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Learning About Tapa Cloth

As part of our Inquiry learning we have been looking at how traditional Tapa cloth is made. We watched a video showing the process, from stripping the bark from the mulberry tree through to the final pattern making and painting.  We thought it looked quite complicated. 
We practiced drawing some traditional patterns and then had a go at creating our own cultural patterns.  Our final task was to create our own class Tapa. We all worked very hard on it and we are both pleased and proud of how it has turned out.

The Mini Golf Challenge!

Some end of term fun! Mrs Jackson set a challenge for us - to create a mini golf course using 8 cardboard tubes, a couple of boxes and general classroom items. Groups got to work quickly and it was great to see how well everyone worked together.  Groups were listening to each other, contributing ideas and making sure every group member had a role to play - well done Room 7!

Testing the courses was great fun and we even had a couple of special players who tried their luck with the tricky 'greens' - Carolyn and Mr Marshall! We think they did pretty well!

What! It's Term 4 Already?!

Where has the year gone! I can't believe it is already Term 4. We have a busy term ahead of us. Week 1 ends with a Rm 7 & 8 joint assembly. We will be presenting something pretty special that we have been working really hard on - we can't wait!
Then we have Pet Day to look forward to as well as the upcoming athletics competition.
Swimming at the Mosgiel Pool starts in week 7, a notice will be sent home closer to the time.
So much to do and only one term to do it!
Here's to another amazing term! Yay Room 7!

Room 7's Hip Hop Dance

Room 7 Rocks Ukulele Jam!

Wow! What an amazing day we have had today! Room 7 had a blast at 'Ukulele Jam', our hard work and careful practice really paid off. Mrs Jackson was so proud of all Room 7 students - our behaviour, enthusiasm and self managing skills were fantastic! It was great to see Outram students keen to try new things today too - Emilee on the African drums and Shelby on the Samoan drums. It was also great to see Jakob and Mitchell have the confidence to share their skills in front of the whole jam - their picking skills were fabulous!
When we got back to school today we created a great recount together as a class, which will feature in this weeks newsletter along with some photos. We have more photos and videos below to share with you.

Jakob and Mitchell 'picking' for 'Proud Mary'

Shelby playing the Samoan drums

Look at that focus Room 7!

So many students, so many ukuleles!

Our Amazing Ukulele Art

As part of our Ukulele Jam experience we have been working on our own decorated ukuleles. We were able to send 2 designs from our class into the competition, to be judged at the jam on Wednesday. Mrs Jackson asked students from Room 6 (who attended the jam last year) to be the judges. Travis and Kayne were selected. Good luck!
Mrs Jackson loves how all the ukulele designs are so unique - they look amazing in our class!

School Cross Country

Today was our annual school cross country. Thankfully the weather played its part and we had a lovely sunny afternoon (yay!). Well done to everyone who competed, it was great to see everyone put in so much effort. Plenty of personal goals were achieved today, whether it was placing in the cross country, qualifying for South Taieri Cross Country, running the whole way or finishing. Well done!
Here are a few photos of the event.

Outram School ready to cheer on the runners

Year 5 boys - lined up and ready to go...

And they're off!

And its a sprint to the finish - 1st equal Travis and Brodie, 3rd Mitchell

Year 5 girls off like rockets!

A good 1st place run from Bella

A close competition between Sophie and Mikaela - Sophie 2nd, Mikaela 3rd

Getting Our Groove On!

Over the last couple of weeks we have been working through a dance unit. We have been looking at different types of dance, comparing movements and developing our movement knowledge and vocabulary.
Today we looked back on our dance hip hop experience with Dean from 'Dance For Schools'. We identified different steps and movements that he taught us. Then Mrs Jackson put us into groups and we had to create our own dance sequence to a selected song. It took a lot of thinking, a lot of working together and a lot of compromise! Our 'Key Competency' this term is 'Managing Self' and today proved a good chance for us to practice this important skill.
Watch the videos below to see how we got on - these are works in progress. You will have to stay tuned for our final performances!

Making Timers

This week in Maths we have been learning about 'Time'. We explored the concept of 'duration' and completed timing activities using water and sand clocks and also pendulums. We had to make estimations of how long it would take for water or sand to drain between different markers and how long it would take for a pendulum to swing 5, 10, 15 or 20 times. It really got us thinking about lengths of time and our idea of how long seconds and minutes were. 

Today Mrs Jackson set a challenge for us - we had to create a 1 minute timer using a plastic container and either water or salt. It took a lot of good thinking and some problem solving. We found that the salt didn't flow very easily and when we thought about this we realised that normal salt timers were shaped like a funnel so that would help the sand filter through. The water timers were more accurate and could be altered more easily.

Ashley and Austen testing their groups timer

Travis, Jakob and Braydon testing their timer

Lily, Brodie, Mikaela and Shelby had some success with their timer

Bella trying to keep the salt moving through their timer

Flynn, Joe, Kayne and Krystal used the 'shaking' method to keep their salt moving

The green tables timer had a helpful handle

Big Balloon Challenge!

For the last day of term today we had a bit of fun with balloons! In our table groups we had to complete relay challenges.  A bit focus was managing self and working together. Trying to keep all the balloons on the parachute was really tricky, we had to listen to each other  carefully and work as a group.