Words of the Week - Chromatography and Viscosity

Guess what we have been doing???? SCIENCE!  This week, in preparation for preparing our Science Fair Projects, we have been working through writing up science experiments in the correct format and there is no better way of doing that than DOING the science.

Chromatography was a hit, students drew a dot on their filter paper with a felt pen, then let water soak through the filter paper and the colours from their dot they drew were drawn up the filter paper. It got some great Oooohs and Ahhhhs, but also some great scientific vocabulary and discussion. Some great ideas were tossed around and a lot of "I wonder what would happen if....." I wondered too, so the class all chose an "I wonder" and conducted another experiment. The writing was great! The setting out, even better!

Just to make sure we were on the right track - we made a lava lamp in class. Please don't be surprised if your vegetable oil goes missing (but I suggest you hide the expensive garlic infused olive oil!!!) We added oil to a third of a jar of water and then dropped in some food colouring to see what would happen. Me, being me, tossed in some glitter too! We shook it and then sat back and watched the reaction. Okay, I may have overdosed on food colouring, and it was a lovely shade of almost deep purple, but the conversations and language was outstanding. Well done Hannah for coming up with the word of the week, Viscosity! What a great word and one I'm sure I will see in writing from here on in!

These lava lamps are super simple to make, just make sure you secure the lid well because the last thing you want to do is flood the floor with a very "viscous" solution that is close on impossible to get out of the carpet!!! These jars are really calming for those little ones who are wound up or anxious too.

Science Fair topics should be well and truly chosen by now, and we have six weeks to go before they are due in....The countdown is on!

Term 2 - Level 2 - It's good to be back!

Level 2 finally arrived and we are back together again! While I write this blog, I am thinking how lucky I am to have such amazing kids this year, backed up by some amazing parents, who did a fabulous job with the whole "home-schooling" thing!

I must admit, I did have a couple of "Help!!!" emails from parents, when it came to working on some of our Year 7 and 8 Maths, and that made me giggle (just a bit, I promise!) It is so easy to forget that for some parents, working on algebra has been absent from their lives for a few years, and not that easy to get your head around!

I was lucky enough to have shared with me photos of students doing their "thing" at home. It was so cool to see lots of students baking the 2-ingredient scrolls and they looked amazing! I also saw some fantastic Louise Slice (oh I wish I could have reached through my screen and grabbed that), some amazing Anzac cookies and chocolate chips too. Alex, and his family, built an amazing bike track, some moto-x jumps and set up a domino course that resulted in a ping-pong ball landing in a cup! Well done!!! Jacob made a trench (after reading about the Anzacs) out of cardboard boxes and slept the night in it! Such great learning, so thank you all for sharing these with me.

Term 2 is Level 2 - we are all sanitizing hands, soap and water washing as we enter the classroom, and have moved our desks so we can be as far about as possible. I am so proud of these guys, they are doing a fantastic job of managing their hygiene with little prompting! Way to go, Room 9! We have begun to talk about Enterprise, the excitement will build on this venture, and Term 3 we will hopefully be able to showcase our "businesses". Stay tuned for this one!

Congratulations to the six students, Millie Smith, Hannah Burnett, Luka May, Cooper Ollerenshaw, Sam Milne and Willow Goodwin, for making it on to the Student Council. I look forward to the speeches for student leader! Until next time...enjoy these few photos - please send me any photos of your child doing things at home - I love seeing them and would love to share them!