Sports Morning with DST

We have had a great morning with the children from Klasse 3, doing lots of different sports activities.  Here are just a few of the photos of us having fun.

My new dog Derek

On Saturday 11th October, I got a new dog called Derek. We got him from The dog rescue in Carcassonne. He is 4 years old and is a setter breed of dog. He is reddish brown colour and has a tail like a fox. He's so happy and it looks like he is smiling when he see's me.

                                              Me and Derek

                                                 Derek smiling

Aerial roots of Asia’s biggest Banyan Tree (“ADYAR AALAMARAM”)

When I was in INDIA in the summer holidays this year, I went to a botanical garden at a place “Adyar”, in the south Indian city of “Chennai”.

In the garden I saw a Banyan tree with Aerial roots spreading for 60,000 square meters. It is 6 times bigger than IST.  

Aerial roots are roots that grow downwards to the ground from the branches of the Banyan tree.  After many years the Aerial roots from the Banyan tree will touch the ground and the roots will go inside the ground. That root will become a baby tree, but all the branches will be connected to the mother tree.   After many years the baby tree will produce its own branches and new aerial roots and so on, to become a huge set of trees.

Here are few pictures.

These trees are called Banyan trees because the word Banyan comes from an Indian word “Banias”, which means Merchants.  Merchants used to meet under the tree to sell things because the Banyan tree would be like an umbrella.  So, the trees are called BANYAN TREES, in Tamil we call as “AALAMARAM”.

There are lots of Banyan trees in INDIA.

Here is how the aerial roots become new trees.

The Magic School Bus and Frozen

The Magic School Bus – All about earth

This week I watched the DVD of Magic School Bus which my Aunt sent me some time ago. It has an episode called ‘Blows its top’. It shows what it is like inside the earth, inside volcanoes and how islands are formed by volcanoes. Ms. Frizzle and her class explore the inside of the earth through a magical school bus that transforms itself so that it could travel inside earth and also go on the lava. This is fun to watch – it reminded me of volcano that Mr. Gregg showed us in the pitch. I am excited to see the real one in Vulcania next week.

I think we have a book of the same title in our library.
Frozen - Movie

I finally saw this movie after several of my friends told me that is a very good movie to watch. This is the story of two sisters Elsa and Anna. Elsa has magical powers to freeze and turn anything she touches into ice and it causes problems for Anna and people of their kingdom Arendelle. But in the end Elsa controls her power and solve the problems. Elsa and Anna live together for ever very happy.

It is a good movie and I enjoyed watching it with my sister Ana (Ananya is her name and we sometimes call her Ana).

Chiminey's coat

I have a cuddly toy cat called Chiminey
On the weekend me and my granny made my cuddly toy a red coat.
We knitted it and sewed a button on so the coat stayed on Chiminey's neck. We made too many mistakes so we had to do it twice. I am planning  to make gloves and a hat as well. I am also going to make some for my best friend's toys!

 

Preparing for the residential trip

                                               Are you ready for the residential trip?? I definitely am!!

I am extremely exited; this trip is going to be the best trip ever!
Do you all know what you're going to bring?

The Colour Dragon

My dragon is a colour dragon
With her blue wings we fly through the clouds
Her tail is as long as a river

When she eats her colours go through her body
When she sleeps the rainbow passes through my bed
It makes me have good dreams

Together we fly in rainbows
We paint the world in multi-colours
My dragon is an  enormous dragon
As big as my whole school

Her name is Clara.

Tell me about your dragon.

My new home.

Finally after a month I have moved into my new house in Colomiers. It was pretty empty at first but now it is the best house ever! My furniture arrived on Wednesday 8th October. So now my house is full of my furniture and boxes.and my comic collection! (YAY!) When I can I will post some photos of my new house!

Explaining factors and primes

We now understand that some numbers are...

Here we are explaining it (click on the pictures to see the videos):

Here's some pictures of us making our number walls. Not all of us wanted to do videos this time.

Moonlight

My dragon is a dream dragon.

He will creep in your dreams

When you’re asleep.

He squashes himself

Under my pillow when he’s tired.

His scales are silver moon

His claws are very sharp

To fight nightmares

And his eyes are aquamarine.

His name is Moonlight

When he is angry he turns green,

And when he is sleepy he turns blue.

At day time he normally sleeps under my pillow

But at night he flies up to the stars.

I love my dragon!

Tell me about your dragon?

Topaz

My dragon is a fire dragon

It breaths out fire

And creeps around

Lives near fire.

Her claws are like knives

Her eyes are like topazes

Her wings are like the sun

Her teeth are like diamonds.

At night time she’s under my pillow

Gives me a hug.

She says good night in dragon voice,
I say good night in human voice.

Let’s fly little dragon.

My dragon is an Ender-dragon

He lives in the end and he is

Extra hard to find. When you find

Him try and make Ender-man

Give it to you.

His wings are coal-black and

His tail, as black as obsidian

His head is made of squares

His eyes as purple as amethyst

When he plays any video-game he is

The master.

Tell me about your dragon!

Enderdragon

My dragon is an ender dragon,

He comes from far, far

In a moon stone island,

When he see’s enemies

He charges and bursts some

Poisonous purple ash,

He is as big as a blue whale.

His eyes are shiny like sapphires,

His wings are fluffier than a

Cat’s fur, at night when I sleep,

He always has an eye on the door,

So no nightmares can get

In my imagination at night.

My dragon likes to play minecraft in the day,

At night he is searching a mine for all type of minerals,

His name is Enderise

And he’s 25 years old,

His back is as pointy as a diamond sword

And he eats golden apples.

I love my dragon so much.

Tell me about your dragon.

My Dragon

My dragon is an ocean dragon.

He swims like fishes,

He pases through mountains

He lives in the Pacific Ocean.

His wings are spiky.

His scales are coal-black.

His tail is extremely long, and hard like a stone.
He has a gigantic nose.

My dragon has created his own cupboard,

To put his soap and towel in.

His nose can be as hot as lava.

But suddenly he asks me to play with him.

He gets disappointed if he doesn’t play properly.

In day my dragon swims in the water.

In the afternoon he searches for food.

In the evening he swims again.

And in the night he comes for me for food.

I love my dragon so much.

My dragon

My dragon is an Island dragon,

He feasts on coconuts and bananas,

His eyes are as green as Emeralds,

He lives on a faraway island,

But I visit him every weekend.

My dragon is mostly made of sand,

When he’s angry he breathes out fire,

And when he’s happy he lets me pat him gently,

His wings sparkle like pure amber,

His tail curls in circles, making a lovely swirling pattern,

His claws are as sharp as diamonds,

He has to stay in the sun, or he’ll die.

His name is Amber,

His ears are very big, so he can defend himself.

Tell me about your dragon.

Furno

My dragon is a magma dragon.

He is as big as a volcano

And he lives in the inner core of the Earth

His scales flicker like a bonfire.

You can feel his heat ten meters away.

His eyes are molten rock.

You don’t want to touch him!

But when he gets too hot

He comes to me on Jupiter,

And when he’s arrives

All of Jupiter is a bit warmer.

Autumn Trees Haiku 2

Here are our finished haiku, placed on our wonderful ink blown trees.  Hope you enjoy looking at them as much as we enjoyed creating them.

Walls of Cuisenaire rods

We've been using Cuisenaire rods to build "walls". The rules are, you can only use one colour in each layer of the wall, and it has to fit exactly. First of all we tried it on the white board, using the nrich Cuisenaire environment:

Every number that fits in the wall properly is called a "factor" of the big number.

Then we tried it with the rods themselves, choosing our own numbers. Here we are recording what we did (sometimes we didn't even need the rods).

All the different numbers had different walls. And we noticed that some numbers only have themselves and one in their wall. One person knew what these numbers were called:

Here's some of our recording of what we did:

Interesting puzzles

My dad told some interesting puzzles which he heard from his friends.  

1.  You are in a race of 10 people, you overtake the second person.  What position will you be in?

2.  You are again in a race of 10 people, you overtake the last person.  What position will you be in?

3.   Mary's father has 5 daughters.  Their names are, Nana, Nene, Nini, Nono. Guess the name of the fifth daughter.

4.  A mute person went to the shop to buy a tooth brush.  He did an action like brushing his teeth, and he finally bought it.
A blind person went to the shop to buy sunglasses.  How should he ask for it?

Did you answer all of them correctly in the first attempt?

Kirigami

The Kirigami is another way of art with paper. It's a variation of Origami.
When you made Kirigami you have to fold and cut the paper.

volcanic breakfast!

I felt inspired by a picture of a volcano that I saw. So I made some breakfast for my family. I made toast in the shape of a volcano and used strawberry jam as lava. We all enjoyed breakfast, I called it "volcanic plate".

Lake Toba

Indonesia is one of the most volcanically active place in the world.
The biggest volcano eruption was there 75,000 years ago.
Lake Toba is 100 km long and 30 km wide. It´s the largest volcanic lake in the world.
It`s a crater of a volcano full of water.

Haiku trees: Part 1

Here we are creating our ink trees to accompany our haiku.  We were very good at ensuring that we blew the ink... not sucked it!

Here are some more pictures



Watch this space for our finished work...

Ganesh Chaturthi

Ganesh Chaturthi is a grand Hindu festival in India, celebrated in honour of Lord Ganesha. Ganesh is a hindu elephant headed god.  Ganesh removes all obstacles to people if they pray to him.  Ganesh Chaturthi usually comes during August  - September, and celebrated over 10 days. 

People bring Ganesh idols and statues to their homes, made of mud.  They keep it for 1 or 3 or 10 days at home, they do pooja (prayers) every day by offering lot of flowers, fruits, coconut, and Indian sweets. 

Luckily this year I was in India to celebrate it on the 29^th august.  I also brought a mud Ganesh home.  Here are pictures of what I did.

This is a picture of how we decorated Ganesh and kept for 3 days.

Normally people immerse the Ganesh idols in a water body on the last day like ponds, lakes, wells, oceans, seas, rivers etc.

I immersed my Ganesh idol in the Bay of Bengal ocean which is really near my home in India.

Here are some pictures that me and my father found in the internet about huge Ganesh idols immersion from other places in India.