Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Year 5/ 6 Enviro Trip to Auckland Botanical Gardens

On Tuesday 19th March the Year 5/ 6 Enviro students attended the 'Eye on Nature' one day activity programme.  This enviro programme covers a range of topics educating and empowering students to take action for the environment.

The favourite things were...testing the water quality and seeing the pests that they are trying to keep out of New Zealand. 

We learnt...

... if the nitrogen in the water is zero that's good for the water.

... that mice are a pest

... how pests affect the environment

... which bugs re pests or pals. 

Activities covered were:

1) PESTS 

Looking at animals and plants that are a pest in New Zealand. 

We ran around playing tag to illustrate the problem of how moth pod spreads. 

We can help by:  telling more people about pests and taking part in trying to remove them. 

 



 

2) BUGS: PEST or PAL?

During this session we learnt about a number of bugs that New Zealand biosecurity is trying very hard to keep out of our country as they are extremely damaging to our fruits and vegetable crops. 

We can help by: looking carefully at bugs in our Garden to Table sessions to see if creatures are friends or not. 


 

3) RUBBISH SORTING (TRAFFIC LIGHT BINS) 

This was a fantastic refresher for us as it matched our school bin system perfectly.  We played a fun relay game running to put rubbish into little coloured bins; red, yellow or green.  

We can help by: making sure we put our rubbish in the correct bins and educating others to do this too!

Fence post made from soft plastic


4) WATER TESTING 

During this final activity we were scientists! We did a number of experiments to test the water quality and decide how clean or polluted it was - we came out with a score of 90% clean. 

We can help by: keeping our water ways clean and making sure the outside drain has only RAIN go down it! Pick up rubbish you see at school or anywhere near a drain. 


 

  

 






Monday, March 25, 2024

2024 Term 1 Garden to Table

 Our Year 5 / 6 Garden to Table programme has got off to a great start for 2024! 

Our students have been creating a wonderful range of food from fritters, muffins and kale chips  to pizza scrolls, bliss balls and chocolate chip muffins using vegetables! 

See the recipe link HERE for Term 1 recipes. This is updated each week.






















Monday, March 18, 2024

Traffic Light Bins - Get it RIGHT and WIN for your class!



We are doing an awesome job on putting our rubbish in the right bin...

RED for landfill rubbish

YELLOW for recycling

GREEN for compostables. 




Each week monitors check the classroom bins and score classes out of 6. 

The classes that get the highest score at the end of term WIN a pizza or fish and chip lunch. 

The current top three are...

KEA...

1st: Room 11, 13 and 14 joint on TOP MARKS - 24 points! 

TUI... 

1st: Room 8 on TOP MARKS - 24 points! 

2nd: Room 2 (23 points) 

3rd: Room 5 (19 points) 

YOUR class can earn bonus points. 

> Room 7 earned a bonus point for spending their lunchtime picking up litter. 

> Room 8 earned a bonus point as so many of their class had a wrapper free lunch. 

Score top marks on the quiz below and earn an extra point for your class. 

Do the quiz as a class and send the answers via email or scrap paper to Miss Long's cubby. 

Where should the following items go... ?


LANDFILL         RECYCLING           COMPOST               HOME 

1. Apple core

2. Chippy packet

3. Tissue box

4. Yoghurt pot

5. Banana skin

6. Muesli bar wrapper

7. Plastic bottle 

8. Milk carton

9. Paper towels

10. Juice  carton






  






Sunday, March 17, 2024

Moth Pod Time!

 It's that time of year again! 

Our school is collecting moth pods! 


This nasty, invasive weed takes over EVERYTHING! 

HELP US! 

>> Help the environment be free of these poisonous weeds

>> Help our school earn points in the local competition for the school that collects the most! 

>> Earn gold tokens for bringing pods and roots into school. 

This year we have been working hard to increase awareness of moth pods with our school community. 

We have: 

1) Had lessons about this with ALL Tui classes making posters to display at school or take home

2) Presented in assembly explaining all about moth pods

3) A 'Moth Pod' group who are looking forward to running activities with the kea classes soon. 


Our 'Moth Pod Leaders' have been busy out in the community collecting pods and roots over the last two weeks. 



Enviro Stall for Term 4

At the end of each term we hold an 'enviro' stall.  Why? * To showcase and sell 'cookie mix in a jar' - a fun and easy way t...