Fruit Leather

Reading about making paper from flax reminded me about how fun it is to make fruit leather.
How to Make Fruit Leather
 You will need:

• a tin of fruit (or a jar of preserved fruit)
• a tin opener
• a food processor
• a dehydrator
• a spoon

What to do:

1. Open the tin.
2. Tip the fruit into the food processor ( don't put in all the juice).
3. Mix it to a pulp or puree.
4. Spread the pulp evenly over a tray from the dehydrator.
5. Stack the trays on the dehydrator.
6. Turn on the dehydrator for 10-12 hours.
7. Turn off the dehydrator.
8. Peel the leather off the tray.
9. Enjoy a sweet treat!

We made some interesting discoveries when we made the fruit leather.

• We used baking paper and it fused with the fruit leather so it was very hard (almost impossible) to peel the paper off. Next time we won't use baking paper.
• We made some pineapple chips by drying thin slices of pineapple using a mesh tray, not a solid one. They were delicious!
• Now we've seen dehydrated fruit - it's shrivelled and shrunken - we know why it's important to drink plenty of water. We don't want our brains to shrivel or shrink!
• We'd like to try making some green and red leather for Christmas time.

Why don't you do some exploring about making fruit leather? 

This website tells you how to make it if you don't have a dehydrator.

It Was Electrifying!

Lights were flashing, buzzers were whining and children were sparking! We had another turn with the electrical circuit equipment after lunch today. People collaborated with other groups to find out what worked and what didn't.
One of the most important things I learnt was that I should always insist a switch is connected with a buzzer!!!!

How Do Things We Use Get Their Energy?

This is as far as we got before the hail storm hit. After that your energy seemed to be directed elsewhere!

A White Rose???

That is how this rose started out! Tell your family and friends how it changed to a pinky one.

Why do you think the clear water is also turning a pinkish shade? Thanks Millie for sharing this interesting experiment and to Jules for remembering to take photos throughout the day.

Shadow Science

I took this photo at 3.30. Charlotte pretended to be Lola so that we could do one last check on what was happening with those shadows.

 It is a great time of year to see how our shadows change. You could try to recreate this experiment using one of your toys (and a torch if the sun'd not out!).
I also found a cool website that allows you to see how shadows change on the computer.

Have a lovely weekend won't you? Don't forget to treat your mum like a queen on Mothers' Day!

It's Electrifying!

Today Science Alive came to visit the Year Three team.
We began by talking about ways we have used electricity today.

Next we got into pairs and worked to create circuits.
We made L.E.D.s glow and buzzers sound.

We added a switch into our circuits.
Next we learned how to create a circuit with two L.E.D.s in a series, then in parallel.
We tried putting different objects into our circuits to find out what is a conductor and what is an insulator.

Finally we made ourselves a night light.
Here is a picture of us all holding ours up.

Caterpillar Update

We discovered on Thursday morning that there were two chrysalises on the middle swan plant in the Butterfly Garden. We can't be certain that they are the caterpillars that we put there - but we are pretty certain they are! If you are at school over the holidays pop around the back of Room 18 and have a look how they are getting on. A life cycle I found said it takes about 10 days for them to emerge as a butterfly.

If you'd like to find out more about monarch butterflies this is a New Zealand Site.

Sprouting Runner Beans

Marissa brought along the bean she took home and sprouted. She put it in the sun. At home time when she collected it she was surprised to notice how much it had grown in just 5 hours.
We measured how tall the leaf sprout was at 3pm on Thursday. It was 6cm. Marissa will bring the bean back next term and we'll discover how much it has grown.

Venn Diagrams

Today we did a Venn diagram to help us decide whether people were animals or not. I told you that if something is visible and alive then it is either a plant or an animal, so we made a Venn diagram to help us decide which we were.

Our one got rubbed out before I got a shot of it
so here is a different example.

We decided we are an animal (a pretty special one!) but our ideas got us wondering what the story about wind and fire is.

The Very Hungry Caterpillars

Oh dear what a sad sight greeted us this morning! Our swan plant was merely a swan stalk. The caterpillars were sulking so we decided to move them to the caterpillar garden outside Room 18.

Now they had plenty to eat. 

We visited again just before lunchtime and found they had stopped sulking and were happily chomping on the fresh swan plants.

It will be interesting to watch their progress over the next few days.