Year 2 Talk about where our food scraps should go

 

Year 2 are learning about our new systems for dealing with food waste.

What can we do with food scraps?

Jiya "Put them in the food waste bin"

"Throw it in the green bin" Olive

"Use it to put on the compost to turn into dirt" Zoey

"Throw it in the food scrap bin and it goes to the worms" Jacob

"Put them in your garden to make plants grow and feed the worms" Jehan

Is it a good idea to throw your food scraps in the normal rubbish bin?

"They're not rubbish" Charlie

Janaya "The food scraps are not waste"

"No because it will go to landfill. It can't turn into soil." Callum

"We  won't have any food for the worms" Mason

What excellent prior knowledge! 

We looked at our brand new hot composters in the Mara Kai.  We can't wait to start putting our food scraps in the buckets next week. Next we watched a video from our Eco Leaders: 

Lastly read "The Soil in Jachie's Garden" and drew our own gardens.

Year 3 Dive into our New Hot Compost

 Today Year 3 looked at our new system for dealing with all food waste at Wakaaranga.  Thanks to a very generous grant from the Mana Ora Climate Resilience Fund we have been able to purchase Hot Composters from the Carbon Cycle Company.

The great thing about our new composters is that they can convert ALL FOOD SCRAPS into compost for our gardens.

The Eco Warriors made a video to explain how the new composting system works and what we need to do:

Afterwards, we visited the new hot composters.  Then we did a Kahoot and created a cut-and-paste flow chart to review.  We can't wait to get started next week!

Pekapeka with Year 5 & 6

 Today Year Six started a new mystery topic.  We learnt that when scientists classify animals it is called taxonomy. We began by studying the similarities between a mystery skeleton and a human skeleton.

Did you know that all animals can be separated into two groups - vertebrates and invertebrates?

We could see a backbone so the mystery animals was a vertebrate.

We discovered the mystery skeleton was a bat.  We're going to study them because Peter and Zahara from Pestfree Howick said they live close by. We want to know how to protect this unique species.

"A species is a group of organisms that can reproduce and have off spring that can reproduce" 

What did we find out?

"Bats are the only mammals that can fly" 

"They use echo location to hunt" - we played a game to show how this works.

"Bats have similar bones to humans" 

 "All species have latin names."

Room 18 had time to do a crossword too.

What did we learn from the article and interview?

Cairo "A senior scientist's nick name is Bat Man"

"NZ bats are endangered" Payton

Max "There are bat flies that live on the back on the bats and eat their poop"

Zimon "Some bats live in Fjord land and Milford Sound" 

"The short tailed bat pollinates the wood rose" Andrew

We watched, read, played a fitness game and reviewed with a Kahoot. Next time we're looking forward to taking action to protect our unique bats.

Room 18 had time to do a crossword too.

Year Five Travelwise Teachers

 

Year 5 took the opportunity to create picture books to share what they have learnt about how active travel helps the environment, our bodies and how to be safe when we're getting to school.

It was great fun folding up our mini books and using our creative skills while listening to calming music.

We shared our mini books with Year One and talked about trying to use active modes of travel to get to school, especially on Wednesdays.

Lastly we did our post test for this unit of work and created "Wednesday Challenge" posters.

Rooms 1 & 2 Eat a Rainbow

 

Today Rooms 1 & 2 were learning about "Eating a Rainbow" in Education for Sustainability with Ms Daniel.  We fueled up with water and fresh oranges from Ms Everitt's tree, then played master tag. We learnt with Fredge and 5+ Aday that our bodies needs lots of water and five serves of different coloured fruits and vegetables everyday, so we have energy to move and learn.

We brainstormed all the different coloured kai we knew and compared to Milo the Monster's suggestions. Afterwards we created our own rainbows of fruits and veggies and tried roast purple kumara from the school gardens.

Elliot "The liked the crunchy bit on the kumara"

Hazel "The kumara was a bit tough"

Eden "It was mushy and squishy"

Avy "It was yum. I liked the organges too.  I enjoyed playing master tag."

Melissa "The kumara was so good.  It was my first time trying it."

Luna  "The kumara was sticky."

Caden "The kumara was so sweet."

Kasonoi "It was my first time trying kumara.  It tastes like chips."

Mia "It smells like fries."

"Kumara is yum!" Lachie

Next time we are going to learn about why the compost is so important for growing our kai.

Year 3 Where do all the leaves go?

 Today, Year 3 began their EfS lesson by playing in the leaves by the Junior Playground.  

We wondered what happens to all the leaves that fall off the trees ...

Harshveer: "The fungus, bacteria and invertebrates destroy them"

"Mr Dowden rakes them up." James

"The wind blows them away." Robin

Alice: "I think they might go into the soil."

Nixon: "Maybe they stay there."

Lilly-Rose: "I think they get blown away."

Emilia: "I think the FBI eat them."

We took part in a Mystery Science lesson and created a paper model to investigate how the leaves seem to disappear over time.

What did we discover?

"Worms and invertebrates eat the leaves up" Hala

"When you leave stuff too long, it gets mouldy" James

Otis: "Decomposers break up the leaves."

Rungsheg: " Fungi, the mushrooms."

Advika: " Bacteria."

Dylan: "The worms."

Afterwards, we observed the FBI at work and helped to feed our trees by spreading mulch.

                                                 

Year 3 Investigate the Gross World of the FBI

 Today, Year 3 learnt about the incredibly important, but gross job that fungus, bacteria and invertebrates (FBI) do for our world.

Akhi "They make compost"

Ibaad "They make compost out of food scraps".

"Bugs  are super heroes because they turn dead stuff into soil." Robin

We talked about how all our food comes from the soil, so we need the FBI to keep turning dead stuff and scraps into nutrients for our soil.  

We went on a discovery walk to see where we could see evidence of the FBI at work.

Alex "I saw a rotten banana peel in the worm farm."

"I saw black mushrooms in the native bush walk growing on a tree."

"I saw a orange mushrooms and a worm." Robin

"I saw red fungus" Hala

"We saw the stink horns and when they grow they die a  few days later. They have red tentacles and they have black inside.  They smell stinky." James

"I saw a rotten log" Kaida

Back at the classroom we did some more research on the amazing red stinkhorn fungus we found.  Did you know the reason they stink is that they attract flies to spread their spores?

Afterwards we dug in our Mara Kai to see invertebrates and to see if there were any kumara left.

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