Viewing An Eclipse

Today we talked about viewing tomorrow's partial eclipse.
We had a long discussion about never looking directly at the sun.
We also made a pin-hole camera to use when viewing the eclipse. Here are two videos that explain how to make your own pinhole camera and some background information about eclipses.

http://www.space.com/15737-safely-sun-build-shoebox-pinhole-camera-video.html
Here is a Bill Nye version - I really like his way of teaching science.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmfkskZfT_E

Making Butter

Today in Room 1 we made butter as part of our food science unit. 

We poured some cream into a clean jar and added a pinch of salt. Next we had turns shaking the jar like crazy, this took quite a long time. Eventually we saw the yellow blob of butter separate from the thin buttermilk. Then we gave the butter a taste test on crackers.

Our butter

The left over buttermilk.

The butter tasted delicious - Charlie

It was different from usual butter but oh so yummy - Hannah

I didn't expect it to taste like that - Lily

It tasted like a buttercup - May

It tasted milky and creamy - Christopher

It was yummy and delicious - Rachel

Ra Maths

The Ra maths group has been learning to use addition strategies for solving problems with larger numbers.
Charlie has used  Place Value partitioning - separating numbers based on place value and recombining.

 
Hannah has solved her problem by using tidy numbers. Rounding to a tidy number (that is easier to add) and then adjusting her answer (compensating) to get the correct result.



Lidia has used a similar Rounding and Compensating strategy when operating with tens (decades).


May has used the same strategy in two different ways. Great musical accompaniment as well May!