Houghton Valley School

  This term in Mahoe we have become researchers! We have been working hard in buddies and on our own to measure body parts using string.  We measured our height, hands, feet, around our heads, our pinkies and ears.  We have been estimating which body parts we think will be longer and then measuring and checking to see if we were right.  We found out that all the way around your head is a lot longer than we thought! We worked as a whole class and put the string showing our height into height order from shortest to tallest.  We realised that we may have made some mistakes with our measurements because some people’s string was a lot taller than they were! We also found out that your ear is about the same length as your pinky.

We have also been researching information about the human body.  We are working in groups and on our own to find out interesting information about different systems within the body.  Fortunately, we have had a parent expert come in and talk to us about bodies, x-rays and surgery!  In addition to that we have been using the laptops and searching on cool sites like Kidshealth and Scholastic Kids.  We have been finding information and keeping track of what we are learning with note-taking sheets and organised group research folders.  It’s been exciting to explore all the intricacies of the human body and to be real researchers asking questions, making predictions and hypotheses and gathering information to answer our questions! It’s been very fun and I can’t want to hear about all of the neat things Mahoe has learned about their topics!  Gillian Menaker

Building a cube

Figuring out how many corners a cube has

counting sides, cutting, sorting by shape, and gluing onto chart

counting the toothpicks to figure out how many edges a cube has

Very proud of her creation!

For the last few weeks Mahoe students have been shape detectives.  We started out doing a shape search around our classroom.  Students had a clipboard, a chart with shapes and a pen.  They had to walk around the room finding everyday objects and classifying what shapes they were.  We immersed ourselves into shapes by reading stories about shapes, writing about shapes and creating art using tissue paper shape cut-outs.  The class then created scenes using 2D shapes and writing captions.  We then worked in cooperative groups to sort pentagons, hexagons and octagons.  The pairs had to count the sides of each shape, sort it into one column of a three columned chart and then at the end choose the headings for each column.  We used string to create shapes–identifying the numbers of sides and corners the shapes had.  We used venn diagrams to compare 2D and 3D shapes.  We looked at the differences and similarities of circles and spheres as well as squares and cubes.  We then individually built cubes using tooth picks and wine gums.  The children had to figure out the number of sides, edges and corners there were in a cube.  The wine gums were easy to spot and helped us figure out that a cube has 8 corners while a square only has 4.  We have had a wonderful time exploring shapes and all their properties.  Next we move on to symmetry and patterns! Maths has been an exciting time in Mahoe this term and will continue to be!