Miner Huts

We took our new findings from our school trip last Thursday and sketched the miner's huts from the Chinese Village. We wrote poems about what we noticed while we looked at them.

We had to make sure they painted a picture for our reader. We included:

• Strong verbs to make things do something
• Nouns (naming words)
• Adjectives to describe our naming words (nouns)

Some of us had time to publish them yesterday and get them up on the wall to share.

Gold Trip Video

Arrowtown Gold Trip

On Thursday Yr 3-6 drove to Arrowtown as part of our tuning in stage for our gold inquiry.
We had a fun filled day of finding out new information, asking questions and experiencing what it was like to be a miner 150 years ago.

The year 3's started off with gold panning in the Arrow River with Denise. We now know what it was like for the miners a long time ago...our feet were numb! 23 out of 28 children found a piece of of gold.

Next we walked to the Arrowtown Museum where we sorted different artifacts from the oldest to the newest. This gave us a good picture of what happened before, during and after the gold rush.
We were lucky enough to have a quick walk around the museum before heading out for lunch.

Last stop was a stroll around the Chinese Village. We had a look through Ah Lum's store. Ah Lum was a chinese miner who looked after other miners gold in his safe. He also had beds for miners and stored food such as pickled lemons and tea.

Then it was back on the bus to school. We are looking forward to sorting our new information and coming up with new wonderings about the gold rush.

Jerome Kavanagh

On Wednesday we were lucky to get a visit from Jerome Kavanagh. He came to talk to us about traditional Maori instruments. We made a Porotiti. It is a wind instrument.

We needed to work together to get them made. we needed string, card, pencil, nail, ruler and scissors. When we got back to class we decorated them in different colours and designs.

When we made them, it was important to get the holes in the middle to make it balanced.

Here is a photo of our Porotitis.

Bus Stop

Today we did a bus stop activity. We went around different 'bus stops' that had a picture of some old tools. We wondered what were in the pictures and wrote down what we thought, what we predicted they were and any questions we had. We hope to find out soon what they are all about!