Rongoā and kawakawa balm

To continue our theme of how nature can help us, we have learnt about the many healing properties of kawakawa leaves. 

Some students tried chewing a leaf! 

'It makes your mouth feel a bit funny and doesn't taste that good!'

Miss Long talked us through how she made kawakawa balm and we all got to try some. 

 

'This will be good for my cuts' Sienna

'I'll use this on my bruises'

'I like sticking it on me' (as a plaster) 

'This will be good for my dry hands' - Miss Long

The recipe used is HERE 

Rongoā and more tea!

This term year 3, 4, 5 and 6 have been learning about how nature can provide for us and heal us. 

Session 1: We looked at all the herbs we had in the garden. The students then helped make the 'morning wake up' tea with lemon, lemon balm and mint.  We all tried some! 

'It was really lemony' 

'It tasted plain but healthy!'

'I loved it... can I have more'

 

While looking at the other kinds of tea we could make, students in Room 2 spotted a herb that was familiar to their cultural - gotu kola - something used in Sri Lankan cooking. 

We then used this to make 'brain tea'. 

* Ingredients: gotu kola, rosemary, lemon zest  and hot water (and extra lemon juice for good measure!) 

You can find the tea recipes HERE. 

We also spotted that South African Day was coming up in the holidays so some classes tried Rooibus tea aswell! 

Session 2: We thought about which native trees we have at school and how they can help us. 

Firstly we visited the native garden and went on a hunt for mānuka, kānuku and pūriri. 

We studied the leaves and drew them. Then we listened to 'Koro's Medicine' to see how Maori use native trees and plants for healing. 

We then tried to match up the pharmacy medicines with the Rongoā. 

SWAP-tember

Each term we have an enviro themed activity for all students to take part. 

We checked the calendar for the different  national 'enviro events' in term 3 then voted for our favourite - 'Second Hand September' was the winner.  

We organised a 'SWAP-tember' event! 

The students brought in clothes, shoes, books and toys they no longer wanted. They got swap 'tokens' to spend the following week and earned enviro points for their class. 

Some of the year 5/ 6 students did a reading activity thinking about HOW 'swapping' clothes and toys is good for the environment. 

DID YOU KNOW... 

...40% OF CLOTHING MADE GLOBALLY IS NEVER SOLD! (What a waste!)

... BY 2050 THE AMOUNT OF UNWORN CLOTHES COULD STRETCH TO MARS AND BACK!

Our 'SWAP-tember event was a big success!

-> LOTS of families supporting this initiative by sending things in 

 -> the students were excited for the anticipation of getting things that were 'new'

-> LOTS of students visited to the stalls to use their swap tokens and get some fantastic 'new' books, clothes and toys!

This cute teddy is sure to find a new home!

Collecting everything in...

...let the sorting commence!

LOTS of clothes!

...and lots of shoes!

Day 1 of SWAPS... books, clothes & shoes

Day 2 of swapping made it outdoors!

Lots of awesome toys! 

Adopt a Park visit

 This week our year 3 / 4 enviro group visited our 'adopted' park - 
William Green Domain. This is our third visit this year. 

During our visit we...

* learnt about the different shaped leaves and what plants or trees they come from

* discovered some interesting wildlife - a red dragonfly, a skink, woodlice, a shiny ladybird bug and some green leaf bugs

* found an awesome 'canoe' - part of a fallen nikau leaf 

* helped the environment by picking up rubbish. 

Happy green bugs!

shiny ladybird

Whose footprints are these? 

spot the lizard!

 

We found lots of plastic - including 5 plastic bottles. We talked about how we can help the environment have less plastic in it by having a wrapper free lunch. 

John - I liked helping the environment

Piper - the most interesting thing I found was the giant canoe (leaf) 

Ayla - I liked finding 2 dragonflies

Ella - I enjoyed picking up rubbish

Aimee - It was very exciting to find a mysterious rucksack (rubbish) I think it might belong to my favourite book character - Wolf Girl (- I love the imagination!) 

Luka - I enjoyed the rubbish hunt

 

Next time we go we will have a closer look at the native trees and plants we planted and see if we can do some weeding around them. 

Enviro artists creating a masterpiece!

 This term a group of budding artists have created an amazing masterpiece to enter into the 

EYE ON NATURE CREATIVE ARTS COMPETITION

** Come and check it out THIS School holidays at Auckland Botanical Gardens! 

They have used a number of materials that would otherwise have ended up in landfill or being recycled. How many can you spot? 

  

 

These students have worked hard during lunchtimes over the last few weeks supported by a fantastic parent - Zeena who inspire the design and put the finished project together. 

* Room 1: Addilyn, and Kimberley

* Room 2: Adwitiya, Annika, Hamreen, Karolina and Zoey.

* Room 3: Rianka

* Room 5: Leah

* Room 6: Selena

* Room 7: Ayla, Jarvis, Piper

 

 

While making this art piece, the students thought about ways 'rubbish' can be used instead of discarded. The students said they now think twice before throwing something away.  

The theme for the competition this year was Wellbeing - Taiao and Me. 

'This design shows living creations thriving where people come to care for the Earth and enjoy peaceful moments.  They're gifted with the beauty of nature and a safe home for all. This piece serves as a reminder that many things can be repurposed when we slow down.  We came up with the concept when brainstorming over things in nature that make us happy.

More information about the competition is HERE

Native tree planting

 Today we planted 14 native trees in our native garden area. 

THANK YOU to Howick Local Board 

for donating these trees to us. 

We planted 6 x karo which we added to our 'native tree line'.

We planted 5 mako trees (wineberry) by the second entrance and 3 ribbon wood trees (mānatu) . 

The girls named the ribbonwood trees - Ronnie, Rosie and Rizzy!