Inventions and Machines:So far!

Well this term has been fill will lots of little events :

Firstly, we finally found a super trusty side-kick for Zina! You have probably seen Erika around and she's been fantastic helping with everything!

Week 1:  World Maths Day, 1900s day and  had our first every monthly multiplication quiz show.

We talked about what was missing from the 1900s day and started our timeline of inventions. We also chose an inventor from our home country to research.

Week 2:
We created a simple survey about what machines people used and asked other students and teachers around the school then made bar graphs with this information. We talked about  the similarities and differences between two very different cultures, with regard to inventions and machines in the everyday life of a children and some adults. And... while Zina's was in Vanuatu on her holiday, between sipping green coconuts and catching miniature crabs on the beach, Zina also popped over to the neighbour's place to ask the kids about there life and use of inventions and machines.

Here's the video of that:

We also started our bike riding unit in PE which is really fun especially in this great weather! We are going to have a long ride and a picnic during our last lesson.

It was also the day that we've counting all year... the 100th day. So we had a 100s day celebration with guessed the 100 sweets jar, blew up a hundred balloons, made a hundred cookies and went on a 100s treasure hunt.

Week 3:

We talked about how our inventions have positive and negative points. We looked at the life cycle of certain machines to think about what is really involved in making it, using it and disposing of it. Then we learnt about Rube Goldburg and his fun cartoons of machine systems that make simple tasks more complicated.

We experimented with  his ideas and made some Rube Goldburg machines ourselves.

Week 4: 
We are now talking about Simple Machines:
 lever; wheel and axel, wedge, incline plane, screw and pulley.

Here's the class using some 'wedges' (otherwise known as axes, nails and saw)

So then next week. Week 5,  we will make an informed Rube Goldberg machine.

We are also going to visit the Machine of Marly to see a how that worked to pump water up to Versailles' fountains.

Oh and we will have our monthly math quiz show again!

Then in Week 6.... we might make something big outside.. we'll see how we go for time.. but either way,  parents and friends are invited to come and see our machines on a demonstration day.