Welcome Post

Welcome to Room 56's Blog!

We are a class with 45 students, 2 teachers and 2 classrooms joined together. We love learning together in the flexible environment our clas...

Tuesday 29 November 2016

Incredibox beats

I am DJ Prince here is my new beats created on Incredibox.com

Listen to my song here. Follow this link Chit

 Make sure you like my song when you have finished watching it.

Sunday 11 September 2016

WALT: write a report about _________ for our blog.


The Blue Whale is the largest animal ever known to exist. Image result for blue whale

Blue Whale


Description

The Blue Whale is the largest marine mammal. The Blue Whale is as heavy as 25 Elephants put together.  They grow up to 30 metres in length, that is the same size as 19 average humans lying down in a row. The Blue Whale is can be different shades of bluish-grey and are lighter underneath.

Habitat
There are three types of Blue Whale. They live in the North Atlantic Ocean, North Pacific Ocean, and the Southern Ocean. The biggest population of Blue Whales is in the waters surrounding Antarctica.

Diet
Blue Whales feed almost exclusively on krill. Krill are very small crustaceans. They look like a small shrimp or prawn.

Other Facts
There are approximately between 10,000 and 25,000 Blue Whales left in the world. In 1966 when they became protected there were only 5,000 left in the world's oceans. Blue Whales can dive down to depths of 3km and stay under water for 2 hours!

Whales need to be protected so that future generations can also see these beautiful creatures.

By Matua Jeff

Monday 8 August 2016

Marble Science!

CHALLENGE: How far up a ramp do you have to roll a marble from, so it travels 82cm?

This was the challenge Room 56 received to help us learn about "fair testing" in science.


DAY 1
The students took off in their groups. Some set up their equipment on the carpet, some on the tables and some on the lino.

One group set up on the carpet.


After about 10 minutes we had groups reporting they had had a roll reach exactly 82cm. "Let me see", the teachers would say, but no groups were able to repeat this result.

To reflect at the end of the lesson we recorded where the groups had to release the marble to get their 82cm roll. The 10 results ranged from 6-29cm up the ramp. They were asked, why are our results so different? The students quickly realised all the things each group was doing differently; rolling surfaces (table tops, carpet, lino, etc.), marble sizes and , most importantly, the angles the ramps were held. We started to refer to these as "variables".

DAY 2
When doing the challenge this time we made sure to limit our "variables". All groups performed the activity on carpet using marbles of the same size, and all ramps were set propped up on 4 maths text books (using Blutak, 27cm up the underside of the ramp).

Measures, cm, displayed on the ramp.

Four maths book standard height.


This time results were more repeatable. Groups could consistently roll a marble to between 81-84cm, by releasing the marble from a consistent start point.



However, we still found a difference in the height up the ramp, of the start point, between groups. Were we missing some variables? Upon further reflection students thought we should have all used the same carpet square to test on, and used the same marble to test with (surface textures, and possibly weights, were different).  Our discussion was now using terminology, such as variables and controls. Each time we identified a variable, the students came up with global settings/measures to make these controls instead, making our results more reproducible.



Sunday 7 August 2016

Game Design Trials With Little Oaks

Room 56 have been working very hard to design an online game, using Sploder, suitable for their buddy students in the Little Oaks. We first has to look at games that are currently on the web, and analyse the good and bad features about each game. Here is an example using a game Room 56 really liked:

Game Name
Headless Zombie
Description
The zombie had to get to the door at the end of each level. He could take his head off to get past the puzzles in the level
Positive Aspects
Negative Aspects
  • Each level taught you a new skill.
  • Started easy and got harder
  • Had a storyline you were following
  • Character walked quite slowly
  • Levels could gotten a bit harder faster.

One of the biggest positive features of a game was when the game taught you to play it. This is shown with games that start out easily, with each level bring another aspect the player can master before increasing the difficulty of the game.

With an initial analysis done, we got into the mahi of making our own game. Forefront in our thinking was always that the game had to be easy enough for our new entrant buddies to be successful, while also challenging.

Then came our first trial with the target audience. Little Oaks was invited over to our class and tried the games we had made for them.








Room 56 students made sure to ask what was good, and what needed further development in their game, and feedback was gathered in a Google Doc. In Term 4, Room 56 will be using this feedback to reinvent/edit their origonal game, hoping to make it even better for Little Oaks students. 

Here is one of the games Little Oaks got to play, let us know in the comments what you think:



Thursday 23 June 2016

Room 56 and Little Oaks buddy trip



IMG_3409.JPGTeaching little Oaks
On Tuesday the 31st of May my class and our buddy class went down to the Memorial Park.

When we first got there we had to put our bags in the gym. After that Matua Jeff was explaining the rules. Then Matua Jeff asked Cody to come up and do karakia.

After karakia we had morning tea.When me and my buddy finished our morning tea we went to go and sit on the couches on the step. After morning tea Matua got us ready for our walk.IMG_2606.JPG

When we were walking to the start line it was muddy. It was muddy and slimy like a snake. After being in the slimy mud we started doing the course/walk.When we were walking on the bridge Matua took a video of us jumping up and down.

IMG_2835.JPG

Finally we started walking off the bridge.We started walking around Mt Doom and the muddy pond.My buddy was frightend when she felt the mud.She had something in her foot, I think it was a prickle. So I carried her back to the finish line and then back to Mr Dunn.

I really had a fun day with my buddy Hinearoha.

By Adriana Matenga

Sunday 3 April 2016

Room 56's Lions Hut Camp


Room 56 had our camp at the Lions Hut in the Te Urewera National Park. We have been studying human impacts on animal and natural ecologies, and the environment at the Lions Hut was perfect.

We looked at different traps in the bush for pests such as rats, stoats and possums. We had learnt about the Whio in class and when we got to camp, we got a chance to hear their calls and see their territories.

We also did a lot of team building activities, like raft races, burma trails, and bivvy building.

Thank you to all the parents who came up with us to help with camp support and transport. It wouldn't have been possible without you.


Hine and Shikhan; the winners of our Bivvy Building Competition.

One of our teams constructing their raft for the Raft Race.
The Raft Race starting line; team captains releasing their rafts.
Relaxing in the water after a day full of activities.
Hungry mouths, lining up to get a burger for dinner on our second night.


A milo before bed.