Simple Machines - Lever Exploration

Shaun and Anna went to Google and also took a look at some of our Simple Machines topic books to find out more about Levers.  They discovered that there are actually 3 different classes of Levers.
So this week we explored these different classes of levers and figured out how they work to make lifting heavy weights easier for us.

Thanks to Mr Peart's fantastic suggestion, we made a giant lever out of a plank of wood from Mr Kavanagh's shed (there are all sorts of things in there!) and a wooden triangle from the P.E shed.
Then we needed a "load" to lift and Taine kindly volunteered.  We wondered who could lift up Taine by themselves and Danny seemed confident, so we let him have a go.  Unfortunately Danny's muscles failed him and he couldn't lift up Taine very high at all!  So we put Taine on one end of our lever and checked out if Danny could lift him using the lever instead.  What do you know?!  Danny was much stronger using the lever and could lift up Taine quite easily!  Some of us wanted to do a running jump onto the lever to see how high Taine could projectile up in the air - but we might save that for another day when we can make sure the flying person doesn't get hurt.

For the rest of the session, groups had turns using our big lever and changing the position of the fulcrum, load and effort.  The class also found things in the classroom to create their own mini levers with and took photos of them - check them out:

Our discoveries

Levers work by multiplying the effort exerted by the person that is is using the lever.  It seemed that the greater the distance between the effort force and the fulcrum, the heavier a load can be lifted with the same effort force.

Super Shiny Super Rugby Trophy

This is certainly not your average cup that you can drink your milo out of.  It's the prized and coveted Super Rugby cup and it came for a visit right here at Hillcrest, along with its custodian Mr Andrew Strawbridge (Assistant Coach).

The senior children waited with eager anticipation to stand next to this gleaming trophy and even get a firm grip on some part of it.  Yipee, Room 9's turn came and although these kind of photo opportunities are rare, some of us managed to get snapped with our eyes closed (good one Mrs Bell)... the glare from the cup was a little too much maybe.

During out special assembly, recognition of achievement was given to our very own boys rugby team and also our girls netball team.  Both teams and their fantastic coaches have done HNS very proud this year!

Whoop Whoop! It's post number one!

Here goes... well it's our first official Room 9 blog post.  How cool is that?!  Check out our first official class photo too!  Spot Mrs Bell - she scaled that web as fast as Spiderman, leaving Room 9 children wide eyed in amazement... well alright, maybe a little exaggeration, but what counts is that Mrs Bell was brave enough to climb to the top!

We are very lucky indeed to have our senior playground all finished and ready to play on.  Mr Peart paid our classroom a visit this morning to help us think about how we can play on our playground safely and responsibly.  We are also encouraged to show caring towards others by not hogging the equipment and letting everyone have an enjoyable experience.  A fantastic reminder just in time for our turn on the playground... and the general consensus is that our playground is AWESOME and that we want to keep enjoying it!