Pestfree Cadets and The Tracker Tunnels

 Today, Ethan introduced us to another Pestfree Howick leader - Peter, who is an insect expert.  

We talked about our upcoming Pestival that some of our group are presenting at.

Then we thought about how we can think and act local.  To know what we need to do to help our local area, we first need to find out the current situation.  We decided to lay out tracker tunnels around the school to see if there are any pests.

We worked together in groups to build the tracker tunnels, bait the ink pads and peg them down outside the office, next to the Mara Kai and in the native bush walk.

We are looking forward to checking our results next week and coming up with an action plan to enhance the biodiversity of our school.

Year 4 Discover How Much of Our Moana is Protected

 We started by reading more about Marine Reserves.

Celine: "I learnt there are 1000 types of seaweed.

Leleya: "There are 1500 different kinds of sea sponges."

Holly: "The southland sunfish is the size of a car."

Luke: "There are 3600 different types of molluscs."

We discovered that 30% of the land is protected, but only 0.38% of the sea is protected.  

We created a proportional diagram to show this.

Diamond "That makes me feel sad because there's life in there."

Amy: "It makes me feel nervous because if people keep fishing too much, some of the species might become extinct."

Evelyn: "I'm uncomfortable because there's fish in the sea and we care about them."

Millie: "It makes me sad because there are so many things to explore."

Aiden: "It makes me sad because the sea makes life."

Marcus: "It makes me sad because the sea makes air."

Hiraya: "It makes me mad because the fish will become extinct, and I want to find more species"

Willow "It's so sad because the animals aren't protected"

Leo "If all the animals die then everything will die"

Henry "It's sad we've got so much ocean but we only protect 0.38%"

"It's not healthy for the ocean not to be protected because of the rubbish" Elora

We talked about what we can do when we want things to change:

- talk to people

- make posters

- vote

- pack a litter free lunch

- write a letter

- hold a protest

Everlyn suggested that we need to protect more of our ocean.

We decided to write a persuasive letter to the prime minister. Mr Christopher Luxon

Next time we will publish our draft letters and decorate them.  We're looking forward to sending them to the PM!

Room 1 Investigates the Life Cycle of Plants.

We reviewed our learning from the last session.  What does a plant need to grow?

Hazel: "A plant needs Sunshine."

Melissa: "Water."

Kia: "Don't forget love!"

Elliot: "Compost is good for the plants."

Zacharia: "We have to give heaps of space for a plant to help it grow."

We then looked at the life cycle of a plant.

   

Did you know all living things have a life cycle?

Year 3 Sandwich Chefs

 Today Year 3 thought about whole foods vs processed foods.  W grouped kai from least to most processed and thought about how it changes. 

What are the ingredients of butter? An orange? What about yoghurt? Now what about a muesli bar or ice cream?

How does food processing change the appearance, taste and texture of our kai? 

Afterwards, we put our learning into action by designing and making our own healthy sandwiches.  They were delicious!

Room 6 Explore Trees and a very different one!

Today, we focused on the Story book "Woowee!  Look at that Tree" by Ben Knight

A fabulous story about a tree that grows differently from every other tree.

We acted out how the tree grew...

We talked about how important it is to be you and how wonderful we are all different. We looked at the story and drew what happened in the beginning, the middle and the end.

Lastly, we went out into nature, chose our favourite tree and sketched it.

Brooklyn:  "I made different-sized branches"

Emily:  "I drew 8 branches. "

Layton: " I drew different knots on my tree."

Geovanna:  "I drew skinny branches. "

Room 2 Explore leaves, trees and being Unique

 Room 2 started our session with some time in nature. 

                                                      We collected leaves from our trees. 

We collected 10 leaves. 

Then we put them in a row. Can you count 10 leaves in a row?

This afternoon, we focused on the Story book "Woowee!  Look at that Tree" by Ben Knight

A fabulous story about a tree that grows differently from every other tree.

We talked about how important it is to be you and how wonderful we are all different. We looked at the story and drew what happened in the beginning, the middle and the end.

Vera-J: "The tree grew bendy, and now the children like it."

Felix: "The other trees grew straight, but he was bent. The children were playing on the bent tree."

Cohen: "It is raining on the tree to help it grow.

Kotomi: "Some tree were long and grey, but our tree was special." I the end they children play with the tree.

Eneriko: "Some trees were straight, and one tree was like this..."