My Butter Maker

This week our priorities were all farm based because of our trip to Pihitia Station. Some of my favourite tasks were when we made a logo for Pihitia Station, designing a farm and making a machine that will help around the farm. I made a butter maker that shakes up the milk to make butter. Here is my machine I invented and logo: 

Pihitia Station

On Tuesday, Moana Syndicate had a trip to Pihitia Station. At the farm there were 6 places to go: types of dairy and how they are made, drones and gadgets, shearing the sheep, meat and how it is made, sheep dogs and the machines they use on the farm.

My favourite place to go I think was they dairy because so many yummy products are made from cows, goats, sheep and deer too!  Also, it was so much fun to make butter with a fresh jar of milk. My least favourite was the meat because, I like meat but it is just horrible how it is made so I didn't watch.

An interesting thing was the drone because Norm ( the farmer) could use it to see if the water troughs were full or not and it would save him so much time walking down to each one, then if they weren't full he could go and fill them.

 I loved going to the farm and I would like to do something like that again. 

Ice cream sundae

Last week, in our writing workshop we wrote instructions of how to make an ice cream sundae. Then on Tuesday, we all went into the staffroom to make our treat! We swapped instructions with people, ( I swapped with Ella ) and followed our instructions exactly.

My instructions went really well as Ella loved her ice cream sundae! The ingredients we were meant to have were: vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, hundreds and thousands and a pink wafer, which we didn't have so instead we used some marshmallows. 

I think Ella's instructions were amazing but we both could have added how many scoops of ice cream. Over all I absolutely loved this and I hope we do something  like this again sometime soon.

LTP Week 7

This week for Learning Through Play, since it was hot and sunny, we went down to the beach with the whole Moana Syndicate. Me, Alice and Ella usually play horses at lunch and morning tea so when we found out we were going to the beach we were super happy because we could play that at the beach!

My favourite bit when we went to the beach was jumping off the dunes and sprinting down the beach, turning around and restarting. After playing for a bit we saw that Josie was plaiting Indie's hair. After Josie had finished the braid, she started sticking in pretty little flowers. It looked amazing!! Everybody wanted to have their hair done but since me, Ella and  Alice had asked before it started to look like Christmas shopping, we got our hair done super fast!

Josie's hair salon was really popular, even some of the teachers wanted to get their hair done! We think that the flowers are called Freesia here is what they look like:

I loved going to the beach and I hope that we go there again soon!

Automata

On Wednesday me, Alice and Josie made an automata. If you are thinking what are you talking about? An automata is moving toy that has a cam, a frame, a cam follower and a handle. 

Last week was when we did the planning but I wasn't here last week so I joined Alice and Josie's group. Our initial plan was to do a moving dolphin but instead we did Earth. This wasn't as difficult as we thought it would be. 

First we made the frame. To make the frame you need a box with no sides, some cardboard and tape. First we taped the cardboard to the edges and then made the cam and glued it to the skewer. After assembling the automata we started decorating.

We printed out the earth and stuck it to the top skewer. Then we cut off the edges of blue paper and stuck it on. Then we painted the automata black like the night sky and let it dry. I really liked automata even though it was tricky, would you like to play with our toy?

 

LTP Junky Monkey

This week for Learning Through Play, me, Ella, Alice and Indie went to Junky Monkey. Junky Monkey is a place where you deconstruct and then reconstruct

to make something new. The last time I went to Junky Monkey, I was doing more of the deconstructing than the reconstructing, so this time I thought that I would focus more on creating things.

First we looked in the box with all of the toys and decided on some pieces for us to use.

Based on the toys we had chosen, we decided to make a playground/obstacle course. We chose a table to work at and spread out our building materials. We had 

lots of great ideas but decided on the best one. 

Once we completely decided on an idea, we started building! First we made a spinny thing that you sit on and it spins. We used a bolt, nuts, washers and piled them up until it was at the right height. Then we made a trampoline using a plastic cup, 

a net and a hair tie. Then I had the idea of making a slide going into a pool, so we 

leaned a plastic track on the trampoline and made a pool using the hole in the table.

After that we pretty much just assembled our playground and Koka Ngaire filmed 

a little person playing on the playground. Would you like to play on it?

Household Chores

This week for our quickwrite, we had to write four answers to four questions. The questions were: Should children help with household chores, What household chores would you enjoy doing, and why, What household chores would be your least favourite, and why, and the last question is, If you could choose between homework and household chores, what would you choose, and why?

This is my first paragraph.

Should children help with household chores?

Yes I think everybody should help with chores including children. Kids should do chores because, chores may seem boring but they actually make kids happy and feel good about themselves. Also kids should help around the house because, chores teach kids two really good things: responsibility and time management. Chores include: Ironing, vacuuming, mopping, dusting and making your bed.

Do you think children should help with chores?  Comment what you think.