Visit to Motuihe Island

As part of our prize for Moth podding, two of our students were lucky enough to visit Motuihe Island. 

 My day at Motuihe Island

On Sunday I picked up Vinny and arrived at the museum.

We went in and got our name tag, got on the boat, talked about the rules and untied the rope as we went.

It took two hours then we arrived at Motuihe Island.

The sea legs took us onto the beach.

If you're wondering what sea legs are, it is a boat with legs. 

 

We ate our lunch, packed up and walked up a hill.

We dropped our stuff off and went for a bush walk.

We had to clean our shoes. I stayed at the back of the line

and every one was up ahead of us me, My dad, Vinny,

Mark and Cate. We were shown where kiwis live.

I even saw a kiwi and a tuatara! 

The best part of the day was going on the boat.

We sat outside on the edge and I saw a penguin! 

By Addilyn 

Garden to Table Term 4

 We have had a fantastic start to the term; cooking favourite recipes - kale chips and ANZAC biscuits and trying new foods as we celebrated our Indian cultures. 

This included making a delicious curry and an Indian sweet treat, Nankhatai biscuits. 

Recipes can be found by clicking the link HERE and also on the recipe page. 

Pestival

This week we celebrated and shared our learning about pests by hosting a 'Pestival' event.   

This was run by Howick Local Board who have supported us with our pest work by running 4 learning sessions about pests with a Year 5/ 6 enviro group. 

What was this all about?  

It was fun learning about pest trees; there's so many different ones!  (Logan) 

We learnt all about pests and the big three, rats, possums and mustelids.  (Rianka) 

We saw some videos about 'the frustrations' of dogs and other animals interfering with traps! (Dovin) 

RATS! They have big brown eyes and just want food all the time! (Shalan) 

During the event our students presented what they had learnt about pests. Click HERE to see that presentation. 

Everyone that attended was offered a free rat trap to take home. Students were excited about the chance to start trapping in their own backyard! 

The students that attended also received their certificate for completing the Bronze Cadetship programme. 

NZ Recycle Week!

 This week is NZ Recycle Week.    

All classes have been learning about recycling this week. The five 'W' and HOW. 

* WHO should be recycling? 

Everyone!

* WHEN should we recycle? 

Every day- but our recycle truck comes on a Thursday or Friday. 

 WHERE can we recycle?  

Many places - not just home and at school - look for recycle bins when you're out and about!

* HOW does recycling work? 

See the video link we watched in class HERE) 

* WHAT can be recycled?  

FIVE main things: 

> Paper, 

> cardboard, 

> glass, 

> metal and 

> HARD plastic with numbers 1,2,5 in the triangle. 

* WHY should we recycle?

      " To reduce all the things buried in landfill which are all piling up"

      " To save the planet and  animals and plants - like the trees we chop down to make paper"

      " To make new things rather than be wasteful - like make our school jumpers!" 

LEARNING

We looked at hard plastic items to see if it had a number on the bottom. 

We learnt...

1) Most things had a 1,2,5 in a triangle on the bottom. Nothing had a 3 or 4 in a triangle. 

2) Only things with a 1,2,5 in a triangle can be recycled.

3) Some items had a 6 in a triangle - like yoghurt pots or sour cream pots. These cannot be recycled and have to go to landfill. 

4) Sometimes the number is TINY! 

This made it very hard to work out if it can be recycled or not. 

 

Garden to Table - Term 3 round up - Room 2 & Room 17

 Room 2 and Room 17 had a busy term in Garden to Table and the year 6 students were sad when their last session came. 

  

Over the term they have...

* learnt about pest control by making snail / slug traps (a very popular activity!)

* cooked food from different cultures to celebrate Tonga and Chinese language week. 

* had a 'kūmara' themed week to use up our kūmara stash

* chopped up and shared delicious excess citrus fruit; grapefruit and oranges. 

All our recipes for the term can be found HERE. 

More can be found on the 'recipes' tab of this blog too. 

We were kindly given a large number of oranges that were so juicy and sweet! 

Victoria also brought in lots of citrus fruit from her fruit trees too. 

Students enjoyed making flower posies for the dining tables

Chinese dumplings! Yum!

Students listed their favourite garden activities and kitchen foods. 

The favourite garden activity was harvesting. Others also commented they enjoyed; looking for snails / slugs, planting and weeding. 

In the kitchen a whole range of different foods was listed as the students favourites. Below is the top 5.

1. Herby Breadsticks

2. Kale Chips

3. Chocolate Bliss Balls

4. Chop Suey

5. Beetroot Brownies. 
 

Other popular foods were vegetable risotto, pizza scrolls, lemon muffins and banana pancakes. 

Adopt a Park #3

This week we had our third visit for the year to William Green Domain. 

Collecting rubbish and helping to unblock the stream

Quick play after lunch! 

Seeing how many native plants we can recognise 

Activities this session

1) We freed the natives we planted last term by pulling the weeds away from around the base. 

. 

2) We added our signs to show everyone we have 'adopted' the park. 

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3) We picked up rubbish. We filled 12 bread bags! 

 

4) We recorded all the things we observed in the park. We'll keep a record and add to it each time. 

We noticed the stream was not flowing and quite blocked up so the adults tried to clear it. 

  

The bird life we saw today was...

* ducklings and the mummy duck

* swallows

* magpies 

We thought about all the native trees we could name too; karamu, nikau palm, flax, puriri and those we planted last term - cutty grass and cabbage trees

Our favourite things were...

"Learning from a different person"

"Seeing the cute ducklings"

"Clearing the river so it flowed again"

" Being outside and helping nature" 

" Checking in on the native trees we planted. 

In term 4 we will...

>> work more on unblocking up the stream so it flows properly

>> Continue to record what wildlife we see around 

>> Collect more rubbish in other areas of the park.