HAVE YOU EVER SKIPPED WITH A PLASTIC BAG SKIPPING ROPE?

Some of  the Pukeko team learners got to try their hand at designing and using a plastic bag skipping rope. We worked in groups, trying to be an effective team, sharing ideas and tasks.

Making a skipping rope out of plastic bags is not as easy as you might think! They are very light and they can act a bit flappy and like a parachute if you don't design carefully.

Some of ours turned out really well and others .... not so much!

What do you think of our efforts?

IT'S MATARIKI TIME

Today the Pukeko team celebrated Matariki with a round of activities celebrating the Maori New year. We made Matariki stars with Ms Sutherland and Mrs O'B, dramatised the Matariki story with Mr D, made kowhaiwhai patterns with Mrs McIndoe and did stick and string games with Mrs Jenkins. We shared kai at morning tea time. We had a great day!

GINGER BEER ... AGAIN!

In Week 5, the Rimu Community made ginger beer and last week we finally got to taste it.
 
When we made the ginger beer, we used a big pot and we all got to read the recipe and put some of the ingredients in. The recipe had live yeast in it and sugar for the yeast to eat. We know that when the yeast digests sugar, it creates a gas called carbon dioxide which makes the ginger beer all fizzy.

Here's some photos of LC2 learners making our ginger beer:

Adding ingredients to the pot

Time to put the ginger in the ginger beer!

All bottled up and ready to ferment

Here's our bottled full of yeast getting ready to digest the sugar

We put the ginger beer in bottles and left it for a few days. We could tell pressure was building up in the bottles because they got very hard to push in and there wasn't much give in the plastic.

Finally, we got to try the ginger beer. Some of use really liked it and drank lots but some of us thought it was yuk!

Here are some photos of us drinking the ginger beer:

Wow, the liquid in this bottle is under a loooot of pressure!

Ms McKendry opened the lid just a tiny bit and look what is happening!

The moment of truth - what is our ginger beer really like?

Cheers!

And cheers to you, too!

Oh, cheers, ladies!

PUKEKO PRESENTS CERTIFICATES

Wow, in Week 6 we had such a lot of wonderful Pukeko children who got KC certificates and a huuuuuge bunch of awesome Pukekos who were awarded mathletics certificates.  

Brilliant learning, Pukekos - way to go!!!

All our wonderful mathletics achievers

Fabulous KC certificate recipients

In Ngaio Community, we are learning about chemical reactions that cause fizzing and foaming. Today we watched these videos that show some awesome chemical reactions that we can't do at home!

Ginger Beer!

We started making our ginger beer last week.

After the long weekend it was finally ready. We knew it was ready because the bottles were really firm, we couldn't squeeze them at all!

We all tried some. Some people thought it was delicious but others thought it was disgusting.

We all agreed that it was very fizzy!

Strategy Fridays

On Friday afternoons the Pukeko team have been practising decision making, negotiating, and problem solving by playing strategy games. Some games are played in small groups and others are solo games on the computer.