Week 7 Term4

10 weeks have passed since when we started working with Mrs M about our thinking about our learning and talking about thinking and reflecting on our thinking.

When I startedtalking and thinking about my own learning this is what I thought it was...

Learning is something that anybody can do.
When people learn they get more knowledge.

How useful has learning about Solo Taxonomy been been to you in giving you some structure for thinking learning about your learning?

Solo Taxonomy has been very useful in helping us improve our learning.
If we never relised that we could use we would not have known how to improve in our learning.
Solo Taxonomy allows us to develop certain skills such as being able to do the next step in learning which would be useful in life.
We used a ruberic to move up to the next step in thinking by redoing our work and improving on
it to develope our thinking to a higher level.

I am glad...

*that mrs M has taught us about solo taxonomy
*When I use solo taxonomy to improve in my work I try and think of a better sentence to be the best I can be

Using solo taxonomy we have been learning to predict.
Predicting is a very important life skill. We are using solo taxonomy in subjects like science and writing.
Predicting is a kind of thinking.
When you predict it is like you can see the result of something that is happening at the present time. You are thinking what is the conclusion if whatever is going on keeps going on, or if you stop it happening, what will be the result?
On Monday I did a class investigation on favourite cities out of the four cities out of Madrid, Moscow, Buenos Aires and Baghdad.
I predicted that the most popular city would be Moscow.
The final resuls showed:
Moscow with 18 tallies
Buenos Aires with 3 tallies
Madrid with 3 tallies
Baghdad with 1 tally
My prediction was right!
It was a fun activity.

Science Project Planning

Stage Two

A. Apparatus / Equipment -

Anti-bacterial Hand gel
Anti- bacterial Hand wipes
Anti-bacterial Soap
Tap - water
Kids in my class - 25 kids
Potato slices - potatoes
Clip seal plastic bags
Pen
Knife
Chopping Board
Disposable gloves x 2
Adult Helper
List of instructions for hand cleaning

The Method - the steps and stages
Before I start I will pre-mark all plastic bags with group details.
1. First I will divide the 25 kids into 5 groups of 5.
1. Water only group
2. Water and Anti-bacterial Soap group
3. Anti-bacterial hand wipe group
4. Anti-bacterial hand gel group
5. Control group
2. Then I will teach them how to clean their hands thoroughly.
3. Next the adult helper and I will put the gloves on.
4. After that the adult helper will slice the potatoes on the chopping board.
5. While the helper is slicing potatoes, I will take the first group and get them to complete their hand cleaning task.
5. As soon as the potatoes are sliced I will take the samples by rubbing the potato slice on their palms.
6. Immediately after taking each sample I will place the potato slice into the plastic bag and seal it.
7. For all 5 groups I will repeat these steps.
8. Finally I will take all samples home and put them in a dark place.

Science project

Science Fair Management Plan
Stage One

My Interests in Science - wells, pulleys, flight, insects, birds, forces, design, art, animals and natural disasters

Aim - Which way of cleaning your hands gets rid of the most germs?

Hypothesis - I think the hand gel will take away the most germs.

Here is a list from first to last that I will test.
1. Antibacterial Hand Gel
2. Hand wipes
3. Washed hands with soap
4. Washed hands

What I know about my topic -

I know that most germs are not dangerous/infectious ie. that make you sick.
That there are germs everywhere and that different places have different amounts of germs.
I am doing this experiment because Swine flu has moved into our country. Our government health authority recommends using Hand Gel to clean you hands. But does using hand gel take away more germs than using hand wipes, washing your hands with water or using water and soap?
I know how to grow bacteria in a culture because I have done this before in Grade 2.

What I have found out about my topic -

To grow germs you must have a dark place.
Potato slices make good cultures.
The more surfaces the potato slice touches the more germs it will pick up.
It's important to have a control slice of potato so that you can see how many germs were already on the potato slice.
If you wash your hands with water and soap it will take away a lot of the germs but if you dry your hands with a hand towel there are more germs in the towel and they will go onto your hands.
However if you use a paper towel it will probably remove all the germs off your hands. This is why they use paper towels in hospitals and doctors rooms I think.
This could possibly be another part to my experiment or not?
I learnt that the way you wash your hands also affects the amount of germs left on your hands. So for my experiment, for the best results I will need to teach the subjects how to wash, wipe, gel their hands properly.
Did you know that Penicillin made for curing many harmful diseases caused by bacteria, pencillin comes from mould, a bacteria?

Now for a few jokes....
Why did the germ cross the microscope? To get to the other slide!
What are germs least favourite tv shows? Soap Operas!

Next steps to learning

I've built my traps but it's too cold and I haven't caught a good amount of insects. I have decided to carry on with this investigation later when the weather is warmer. I'm still going to put pictures on my blog. For the next five weeks we are having a science fair and these are the topics I'm interested in:
wells with pulleys
forces
gravity
plane flight
magnetism
I will let Mrs Mitchell know which area I'll be working on tomorrow.

Insect Traps

As part of my learning at school I am studying entomology. I have made some insect traps but there doesn't seem to be many insects around at this time of the year. Maybe when it's somewhere in the middle of September I might catch more insects. I've put a night light trap out a few times and only caught a few very small moths(maybe a mosquito as well.) My pitfall trap under my little sister's pumpkin plant didn't prove me good as the overall result:0 insects. Here are photos of my traps.

Gifts from the Sun

Gifts from the Sun

It is the beginning of time…, volcanic ash fades, there is almost no life to be seen on the whole face of the earth. Warm rays beam down on the dark shadowy planet. A microbe wiggles then rain pours on the dry surface. After a few weeks the microbe starts to grow into a small plant.

The tiny plant grows tall and green. It develops fast into a mature plant, and produces seeds. Another dry spell comes, the plant withers and dies. It releases its seeds. The seeds float away, fall to the ground and start to grow.

Meanwhile in the sea, another microbe is developing from one cell to two cells, three and so on. This is the beginning of marine life.

Two hundred billion years onwards….

The suns rays are powerful. There is a layer above the earth, the ozone layer, it blocks out most of the suns harmful rays. A hole in this layer exists near Antarctica, caused by pollution.
Without the ozone layer the earth’s surface would be to hot and dry
for life to exist.

It is the year 2009, the earth’s surface is now covered with dry deserts, green forests, deep oceans, tall mountains, fertile grasslands and ice.

We live the right distance away from the sun, not too hot, not too cold, so we can have life on our planet. The sun also keeps the water cycle going. Water in puddles, lakes, rivers and seas is heated by the sun, it turns into water vapour an invisible gas which rises up into the sky to form clouds. The clouds move towards the mountains and
rain. The rain drains into rivers and collects in the sea.

From the first cells of life to the magnificent deserts and forests we have today, all this life was created by the sun and just a few other elements.

The sun gives us the precious gift of life.

Term 2 reflection

At the beginning of Term 2 I set myself some goals. My goals this term were to make correct letter shapes when writing and to be able to type faster. At the end of the term I could type faster and my letter shapes are well formed. I will continue with these goals next term. I know so much about the plant story I can not type or write down how much I know. You won't even see how much I know in my science book. Generally, I enjoyed what I learnt this term.

My First Communion and Comfirmation

On Sunday the 31st of May, I had my first communion and comfirmation.

I was dressed in my Uncle's white shirt and black pants, my Dad's black bow tie and socks my school shoes and a red sash with my name on it. I had done my hair. I looked very handsome.

We drove to the church and waited for the bishop to come in. The bishop was very tall and had a pointed hat and was nearly bald. We sang some songs like 'send down the fire of your justice' 'here at the table of plenty' 'bread broken wine shared'. One by one we were called by name to receive a candle lighted from the pentecostal candle, the priest renewed our baptism promises that our godparents had said for us and now we were old enough to say them for ourselves. The bishop said 'brendan be sealed with the gift of the holy spirit' and rubbed the oil of chrism on our forehead. Our sponsor placed their hand on my shoulder for the blessing. My great aunt was my sponsor who is very religious.

The mass moved into the eucharist were we had our first communion. They had a procession of gifts and we went up to the bishop and he held up the bread and said 'the body of christ' and we took the bread and we went over to Sylvia and she said 'the blood of christ' and gave the wine cup to me.

After the mass we had a party, adults made food and bought it to the church to be eaten and enjoyed. We kids played around on the swings and the playground. They bought out a cake and cut it up into pieces and I received the piece with my name on it. I loved going to my first communion - it was fun. I liked the part in the church the most.

I received lots of gifts from both grandmas, my mother, father, both sisters, Aunty Paula and Aunty Rita. The special gifts were badges, my rosary beads from mum and dad, a kids adventure bible, a cross and lots of cards.

Car spys

I was riding my bike down my driveway on Saturday afternoon and when I was halfway down my driveway a orange car pulled in from the road and parked next to the abandoned house next door. We raced inside and told Mum and she said to wait until it came further down. I thought the people were going to ask about buying the mill house next door as people have done this lots of times before.

We waited and waited but they didn't come any further down and we thought it would be a good idea to not go further down the driveway. Both my sisters and I watched. Mum suggested we write down the number plate, however we couldn't see the numbers. Rachel got the binoculars and we still couldn't see. We felt like car spys.

Then I had a great idea to go through the mango trees to our raintree cuddy house where we could watch closer. Two men got out of the orange car. One was wearing a green shirt and brown shorts with dark brown hair. The other man had a yellow shirt, green shorts and light brown hair. They had a look around, took something from the back of the boot and jumped back in the car with the thing from the back of the boot and drove on the grass closer the our other neighbours house.

They got out again looked around and looked through the mangoes that we were spying from under bush cover. They got back in their car and drove off onto the bitumen road and turned towards town. They seemed to be looking at the houses and the mangoes and the sugar cane. This was really exciting and my sister kept telling me that we should go home as she was worried that they would come down the mangoes after us.

K'nex car racing

My Dad and I are having a competition on who can make the fastest car out of my knex and rubber bands. So far we have made about eight changes and modifications to our cars.

We have changed the wheel size, the rubber band length, the length of the car, gears and rubber bands systems. We race them to see who's is faster after we make changes. Then we both work on the cars and make new changes - take away or exchange or put on new parts.

My Dad made another car powered by catapault power and it is like an automatic attacking machine when you wind it up because the catapault is pulled back and then it flings forward and then smashes everything in its way. We have made our own power system using cogs and rubber bands.

My Dad ordered new pieces for our cars because we were running out of pieces that we could put on our cars. The parts that have come today are different to what we have been working with so far so hopefully they will make our cars faster.<

Anzac Slide Show

The end of Term 1 2009

This term I learnt all kinds of things about the history of Townsville.
I really found the tornado in the bottle interesting.
I enjoyed Grandparents and Special friends day because there was lots of fun games to play.
I didn't find anything difficult and I improved in my typing skills.
Next term I will improve in Thrass spelling using the IPA and I will extend my vocabulary.

Time Capsule ideas

History of Townsville

I have been learning about the history of Townsville.
Townsville's first mayor was John Melton Black.
Townsville was named after Robet Towns.
The port in Townsville took a major roll in the history of Townsville.
Three main reasons why people came to live in Townsville is the gold rush, the growing of sugar and the opening of the meat works.
My next steps of learning is to find the names of all the explores that stopped at Cleveland Bay.

Rainforests

Rainforest are found in hot, tropical parts of the world.
They hold a range of animals and plants.
The Amazon Rainforest is the largest rainforest in the world.
Animals of the Amazon Rainforest include apes, snakes, giant macaws, toucans and jaguars.
Animals of other rainforest are lions, elephants, tigers, monkeys, gorillas and other small birds.

Important Inventions

COMBINE HARVESTER

Before the combine harvester was invented farmers walked through the fields with
sickles cutting off grain as they went and other workers followed behind them
and bundling the wheat.
Soon the reaper was invented in 1831
One reaper did the work of 5 men.
In 1815, a mechanism was created that held cut grain until the right amount of cut
grain had been collected to make a sheaf.
In 1878, a twine knotter which tied the sheaves, was added to the reaper.
One reaper did the work of 40 people.
Even with the reaper, there was still lots of work to be done by hand.
The grain had to be cut from the stalk and seperated from the husk.
The threshing machine was ignored in the UK because threshing by hand gave winter employment to farmers who would otherwise had no job.
It much more popular in the United States.
If a reaper and a thresher were attachable imagine what it would be like to combine them together into one machine. The combine harvester reduced the amount the effort needed to harvest crops. Many farmer works left areas in the 1920's.
Farms in the U.S. were bigger and was not only feeding its own people but also exporting grain to other countries.
The combine harvester took agriculture from being reliant on men and animals to machines. The combine harvester can do the work of 100 men today.

Magpie goose

The magpie goose is a native Australian bird.
It is also one of Australia's largest birds.

It will eat small insects and plants.
The magpie goose can also eat grass seeds and seasonal fruit.

The magpie goose has a small , black head , a yellow belly , orange webbed feet and large patches of black and white.

It has a wingspan of 1.5 metres and measures 70cm in length.
The magpie goose has a lump on its head which is larger in the male.

You will find magpie geese on flood plains and in creeks and rivers.
They live in large flocks.

Magpie geese migrate in the winter months and travel south.
They migrate in a V pattern and sometimes travel to Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.
The magpie goose has enemies of snakes , crocodiles , hawks and eagles.

Crocodiles

Crocodiles are reptiles.
Crocodiles eat mainly birds,crabs,fish and other small water creatures.
They also eat cattle, sheep and humans.

Term 1 2009

I am a Year 4 student at a school in Australia. This is my blog and I will show my learning for this year.