Gallery Seven - Term 1, week6, 2012

This week at Kowhai assembly Quinn and Lucia received Kowhai Express Star awards. Quinn got his for being a self managing student who strives for excellence and Lucia got hers for being an engaged learner who always tries her best.

Ashtyn brought in a little Kowhai tree for us to look after it came from her grandparents place.

During the week we continued with our dinosaur work. One day Miss Bell brought a mysterious fossil into our class, it was from a dinosaur and was over 75 million years, we all got to hold it and feel it. It was red and very smooth. We wrote stories about what we thought the fossil was, we thought all sorts of different things, some thought it may have been a kidney, heart, tooth, meatball, or the centre of an meteor. At the end of writing we shared out stories and then Miss Bell told us what it was. We found out that it was fossilised dinosaur poo which is called coprolite. Palaeontologist look at the fossilised poo and can tell what type of dinosaur it was from and what they had been eating for dinner. We also wrote stories about Tyrannosaurus Rex from the position that he was kind rather than mean, we all came up with interesting ideas. We also worked on our sculptures this week, enlarging the parts for our T-Rex jigsaw and getting the base completed for our Papier Mache Ankylosaurus.

On Friday, Ruben and Eve received our artisan awards for the week. Eve received hers for being an active participant in all areas of classroom learning and Ruben received his for settling into Gallery Seven and sharing his knowledge of dinosaurs with the class.

During buddy time we started making dinosaur skeletons out of straws. First we drew an outline of a dinosaur and then we used small bits of straw to form the skeleton on the inside. Next week we are going to finish them by covering the cardboard in sand so that it looks like a skeleton being uncovered from the rocks.

In the afternoon some of our parents joined us for some co-operative challenges. We had three legged races, a river boat challenge and we dressed our parents up in designer newspaper outfits. It was heaps of fun for everyone and it was great to spend time with our parents at school.