Ready, set, fire! The Autahi Slingshot Project

This week, Autahi investigated measurement by building recycled bottle slingshots! Using blueprints from Lorraine at the Wellington City Council, we transformed plastic bottles, rubber bands, and string into awesome launching tools.

Navigating our slingshots wasn't easy. We quickly realized that we needed to dial up our Perseverance, Creativity, and Teamwork, as well as use our Growth Mindsets if we were going to make them work!

Once we felt like professional slingshotters, we put our skills to the test, using our measurement skills to see exactly how far our paper balls could fly!

We discussed how we could go about measuring the distance that our paper balls would shoot. Some idea we had were: 

- measuring with the length of our feet 

- measuring with glue sticks

- measuring with interlocking cubes

- measuring with rulers (who would've thought!)

- and finally, measuring with the height of Jude!

As you can imagine, our last idea was the most popular. After firing away, Annie and Jude would mark the spot where each paper ball had landed. From there, we estimated how many 'Jude's' the distance would be. I think our record was three Judes long!

As exciting as using the slingshots was, we also learned a very valuable lesson; that things do not always turn out as we hope. For every short, underwhelming shoot that we shot, we had to remind ourselves about our Growth Mindsets. We had to tell ourselves 'Keep trying! You will get better with practice'. 

Although we had many 'Jude' length distances being measured, we also had some glue stick length distances as well and that was fine because everyone gave it their best shot!

We are sure you'll have plenty of 'slingshotting' taking place around your whare over the next wee while!

Zero Waste at Worser Bay School

Keep calm and recycle on!

In Autahi this week, we were bin-credibly lucky to have Lorraine, the Waste Educator / Kaiako Para Kore from Wellington City Council come in to teach us about rubbish, recycling, composting and more!

Here we explored the can-tastic world of recycling! We sorted recyclable materials into four piles - metals, cardboards, soft plastics and hard plastics. We were pretty shocked to hear that any materials that can't be recycled end up in the land fill!

Then, we were so fortunate to meet Lorraine's eco-mazing pet worms! Did you know that worms have FIVE hearts? Well Autahi sure did! We loved getting to peek at Lorraine's pet worms and their completely home-made soil. It really inspired us for our own composting here at Worser Bay School!

Have a chat with your child at home about what house-hold objects can be recycled or composted!