Wow, the end of another term! We have been very busy with our Kitchen Chemistry topic and our reading, maths and story writing. We had the Rural Schools Cross Country, we put in a fantastic effort to get top rankings. For the first 5 weeks of the term we had Miss O'Connor teaching us with Mrs White, that was nice. We have worked really hard this term and Mrs White has been very proud of us and our behaviour...most of the time! Have a great holiday and keep safe. :-)

On Monday the 21 of June Room 3 made bread. We made two types of bread. The first bread we made was going in the bread maker. First we put water in a bowl, then flour, sugar, yeast and oil. Then we put it into the bread maker. Next we got into groups to make another bread. Once we made the dough, some of us pulled pieces of dough up to make hedgehogs and we put raisins on as eyes. Mrs White put the hedgehogs on the oven. The bread in the bread maker took 3 1/2 hours and the hedgehogs took 15 minutes. Once the bread came out we got to eat it. It tasted good!! Yeast makes bread rise by making the gas carbon dioxide, this makes bubbles in the bread and that's how the bread rises.

On Tuesday we investigated what raisins do when we pit them into glasses of water, milk and lemonade. We had predicted what we thought would happen before we tried the experiment. A lot of us thought that the raisins would move up and down in the lemonade but not in the milk and water. Sophie, Thomas and Taj put 6 raisins into each cup and we timed them for two minutes to see what they would do. The raisins in the water and milk did nothing at all! The raisins sunk to the bottom in the lemonade and when we looked at them they were covered in bubbles from the lemonade. Then they started to move up and down in the water. They didn't all go at the same time or keep going continuously, but they were moving. We are now talking about why they didn't keep going, was it cause they were too heavy or was the lemonade not fizzy enough? What do you think?

We finally made our jelly and got to eat it! We got 2 cups each of hot, hot/cold and cold water. We put the jelly crystals in and watched to see if they dissolved. Then we waited to see how long it took them to set or if they would set! All the jelly crystals dissolved except for the normal jelly in cold water. We put them in the fridge and they all set except the cold water normal jelly. The jelly crystals went to the bottom and didn't dissolve. We learnt that in the cold water the jelly crystals did not dissolve, they need warmer water to melt the crystals. They still set if they have a little bit of warm and cold water. The cold water jelly crystals did dissolve and set because they are made differently to the normal jelly crystals. The jellies all set at the same time, the cold water jelly set quicker because it was already cold.

On cross country day, Thursday the fourth of June, at Cannington School, we had our race. All the Rural Schools (Beaconsfield, Cannington, St Josephs Pleasant Point, St Andrews, Timaru Christian and Barton Rural) competed in the race. All the schools lined up in their age groups, then we lined up at the starting line. The man who had the clappers clapped them together. All the children were as fast as a cheetah. When we went around the corner I saw Sue and Leanne cheering us on. The track was very muddy, one child slipped over in the mud. It was quite a far way to run. Next we went up the massive hill. The hill was slippery but I got up there, I was as fast as a cheetah too. I was nearly at the finish line, a child past me, then I nearly past him, but I didn't make it. I came ninth. I think I can do better next year.