Year Six - Literacy Week Estuary Inquiry

 

As it is Literacy Week, Year Six began their Education for Sustainability lesson by reading a Kiwi Conservation Club magazine all about Wetlands and Estuaries.  We checked our comprehension with a Kahoot.

Next we learnt how estuaries are important by reading this slide deck and completed a fun sorting game to follow up.

Why are estuaries important?

Vinuka "They filter out mud"

Maddy "It is where lots of animals live"

Laela "They sometimes stop flooding"

Lucas F "They give people food"

Blake "They are good for walking along"

Manal "They prevent flooding of houses as they drain the water"

Lastly, in groups we began to plan our own inquiry into our local estuary. Check out an example here

Year 3 - Luscious Leaves

 

Today Year Three discovered The Green Room was covered in fragrant leaves from our mara.  We split into teams and investigated each plant using our senses.  We recorded the name if we knew it our any other ideas we had.  

Jaxon "It smells like onion"

Jadyden "It smells like ice pops"

Joshua "It's bamboo"

Theo "It smells like lemonade"

Kimaya "It looks like a lily pad"

Ella "Is it lemongrass? We grow it and my dad uses it".

Mrs Daniel identifed each plant and some of it's uses.  They were lemongrass, kawakawa, kumara leaves, spring onion, nasturtium, sorrel, mint pineapple sage & rosemary.  They can be used to add flavour, make teas and some of them are herbal medicines.  

We brainstormed what we wanted to find out about leaves, herbs and tea. 

Next we researched the amazing origins and fascinating history of tea. We followed up with a Kahoot to check our new knowledge. Did you know it was invented in China 6000 years ago?

We have mystery box of special of tea from Mr Lesley to investigate in the coming weeks:

Next time we're looking forward to using our mint plants to make tummy tea. 

Year 5 Being Kind with The Youth Project

Today Year Five ended their Enviro Lesson, by working with Claire from The Youth Project.  We were thinking about how we can be kind to the environment and our community.

Kindness has three aspects:

Friendliness

Generousity

Consideration

We discussed how we can be kind:

Smile at people.

If your friend is sad cheer them up.

Give presents.

Give respect.

Give a wave.

Give old clothes and toys.

Give time to play or help.

Give compliments.

To share our learning and promote kindness and connection in the community we created a crafty bunch of flowers and thoughtful card.  Our flowers and cards are going to go to local elderly folks to brighten their day.

Thank you to The Youth Project and their sponser Dalton Electrical for a wonderful experience.

Year Five Travelwise - Safe Active Travel

 Today, Year Five learnt how to get to school using active travel safely.  We were lucky enough to have another giant jisaw puzzle to help us explore this concept. We turned it into another fun interclass competition:

Room 2 - 4.53min

Room 3 - 5.27min

Room 1 - 6.44min

We annotate the puzzle with how the tamariki being unsafe and provided solutions.

What did you learn?

"Always wait for the bus to leave before crossing the road" Ren

"Walk your bike or scooter in carparks" Eddie

"Stop, look, listen before crossing a drive way.  Stay alert" Evelyn

Active travel is great for our health and the environment, but we need to be safe.  Did you use active travel today?

Year Four - Being Kind with The Youth Project

 

Today in our Enviro Lesson, Year Four worked with Claire from The Youth Project.  We were thinking about how we can be kind to the environment and our community.

Kindness has three aspects:

Friendliness

Generousity

Consideration

To share our learning and promote kindness and connection in the community we created jigsaw puzzles for local preschoolers with an environmental theme. These will be given to our local Envirokindies. 

Thank you to The Youth Project and their sponser Dalton Electrical for a wonderful experience.

And Cascades Kindy loved them:

Year Five Spaghetti Squash Seed Savers

 

Today Year Five set to work saving the spaghetti squash seeds we had harvested at the beginning of term.  

Do you remember the spaghetti squash we grew over raumati/summer and roasted? https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/5234492709449203093/605536775667702119 We had collected the seeds from inside and dried them out.  Now it's time to store them for planting in our own mara next koanga/spring. Free kai!

We looked at various seed packets to see what a successful container would look like:

- a paper envelope with no gaps

- a title and picture

- instructions for growing that included when, where and how.

We had to think carefully to create our own seeds packets using A4 paper, glue, scissors. When we were sure it had no gaps we decorated it with pictures and instructions.  Lastly we filled them with six seeds each.

Now we can grow our own spaghetti squash or gift the seeds to some gardeners we know as an Easter surprise.

We're looking forward to continuing our Ready Steady Go Sustainable Travel topic next term.

Year 3's Pumpkin Party

 

Today, Year 3 read Stone Soup. The magic ingredient was sharing. That gave us an idea. We used spring onions, pumpkins and herbs along with salt, stock and dried herbs to make our own magic soup. Yum! 

The pumpkins that were harvested, roasted and frozen: