"The Donkey's Christmas" by Alana

E3's Castles

This week we have made Middle Age Castles. We had three days to make them and brought the supplies in from our homes. We could either work individually, in pairs or in groups of three. The castle had to be smaller than the size of our desks and on it it had to have an outerwall, an inner wall, a keep, drawbridge, portcullis, a moat, courtyard, turrets, a battlement area, a flag, gatehouse and two moving parts.

We learnt a few things about safety:
1) When using hot glue guns be careful to watch what your doing, and don't glue near your hands to prevent burns.
2) When using Stanley knives we have to cut away from yourself and other people.

This is what the final results looked like:

Bluey's Tail

Bluey (our blue tongue lizard) has finally dropped his tail. The tail had been attacked by his siblings and was slowly healing. We were praying that the dead part would drop off and the tail would heal up.
Here is a picture of what his tail is like now.

E3's Fundraising Bake Sale

Dear Parents/Caregivers, of Bethlehem College

E3 is having a Bake Sale so that we can fundraise for a blue tongue lizard for a class pet. Can you please help us?
Your child will inform you of what the class would like you to bake.

The Cake Sale will be held on Friday 1st of August (Week 2).
Please bring your baking on the morning of the Bake Sale.

Thank you for your support.
Blue Tongue Lizard Organising Committee

Blue Tongue Lizard

There has been one mistake with this post, Blue Tongue Lizards tails DO fall off as a defence mechanism.

Our National Anthem

E3 has sang and recorded the New Zealand National Anthem so that we could share it with our friends overseas. We have recorded this version in Maori.

Mrs Jane's Class = Jakarta, Indonesia
Mrs Cofino's ESL Class = Bangkok, Thailand

Push the play button (arrow) on the Animoto slideshow below to listen and view it (you may have to wait while it buffers - be patient).

How Do We Measure the Height of a Mountain?

It all started off when Ben and Eli shared their news about climbing Mt Ruapehu. At the end of their news someone in the class asked "How high is Mt Ruapehu?"

We did some research as the boys didn't know. We used Google, classroom maps and the class atlas to try and find the best answer. Mr Lietze challenged us with the following scripture:
2 Corthians 13:1 "The facts of every case must be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses."
This means we always need to have two or more witnesses so we know which answer is correct.

So we found out that Mount Ruapehu is 2,797m high and the three sources of information that proved this were:
- The Reed Map
- The Readers Digest Map
- The Whitcoulls Atlas


Now we became interested in other mountains and tried to find out how high Mt Everest was. However we have three witnesses that say Mt Everest is 8,848m and three more witnesses that say Mt Everest is 8,850m. There is 2 metres difference here!

Why is this?

We would like your opinion on how high you think Mt Everest is and why it is recorded differently.

Pictures from:
http://www.rockomaha.com/kidzontherock.htm
http://www.skiexpress.com.au/newzealand/images/ScenicMtRuapehu_000.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Everest

Pirate Projects Completed!

E3 have been doing a two week project on Pirates. We chose a famous pirate and found the information we needed to present a biography on that pirate. We presented it in many ways from books and posters to flags and 3D models made of food.