Volume and Capacity - Three Bears and a Gingerbread Man

This week in Room 3 we are learning about volume and capacity.

Volume is the 3 dimensional size of an object - the space it takes up. This includes height, width and depth.

Capacity is the maximum amount or quantity that an object can hold. By maximum, we mean "how much when this is FULL?"

It is easy to compare volume and capacity when two things are different SIZES but the same SHAPE - like the three bears' porridge bowls. We know EXACTLY who has the biggest bowl, and which bowl holds the most porridge!

Some things are harder to work out. For example - Papa Bear's chair is really tall, but Mama Bear's chair is really wide. Whose chair has the greatest volume, whose chair is biggest??? Sometimes even bowls are like this - wide and shallow, narrow and deep, some aren't even round!

This gets really tricky, but if an object is hollow we can always work out its capacity by filling it with something - blocks (which we can count), water (which we can weigh or measure visually), flour, sugar, ginger...

We even made our very own ginger bread men (and ladies, and dogs...) using a cup, tablespoon and teaspoon measure to add the correct amounts of ingredients to our bowl. Lucky we've got some strong stirrers, sifters and measurers in Room 3 :)

Later on we ate our gingerbread characters - now our tummies have a slightly larger volume, but we have reduced their capacity by filling them up!

Term 4, Week 3

What a fabulous time we’ve had with Mr Mitchell Neal, our very popular student teacher! Last week was a very creative one in Room 3 with lots of art, singing and music. We enjoyed discovering and practising our construction skills and ideas (thank you so much for all of the donations!), and also enjoyed our fitness sessions for throwing and touch rugby.

This week we welcome Janice Oliver for our rescheduled jumping training on Friday, and look forward to more kapa haka and touch rugby on Thursday. We move on from length (and width, and height), to look at things we need to know about volume and capacity – how did the three bears know whose bowl was whose? How did the little old lady prepare the recipe to make the gingerbread man, and make sure that she had the correct amount of every ingredient?

In art this week we’ll start with a practise exercise making newspaper shoes (a bit of a technology challenge!) before we begin the construction of our ‘real’ costumes for the end of year Junior/Middle syndicate show. We are making papier mache masks, and would really appreciate further donations of old newspapers, egg cartons, pantyhose (laddered is fine, any colour also fine!), and old or broken sunglasses – we are after the dark lenses, not the frames. Thank you so much!

Reminders:

 - $5 to the school office for the upcoming show, The Seasons (if not already paid)

- sell (and buy!) your Home and School raffle tickets (fundraising for our awesome school!)

- the school policy is “no hat, no play”. Don’t be left behind under the shade cloth! 

Measuring length, height and width...

Room 3 have been learning about length. The length is what we call the measurement from one point to another - other useful words for measuring like this are distance, width and height. Yesterday we organised ourselves from tallest to shortest, and from shortest to tallest. We also found out how SMALL we were in width - we all could fit into the tiniest little circle (MUCH smaller than our big orange mat)!

Where does Tayla fit?

Who is taller? Jade or Matthew?

Leon is shorter than Lucia...

He is the SAME height as Sofie!

From tallest to shortest.

We don't even NEED such a big mat! But we're very glad to have one so that we don't have to play sardines all day long!

Touch Rugby

Room 3 enjoyed a touch rugby training session on Thursday! This is what we wrote about it...

Abby "Nathan taught us how to play touch rugby, and we played stuck in the mud. My partner was Evonne. I loved it, playing stuck in the mud when we played touch rugby. When I had the ball I had to run and when Evonne touched me and then I had to put the ball down and step over the ball and your partner grabs it and when he said "touch" we said "good game"".

Shakana "I play touch rugby. I like touch rugby, like truck and trailer too. I like it because it is fun. I love touch rugby".

Cade "I went to touch rugby. We had to pick a partner. I chose Joe and our coach was Nathan".

Lucia "Our coach was Nathan, he taught us some games, he taught us stuck in the mud. He also taught us rule ball. The rules are you have to stay in the cones. The cones were shaped like a square. My partner for rule ball was Jade. The cones were different".

Maya "At touch rugby our teacher was Nathan. He taught us lots of stuff. My buddy was Daniella. Daniella was a good buddy. We did a good shout at the end. We played stuck in the mud, roll, and truck and trailer".

Jade "Today we played touch rugby. We had to find a partner. I chose Lucia to be my partner, our coach was Nathan".

Matthew "At touch rugby, we play games. One of the games is truck and trailer. The coach was Nathan".

Jayden "I played rugby by the hall. It was fun today I love touch rugby".

Ava "I played touch rugby. My coach was Nathan. We played stuck in the mud. My partner was Mia. It was fun at touch rugby because we ran. When we get touched we have to drop the rugby ball and your partner has to get the ball and run. The best thing was my coach Nathan".

Tayla "Our coach was Nathan and he taught us that when you get tagged you have to put the ball in front of you and you jump over it and my buddy was Sophia. You had to pick your partner. I stopped for a moment. It was exciting!".

Evonne "We play touch rugby. First someone gets a ball and the person who gets the ball chooses a buddy".

Jesse "I like touch rugby and our coach was Nathan and we played truck and trailer and I like it and stuck in the mud and it was fun".

Mikaela "I went to touch rugby. You had to find a buddy. My buddy was Hunter. We played stuck in the mud. It was fun".

Keziah "I went to touch rugby. I ran and I touched my buddy. My buddy put the ball down".

Mia S "I went to touch rugby. My coach was Nathan. We had to pick a partner. My partner was Ava. Our first game was truck and trailer, I had to talk at the front like four times. My partner had to get me. I had the ball. I fell down. I loved running".

Hunter "My buddy was Mikaela, we played it on the field. The game was stuck in the mud. We got a ball, it was fun. I liked it".

Sophia "I went to touch rugby. The first game we played truck and trailer, and what was it we had to do? We had to pick a buddy. My buddy was Tayla. The second game that we played was stuck in the mud".

Sofie "Today we played touch rugby. I was with Leon. Leon didn't want to go with me but he did and I wanted him to go with me. He didn't tag me, I didn't tag him".

Daniella "At touch rugby we listen to our coach. Our coach is called Nathan. Nathan taught us if we get tagged we have to put the ball on the ground. My partner was Maya. We played stuck in the mud. It was fun. I love touch rugby, touch rugby is awesome. Miss Driver took photos. Mr Neal thought we were awesome. Everyone liked playing touch rugby. Nathan is a good teacher".

Saskia "I played touch rugby. We were playing truck and trailer and his name is Nathan".

Paytn "I went to touch rugby. The games are stuck in the mud and rule ball. It is fun. The rules are no cheating, if you cheat you are out of the game. That will be sad. When you play a game you make sure you win. It is so good".

Joseph "Today we played touch rugby. Our coach is Nathan. He taught us lots of stuff. We played truck and trailer. My buddy is Cade. I like Cade so so much. I love Cade".

Shanika "Our coach was Nathan he was nice. I fell over. When I tried to get up, I fell down again. It hurt a lot, it hurt my pinky so much. We all loved it".

Construction!

Room 3 is learning about construction as an art focus this term. In these pictures you can see us making discoveries as we experiment with recycled construction materials to make vehicles, buildings, drinking fountains, wands, rockets, puppets and all sorts of other wonderfully creative creations!

We are learning about glue and tape and string - what sticks to what, how much do we need, what is the best choice for our project? We are learning about cutting and making holes - scissors or skewers? What kinds of things are tricky to cut? We are learning about materials and how we can adapt them for our creative ideas.

In these photos you can also see us working together when more than one pair of hands is needed - we are learning a lot about cooperation, as well as tricky things like taking turns with the tape!

Finally, you can see us sharing ideas about what we have made, developing our descriptive vocabulary and practising making explanations for what we have done and how in order for others to understand our ideas.

Term 4, Week 2

What an awesome start to the term – we are loving our new and improved Room 3 Team! We’ve really enjoyed our touch rugby and throwing sessions for fitness, and we had fun giving life to our cress and mustard characters. You can find “us” in our greenhouse. We’re hoping to see the first signs of “hair” in around 10 days, and in 4-6 weeks time “we” will be ready for a haircut and salad sandwiches :)

This week we’ve got another touch rugby session scheduled, we’ll continue to work on throwing technique, and we’ll begin looking at jumping technique on Thursday with Janice Oliver. Keep practising – it looks like wet weather in a few days time, so burn up some energy now :)

Also this week we begin our construction unit for art with a creative discovery session on Tuesday afternoon - it’s an opportunity for us to showcase our existing design skills and construction techniques. A note went home on Friday requesting donations of construction materials :) 

We look forward to kapa haka this Thursday with Mrs Malthus, and continue to integrate te reo into our classroom conversations. 

Finally this week, we’ll be exploring the concepts of length, width and height. We’ll look at conservation of length (twisting metre long pieces of string to make different patterns), comparative vocabulary (longer/taller/wider/shorter/narrower), non-standard units (our hands, our feet, our paces), and standard units (centimetre blocks).

Reminders:

 - $5 to the school office for the upcoming show, The Seasons (if not already paid)

- sell (and buy!) your Home and School raffle tickets (fundraising for our awesome school!)

-  come to the always-fantastic Home and School disco this Thursday night (24 October), see the poster in our cloakroom for details! 

Discovery time in Room 3

Last Friday in Discovery Time we were busy using our imaginations. Just look at the wonderful patterns and structures we have created, and the characters we have brought to life! Some of us are even making our own costumes... It was very tricky making the headbands to fit our crowns.