. We also remembered what makes a good friend.

We have had a great start and we look forward to learning lots!!!!!!