Year Six Pop Up Estuary Exhibition

 Year Six are championing our unique estuary animals.  We want to get the word out about who is living in our estuary and how we can protect them. We decided to create fact posters and display them in pop up exhibition along the Rotary Walkway this weekend. Check out our mahi here Estuary Animal Inquiry Exhibition

Travelwise tell us all about FANCY FEET WEEK

 Today our Travelwise Leaders visited all the Waka classes to tell them all about FANCY FEET WEEK happening next week.

If you walk, bike, scooter or 'park and walk' to school next week, you can wear ANY shoes you want.  

It's like mufti for your feet to say THANK YOU for getting to school sustainably.

Active travel is good for our bodies, good for our well being and good for the environment.

WELL DONE TRAVELWISE LEADERS and thank you to everyone for supporing FANCY FEET WEEK

Year Three Rip It Up

 Today Year 3 revised what we had learnt about the worm lifecycle.  We recorded our knowledge in sentences in our brand new mini books.  Can you see the new keywords we learnt - cocoon, hatchling, juvenile and saddle? 

Next just for fun we created our own roa roa (long long) worms by ripping a piece of A4.  We really had to work slowly and carefully to get the longest worm.

Lastly, we watered the Mara Kai with worm tea and gave the pohutukawa more mulch.

 

FCI Waka Collab - Our sustainable kura community

 Today the FCI  Enviro Group visited. After a karakia and quick chat about the Enviroschools Guiding Principles, the Waka Eco Warriors showed FCI all the Wahi (places) that make us a GreenGold Enviroschool. 

The highlights for FCI were:

The beehives - a beneficial and eco-friendly way to help grow flowers and make honey.

The mara kai - I really liked that you actually planted and it's actually growing. 

Composters making fertiliser with scraps and old leaves for the garden

Eating carrots from the mara kai.

We suggested the new FCI Enviro Group start with just one simple action and decide on a way to document their journey like our Enviro Blog.

Jaden a Waka Eco Warrior asked to visit FCI, so we are going to arrange that for later in the term.

Both kura realised that developing and learning a closing karakia could be another next step on our journey.

Thanks for visiting FCI!

Year Six Explore our Estuary Animals

 Back in December 2023 our Pestfree Cadets visited our local estuary and took dna samples to see what lives there.  Check out our field trip here - https://wakaenviro.blogspot.com/search?q=edna

The Wilderlab got back to us with the results: https://s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wilderlab.openwaters/reports/a5fbe79b5ac54637.html

We were very excited about the banded kokopu and short finned eel. We wanted to share what we've learnt  about the importance of estuaries and the endemic and native animals that live there.

After exploring the difference between endemic, native and introduced we broke into groups and adopted an estuary animal  from the testing and field trip observation to research and champion.

We have contacted the Wilderlab to see if they will donated some kits so we can repeating out testing.

Year 2's Do the Waggle Dance

 Today Year 2 discovered that bees communicate with each other by dancing.  Next we learnt some dance moves. Then we choreographed our own dances in groups of four and performed them to the group in the sunshine. Fun!

Lastly Year 2 took action to help our environment.  We worked together to move mulch to the native tree area.

Next time we have EfS we are looking forward to planting a flower garden for the bees.

Lastly, we took action mulching

Year Three Get Wiggly With Worms

WONDER

 Today Year Three focused our FBI studies on worms.  We're going to deepen our understanding of these composting heroes and how they can help our kura over the coming weeks.

We began with a brainstorm, then we watched a video and added to our fact files:

Haven "Worms get wet in the dirt"

Cody "Worms like the rain"

Muller "Worms makes food scraps into good soil"

Arsshbir "Worms eat fast"

Riana "Worms make food"

Tom "They are good because they allow air into the ground"

Asaph "Worms breathe in a different way"

Ekamjot "Worms mostly like soil"

Emily "They breathe through their skin"

Oliver "They are pink

Charlotte "worms are like pink long gummies"

Roxanne "worms find new homes in the rain"

Vivaan "worms turn our food scapes into compost"

Andrew "worms need to keep moist"

ASK

We thought about what we want to find out next:

Harlequin "If worms didn't exist what would happen?"

Freddie "How can worms make food"

Sarah "What do baby worms look like?"

Arsshbir "What age do worms live to?"
 

Eason "Why do birds eat worms?"

Cody "Why do worms like rain"

Donn "How do worms eat?"

Jamila "How do worms make soil?'

Charlotte "Do worms have eyes?"

Zavier "what do worms eat with?"

Oisin 'how do worms go toilet?"

Loretta "how do worms see?"

Andrew "how do worms reproduce?"

KNOW

Next, we went to observe our worms in the farms.  We spotted cocoons and baby worms too.  We saw grown-up worms with their saddles.

ACT

Lastly we took action to enhance our environment by moving mulch to fill the new garden bed under the big pohutukawa tree. 

REFLECT 

Next week we will record what we have learnt about the worm life cycle and water our gardens with worm tea.