Ricotta

Today we turned our hand to making ricotta.

First we put milk and some extra cream in a pot and gently heated it until it was just boiling. We had to stir it so it wouldn't stick to the bottom of the pot.




Then we squeezed some lemon juice and added it to the pot along with some salt. It then had to simmer for a few minutes.

Can you see the curds that formed in the milk?

Mr Haste poured it into some cheesecloth to separate the curds from the whey. We had to lift it up so the whey could drain easily.

Here is the finished product - extra fresh ricotta cheese.

Cottage Cheese

On Tuesday we made some cottage cheese as part of our technology unit.
We mixed milk powder with some milk then heated it gently until it was just luke-warm. Then we added rennet and left it for 15 minutes to set.
After that Mr Haste cut it into 1cm cubes to let the whey separate from the curds.
Then we poured it into cheesecloth for two hours.
The next day we tried some on crackers.
We used the recipe from
http://www.nzwomansweekly.co.nz/food/nanas-pantry/homemade-ricotta-and-cottage-cheese/

Can you see the whey that has separated from the curds overnight?

A quick sample of the students:
7 really liked it
6 thought it was ok
6 didn't like it at all

Given that it was cottage cheese and children I call that a victory!

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!

Xtramath

This week we have been trying out Xtramath.
It is a free on-line tool to help us learn our addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts. We want to practise every day and the program targets the next facts we need to learn.

The children brought home their own passwords today on a flyer, please help them to login the first time from home. Use the Enroll tag as it will link them to their class account.
Parents please watch the videos (indicated on the flyer).
Here is the link, it is also added to the sidebar.

Xtramath

Please contact me if you have any problems.

Calendar Art

Orders for calendars (and cards) have to be in by Wednesday 26th September.
These will be different from last year and you will have a choice of three different backgrounds.
They make great Christmas presents for grandparents as well!

A note came home 2 weeks ago and is available on the website.

Loud Shirt Day

Friday was Loud Shirt Day which raises money for The Hearing House and the Southern Cochlear Implant Programmme. They help deaf children learn to talk and hear like their friends. I think cochlear implants are amazing. 

Here is Room 1 with their loud shirts on.

Can you match the colours to the people?

 

Friday's Assembly

Here are our videos from Friday's assembly. What a great job all our presenters did!
What a shame the technology was not as well behaved.

Daffodil Day

Friday was Daffodil Day and the children of Normandale School were asked to wear yellow and bring a gold coin donation. Daffodil Day raises money for the NZ Cancer Society.

Room 1 in yellow.

Light and Colour

We have started looking at Light and Colour in Room 1 as part of our Science topic. Here is a selection from the things the students want to know;

How do we see light?
How is light different colours?
Why does light shine from the sun?
How is it made?
Why does light travel so fast?
Why do shadows make a picture of you?
How does light stay being light? What happens when it stops?
Why is this crayon brown when I look at it and not blue?

I think I have my work cut out and 'because' probably won't cut it.

Here is a collage of the spectrum that we have made in class. Special thanks to the main gluers - Olivia, Liam and Maggie May as well as all the colour finders.

Pizza Fractions

On Friday we had pizzas for lunch.
Here are some fraction photos.

Half a Pizza

Whole pizza

One quarter of
a pizza 

3 quarters of
a pizza

What fraction is this?

I was so pleased to hear the children say that these are not quarters because they are not equal sizes.

Normandale Olympics

Last week we had our Normandale Olympics with relays, mini-javelin and many other sports. Mr Haste took white water kayaking.
We used cones for gates, hurdles for rapids, and hoops for spin round zones. The kayaks were pretty tired looking after everyone had had a couple of turns in them!

Swimming

We had our own little Busby Berkeley moment at swimming today.

Swimming

Yesterday we had our first day swimming. Some of us were in the main pool. We watched as they made the pool shallower so that we could all touch the bottom of the pool.

Warm up games.

Practising kicking.

Telling Time

Last week we were telling the time. We used the whiteboard to show o'clock, half past, quarter past and quarter to. Here are some of our students using the board.

Here is the link to the clock so you can have a go at home.

http://www.teacherled.com/resources/clockspin/clockspinload.html

Spinning

  On Tuesday we had a visit from Mrs Ross who showed us all about how you turn wool from a sheep into wool that you can use to knit or weave.

 

 First we looked at some wool that had been shorn from a sheep and washed. Liam said it was really soft. Ben said some of the wool was a bit stinky.

First she had to card the wool, which takes the knots out of the wool and helps get rid of any twigs and grass in the wool (Rachel).  The picture shows her using a hand carder.

Next Mrs Ross Spun the wool. She showed us two ways  of spinning. The first was a spindle where you spin the wool by hand. Then she showed us how to use a spinning wheel.

We all had a turn on the spinning wheel but it was a bit harder than it looked.

Netball Practice

Some people had so much fun on Pyjama Day they didn't even change for netball practice.

Thanks to Sam for the photo.

Visitors

I was just looking at 'Who is watching us and we reached a couple of milestones last week.
We had our 2000th visitor to our blog!
Among those we had our 100th visitor from the USA (from 26 of 50 states).
We had visitors from Portugal, Ireland and Switzerland which brings the number of different countries to 30.

It always amazes me how so many people from so many different countries visit our class blog and see what we are doing.

Wenlock and Mandeville

Today we began learning about Wenlock and Mandeville. They are the mascots for the London 2012 Olympics.
Here is their story.

Wenlock is the mascot for the London Olympic Games.
Wenlock is named for Much Wenlock, a town in shropshire. In 1850 the Wenlock Olympian Society held their Olympian Games which is one of the inspirations for the modern Olympics.

Mandeville is the mascot for the paralympics which are held in London straight after the Olympics.
Mandeville is named for the Stoke Mandeville Hospital in England. In 1948 they held the Stoke Mandeville games, a competition for injured soldiers. It was the inspiration for the Paralympics

Holiday Quake

Who felt that earthquake last night? At our house it was very noisy (bit like a big train going past) and went on for a long time but the shaking wasn't very strong. It was more of a gentle rocking with a couple of small judders mixed in. It didn't wake up my boys.
Tell me what you felt or if you slept through it as well.

It is great seeing that there are so many having a go on Superclubs Plus. Every time I log on there is always at least 1 person logged on from Room 1.
I like your home page Lara.

A Taste of SuperClubs plus

Today we had a taste of SuperClubs plus.
SuperClubs is great for teaching about cybersafety and being safe online. They also learn new ICT skills along the way.
The students get to create their own homepages and communicate with their friends via email on an enclosed and monitored system. They can even communicate safely with students from other countries.

We had a lot of fun today - thank you very much for teaching us Mrs Campbell.

(judging by the smiles and noise a whole lot of fun)

Reminder: Don't forget your signed permission notice if you want your password for the holidays.