Year One Being Kind & Carrot Crazy

Today in Education for Sustainability, Year One were investigating how plants grow.

After our karakia and waiata, we wondered what grows ...

Gus "Strawberries"

Bella "Trees"

Ada "Seeds"

Ryder "Ourselves"

Nakoa "Corn"

Layton "Hay"

Elsa "A pear"

Ada "A giraffe"

Amber "Flowers"

Kayden "Lions"

Ronni "Elephants"

"Rhino" Brooklyn

"Hair" Zayne

Everything that is alive grows.

We all need different things to grow.  What do plants need to grow?  We went to the Mara Kai to see.  Wow, we saw silverbeet, sorrel, kumara, thyme, rosemary and carrots.  Everyone got to pick a carrot. We felt the sun and saw the soil and raindrops.  That's what makes our garden grow.

When we got back to class we read a Fredge story about how to grow veggies. Then it was time to eat the carrots from the mara. YUM!

Lastly, we drew what plants need to grow.

In the second part of our Education for Sustainability lesson, we were lucky enough to be visited by The Youth Project.

We suggested what being kind meant:

"When some one is sad being friends with them to cheer them up"

"If we are kind the people will want to be our friend"

Being kind has three parts:

Being friendly

Giving

Thinking about how others feel

It makes us feel happy when we are kind and makes others feel happy.

We want to share kindness around in our community, so we each created "Love Bugs" - a small wooden bug that will have a tag attached that says "This little bug is free and here to brighten your day  Please take it home and do one thing to be kind to keep the kindness going". They're going to be hidden in our local libraries.

Well done for being kind Year One and thank you to the Youth Project!

Eco Warriors Present at the Pestival

 Our Eco Warriors shared how we do Education for Sustainability at Wakaaranga at the Howick “Pestival”. They received Bronze Certificates for their involvement in the Pest Cadets Programme.  Thank you to the Howick Local Board, Pestfree Howick and all those who attended this wonderful community event.

https://youtu.be/IG8CWnPHev4?si=5xUgEdqMda67hzXf 

Yr 2 How do Bees make Honey?

Today, Year 2 reviewed all that we've learnt so far about our VIP Bees.  Next, we found out how bees make honey with a Mystery Science lesson.  Did you know they spit the nectar out to each other, so the nectar mixes with enzymes in their tummies?

We acted out bees making honey and then recorded the sequence in sentences.  We had time for a quick maths colouring page before our special guests arrived.

Claire  & Claire from the Youth Project visited to show us how we can spread kindness in the community.  We talked about how kindness includes being friendly, generous and considerate.  We want the world to be a kinder place, so we made love bugs for people to find in our local libraries.

Next time we're looking forward to sampling some of our Waka Honey and exploring the importance of pollination.

Year Four Feeling Kind

Today Year Four finished off their letters for the Prime Minister advocating for more marine reserves. 

Afterwards, we worked with Claire from the Youth Project.  We're not just taking action to be kind to the ocean, but also thinking about how we can be kind to our community too. Everyone worked hard to create keyrings for the neighbours of our school.  We wanted to acknowledge how patient and supportive they are, even when we are a bit noisy and create busy roads in the mornings and afternoons.

Neighbours, look out in your letterboxes!

Year 2 Learn about the Parts of a Bee

 First, we revisited our learning about the bee life cycle. Then we went on a walk to check out how our bees are doing. As it is winter, the bees are not as active at the moment. 

Next, we walked around to see if there were flowers on our trees for our bees. We found some, but not enough. Flowers are very important for our bees.

Room 11 saw 5 different types of flowers in the Mara Kai for our bees.  They need variety in their diet.

Do you know that without the bees, 1/3 of our fruit and vegetables would not exist?

We had a taste of the mandarins from Ms Everitt's tree...

Mackenzi: Ï didn't have a pip in mine!"

Eva: "I only had one pip."

Cern: "It is sooooooo sweet."

Greyson: "It tasted a bit sour, but inside it was sweet."

Daniel: The mandarin smelled really good."

Zara: "The mandarin smelled a little bit sour."

Richie: "I had 2 pips in my Mandarin, and I swallowed them both!"

Thank you Bees, for the Mandarins!

Then we labelled the parts of the bee and drew our own bees.

Lastly, we played a fun dice game to race to create our own bee with all the body parts.

Next time, we're looking forward to learning about how bees make honey.