Postcards from Space

In Room 21, we have been exploring facts about the solar system. We pretended we had travelled to different planets and we sent postcards back home to share our experiences with our family and friends.



Dear Kaiya,
I finally reached Pluto. It is cold here. It's 230 degrees. Pluto is dark. It is a dwarf planet. We played hide and seek. I nearly froze on Pluto. Pluto is dark purple like a grape.
Love from Kaisee

Dear Mum and Dad,
I have visited Venus. Venus is the hottest planet in the Universe. Venus would burn me if I was on it so I have to stay in a special suit.
Love from Megan

Dear Megoo,
I've just flown through the asteroid belt. That made me feel sick and dizzy. At least, I landed on the icy planet Neptune. You'd love it there Megoo because you can float about. Here's some facts I found out about Nepture. 1. On Neptune there is lots of gas that gives Nepture its blue colour. 2. One day on Neptune is 16 Earth hours. I really miss you. See you in two days.
Love you lots, from Katie G

Dear Ms McPhail,
I've just reached Pluto. It is really dark and cold on Pluto but the good thing is that we might be able to play spot light tonight when its dark. The next morning me and my buddies played Jump It. Jump It is a game that you jump to one rock then the next rock. Ms McPhail if you ever want to go to Pluto you will need bed equipment, space equipment, warm clothes and food.
Kind regards
Hayley

Dear Ms McPhail,
We have arrived at Pluto! But don't worry about the cold and the dark because Hayley and I have five heaters on which run on batteries and most of our clothes on. For light, we have a torch each. Hayley and I dug a crater wider to sleep in, with a heater on plus all our blankets on. We had to share a bed because we could not dig that crater big enough. We also saw a comet far away. It made a loud banging sound as it hit Uranus.
Love from Charlotte

Dear Family,
Did you know that I needed to fly through the astroid belt? Here on Uranus it is very very cold because Uranus is an ice planet. Uranus takes eighty four Earth years to orbit the sun. Do you know it takes you one hundred and fifty nine billion years to travel to Uranus. Did you know it takes one hundred and twenty seven days for Uranus to rotate.
Love from Bailey

Dear Tino,
I went to Uranus but an asteroid flew past. Uranus is best know as the seventh planet closest to the sun. Uranus is blue. It is surrounded with rings.
By Tana

Dear Dad,
I just arrived on Saturn. I could see the spectacular rings around it. But wait a minute! Dad, you should see how many moons Saturn has. Dad did you know that it takes Saturn 29.46 years to orbit the Sun.
Love Hamish

Dear Jared,
I went to Pluto today. It was 2300kms across! It's very very, very, very cold and there are 1,000,000 rocks on Pluto! There are aliens! Run for your lives. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Love from Hamy

Dear Mum and Dad,
On Mars there are large volcanoes and it takes Mars 687 Earth days to go around the sun and Mars is the fourth planet in the galaxy.
Love Wian

Dear Nana,
At last we're on Pluto. Pluto is the coldest planet in our solar system. When we left Pluto we went to its moon, Charon. Charon was as cold as Pluto. Pluto is not a planet any more because it is too small. So it's called a dwarf planet. See you in five light years.
From Marshall

Dear Mum,
We have just landed on Saturn. The rings are so big. It was very hard to get through the asteriod belt. It has moons. More moons than Earth!
Love from Ashly

Dear Mum and Dad,
I have landed on Venus. From Venus, Earth looks like a star. There are clouds surrounding Venus. Venus is the slowest to turn around to make a day.
From Vaughan

Dear Mum,
I found the postcard you sent me. I just got back from Venus and now I'm on the very hot Mercury. I've discovered that Venus is hotter than Mercury. It took ages for me to work out why and the answer was because Venus has a big cloud around it that Mercury doesn't have. I just got a new rocket because my other one burned down on Venus. This one did the same. I may not be getting home for a while.
From Emily

Dear Benjamin,
I've just landed on Pluto. It is very, very dark. Me and Olivia T and Tana played spotlight and it was so so fun. Bye for now.
From Jayden

Dear Mum,
It is so hot at Mars. I couldn't breathe. I nearly fainted! I would never sleep.
From Hunter


Dear Mum,
I just landed on Jupiter this morning. Jupiter is so big you don't know where you are. Jupiter is made out of hydrogen gas so I hope I don't fall through it. The food we have in the space craft is so yucky it tastes like pulp. Guess how long it takes Jupiter to orbit the Sun? Twelve years! I'll be 18 when I get back to Earth! We now have landed our space craft and are coming back home.
From Maddie

Dear Mum and Nana,
We have just arrived on Pluto. It is very dark and cold. We can not see anything. We think we should go to another place because it is too dark and cold. Tomorrow we are going to go to the Moon because it is better.
Love from Charlee

Dear Family,
I have just landed on Pluto. Pluto is dark and cold. I had to get my warm coat on. It takes 248 years for Pluto to go round the sun! Pluto is 5,900,000,000km away from the sun. Also, Pluto is the smallest planet.
Love Alannah
P.S. I miss your company

Dear William,
I have just blasted off. I am going to the hottest planet Venus. When I got there I didn't want to land on Venus because its atmosphere is 27% carbon dioxide and nitrogen and it will melt my space bus! When I flew back to Earth I saw an asteroid. I had to put a parachute on to land safely
From Benjamin

Dear Mum and Dad,
In Earth down where the people live we can see half of the moon. The moon is very very white. The moon is a big, big, big ball.
Love from Katie B

Dear Jayden,
I've just left the moon. I am excited because we are going to Pluto now in a spaceship rocket. Pluto is very dark and it is cold. I was shivering because I was cold. You can go home now I said to Mum.
Love from Olivia T

Explosions....Bright Lights...Science

Black Holes!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A monster black hole shredded a Sun-like star, producing a strangely long-lasting flash of gamma rays that probably won't be seen again in a million years, astronomers reported on Thursday.

That is definitely not the norm for gamma ray bursts, energetic blasts that typically flare up and end in a matter of seconds or milliseconds, often the sign of the death throes of a collapsing star.

"This is truly different from any explosive event we have seen before," said Joshua Bloom of the University of California-Berkeley, a co-author of research on the blast published in the journal Science.

Initially spied on March 28 by NASA's Swift spacecraft, which is trolling the universe for gamma ray bursts, this particular flash has lasted more than two months and is still going on, Bloom said in a telephone interview.

What makes this even stranger is that the black hole, located in the constellation Draco (The Dragon) about 4 billion light years, or 24 trillion miles (38.62 trillion km) from Earth, was sitting quietly, not eating much, when a star about the mass of our Sun moved into range.

"We have this otherwise dormant black hole, not gobbling up an appreciable amount of mass, and along comes this star which just happens to be on some orbit which puts it close to the black hole," Bloom said.

FEEDING FRENZY

"This was a black hole which was otherwise quiescent and it sort of has an impulsive feeding frenzy on this one star," he said.

Bloom figures this may happen once per black hole per million years.

This kind of behavior is different from what active black holes generally do, which is to suck in everything their vast gravity can pull in, even light. Most galaxies, including our Milky Way, are thought to harbor black holes in their hearts.

Black holes are invisible, but astronomers can infer their existence because the material they pull in lights up before it gets sucked in.

In this case, though, the black hole feasted on one star -- about the same mass as our Sun -- with such relish that it tore the star apart before gulping it down. As it did so, the black hole emitted powerful gamma ray jets from its center as bits of the dying star were turned into energy.

The black hole's gravitational pull was so great that it exerted what's called a tidal disruption on the passing star.

Astronomers could use this observation to help them learn more about how black holes grow, Bloom said.

"We still don't understand how black holes and the universe grow," he said. "We think most black holes start off as being no more than the mass of our Sun ... How they go from 10 solar masses to a billion solar masses is critical."

There is a strong connection between the mass of black holes and the mass of the galaxies that host them, with black holes feeding on gas and stars that come near.

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Samoan Assembly

What a stunning effort the Community put into their Assembly last Friday. We all enjoyed dressing up in our lavalava and sharing our learning with the whole school. It was also great to have the parents come and join us for a morning tea afterwards in Room 2019.

Here are some pics of us enjoying time with our Samoan Community and parents.

Telling the time - Same but Different!

In room 21 we have been learning how to tell the time. We know that there are analog clocks which are round and have the numbers 1-12, a big hand and a little hand on them. We also know that there are digital clocks (which we think are easier to read) and they also tell the time. They both do the SAME job in DIFFERENT ways!

Today we worked with a buddy practising telling the time.

Siapo patterns

!Water Safety at Northern Arena

STUDENT REFLECTIONS FROM THEIR TIME IN THE POOL!

Hayley said...I found it really scary at the Northern Arena because I could not touch the bottom of the diving pool. It was really hard to do backstroke because I had to make my arm sweep past my ear. It was a struggle to float in the big diving pool because it was deep. It was cool swimming because I learned new things that I have not done before.

Olivia T said...At the Northern Arena there are four pools. On Friday it was fun days because it was the last day of the week. It is hard and the pools are freezing as I slowly got into the pool. We did backstroke and diving - it was fun. I went as speedy as a fish. The water was slippery when I got out. I was wet and it was cold. In the water I had to take risks on backstroke.

Katie B said...Him ,my name is Katie. I like to dive in the water because I like to jump. Sometimes I am Speedy Gonzales. I like water too because it is really fun to play in. I like to swim at the Northern Arena because it is lots of fun.

Emily said...In week four and five we had wonderful swimming lessons. I think the last Friday was scary because the pool was very deep. It was fun day at the Northern Arena and the pool was deeper than normal. Each time I got out of the pool my teeth chattered! I felt cold like ice was closing in on me and soon I would turn into a block of ice. I think I did well anyway by taking a risk to jump off a diving board with no goggles on and I had a life jacket on.

Ben said...In swimming, I felt scared because on Friday we had to go in the deep, deep, deep pool and it was over my head but I learned that the life jacket would not let me sink. I felt really good when it was the last day because I did two weeks of swimming and I got more comfortable.

Marshall said...At swimming, I had to be self-motivated. I was a little scared in the pool doing backstroke. When I got out I was freezing cold. I got more brave as I learned to swim.

Alannah said...In swimming, I struggled to float. I enjoyed swimming at the Northern Arena. I had to persevere in the deep pool. At the end of swimming I reflected about how I ahd done. On Friday we went in the big pool to do some activities. My friends supported me when I was scared. I felt better when I got into the pool.

Carlo said...In term 2 we had swimming. I was scared because when I jumped in the deep pool I thought that it would be over my head. But it was not. It was at the deep end! I touched the bottom of the deep end - it was fun.

Charlee said...The Northern Arena pools were cold. There were four pools. The pools were freezing when we just got in. Some were deep and some were shallow. When you just get in the pool it is cold. I had to jump in the pool. I had to persevere to swim to the end of the pool. I was very good at swimming.

Jayden said...I liked swimming on Friday because Room 21 practising helping people who were drowning OH! NO! But it was okay because the teachers helped us and that's good. And we got to do different things in the pool. We did diving and rescuing and we even did life saving WOW! Then we got dried and dressed and lined up to go on the bus.

Megan said...I loved the Northern Arena because Monday to Thursday we did normal swimming but on Friday we did funday. We went in the deep pool. The first activity we did was to put a life jacket on and jump in the water. The second one was to get a partner and one jumps into the water and the other person gets a noodle and pulls them back to the side.

Maddie said...As I got to the Northern Arean I didn't feel really confident because it was my first time swimming there. When I got out of the pool it was really cold and freezing, because I had damp togs on. I was in the highest group in swimming. How cool is that! To get there you go on a bus. Mums can't pick you up and take you there. Olivia was in my group. Me and Olivia past into the eels group. When a few days past, I got more confident to go in the pool.

Tana said...I had a fabulous time at the Northern Arena. In the first group I went to the deep end but...we had life jackets to make us float. After that we went to the shallow end. I could touch the ground with my feet because it was shallow.

Kaisee said...I loved the Northern Arena because you get to learn a lot of swimming and swimming's fun. Well maybe not for you, but for me - I love it! Put a smile on you're face because some day you will need to swim. :-)

Vaughan said...At swimming I was very good at backstroke but my classmate Ashly always sped past me. I am very proud of myself. I was persevering.

Blake said...I like swimming at the pools because I am learning how to swim. Swimming is fund because it's a good thing to do. Swimming is good because if you fall out of a boat, you can swim back to land and you are safe.

Hamy said...I past everyone in my group. In the pool it was awesome. It wasn't very deep. I past everyone that's why I did freestyle very fast!

Hunter said... I went to the pools and it was freezing and I was knackered. I wanted to go home. I liked diving in the pool. I liked making a pencil with my hand. I liked doing the rescue.