Visiting Our Lady Star of the Sea

 Ms Daniel visited Our Lady Star of the Sea for inspiration from another Enviroschool.  Check out these amazing actions:

Bug hotel

Bath worm farm

Natural play and loose parts play

Mosaic

Huristic play

What could we do?

Year Six - What is an estuary

 

Get Thinking - What is a estuary?

Vienaa "Like a lake and a beach close together"

Vida "The water flows and animals live there"

Blake "There's no waves and it's calm"

Toby "It's some sort of water way"

Explore - We explored what an estuary is with reading this slide deck from DOC https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1IDYU3SVQm20oeH1TgMS7hC9BxXX8lofLY5x_2Dw6HiM/edit#slide=id.g2303cdbe46_0_0 

What do we see at the Roatary Walkway alongside the Tamaki Estuary?

"Baby fish and birds"

Alexander "I saw crabs"

Blake "I've seen eels there"

Gracie "Lots of mud"

Vida "Trees"

Toby "weird water trees like mangroves"

Hazel "I've seen herons; birds with long legs"

Cody "There's a lot of kelp dried on the shore"

We created charts in our book with the headings "I know...", "I wonder...", "My experiences..." and "How I can find out more"  We'll use these to set the course for our Estuary Inquiry. We used field guides to illustrate our charts. 

Next time we'll read about the estuary wildlife and discover why they are important. 

Year Four Dive into the Hauraki Gulf

Today Year Four began an inquiry into the beautiful marine park on our doorstep - The Hauraki Gulf. 

To begin we watched an awesome video by the Young Ocean Explorers: https://www.youngoceanexplorers.com/yoe/video/996166153015#cplayer Which animals did you see?

Hunter "I saw sharks, jellyfish & big whales"

Constance "I saw octopus, dolphins and orca"

Ella "I saw a crayfish"

Aliana "I saw a fish"

Camelia "I saw a marlin, a bottle nose dolphin and a sea turtle"

Jasper "I saw a manta ray"

Georgia "I saw a lobster and a stingray"

Ciara "I saw a black pertrel, a gannet and a whale"

Harvey "bronze whaler shark"

We located the marine park on a map and where Sunnyhills is located as well.

Next  we researched the English meaning of some of the place names:

Quinn & Zoey - Whangaparoa means bay of whales

Eloise - Whangamata means bay of hard stone.

Payton - Waiwera means hot water

Allan - Aotea means white cloud

Alsonso - Rangitoto means bloody sky

Waiheki means trickling water - Milana & Jessica

Flynn - Motutapu means sacred island

Hauraki means North Wind - Edwin

Afterwards we read a KCC Magazine all about the wetlands found in the Hauraki Gulf and did a Kahoot Quiz to test our comprehension.

Lastly we thought about how we can protect the marine park. Plastic litter is a big issue and we can help by bringing a litter free lunch.  The children with litter free lunches went into a prize draw for Paradice vouchers.

Well done to the winners:

Room 6 Zoey & Max - 14 tamariki had litterfree lunches  WELL DONE for the most litterfree lunches in the year group

Room 5 Harvey & Camelia - 12 litterfree lunches. 

Room 4 Anderson & Vivaan - 13 litterfree lunches

ROOM5 collected a WHOLE BUCKET of litter in just 10 minutes.  Almost all of it was from lunchboxes :(

Have you seen our new window display? 

Beehive Glow Up

 

Making our beehives more colourful, was a suggestion from our 2022 GreenGold Reflection and today it became a reality.  Mrs Daniel and the Eco Group glued on the wooden flowers that Year 5 painted last year.  Just in time for the Jubilee celebrations!

Travelwise with Year Fives

 Year Five are learning about the benefits of active travel. We downloaded a digital workbook and completed a pretest. Next we worked together to complete a giant jigsaw puzzle. Check out the time-lapse of Room1:

We made a competition by timing it. And the winners are:

Room 3 6:19

Room 2 6:25

Room 1 9:36

Lastly we placed green flags on environmental benefits and yellow flags on physical benefits. 

Next week we'll learn how to travel safely. 

Eco Group Celebrate Eye On Nature & Reflect

 Today the Eco Group celebrated a successful trip to 'Eye on Nature' .  We started by unboxing the goodies that the Manukau Beautification Trust gifted us when we left.

Wow there were gloves, compost, seeds, booklets and so many resources full of ideas so we can take action to help te taiao. 

We reflected on what we learnt on our trip with Auckland Museum, Beez Things, Auckland Council and Conservation Volunteers:

Evie "I learnt how the eels are becoming extinct because of the dams and how some people are putting rivers around the dams"

Taryn "We learnt about plants that native and that you can nibble on for a snack"

Louisa "I learnt that waka's are made of trees that 100's of years old"

Vinuka "I learnt about the eels life cycles"

Hunter "I learnt how to play instruments with just nature"

Blake "I learnt about long fin and short fin eels"

Toby "I learnt that there's one type of native eel - longfin"

Alexander "I learnt what its like to have a bee suit on"

Evie "We learnt about the Maori Gods and beginning of the world"

What actions could we take inspired by our day?

Vinuka "Pull weeds and catch pests"

Evie "We could write letters to people with the dams and make posters and videos to try and make a difference"

Alexander "Go to a science lab and make something to kill varoa mites"

Alexander "Make Sunnyhills candles"

Toby "Make medicine with propolis to cure cancer"

Olivia "We could make beeswax wraps and have a shop at the Howick markets"

Evie "We could protest"

Taryn "We could kill the wasps"

What amazing ideas! Next week we can use the beeswax from our Beez Things hives to make beeswax wraps. That will help us bring litter free lunches.

Thank you Manukau Beautification Trust and sponsors! 

Eco Group at 'Eye On Nature'

 Today, the Eco Group had a extraordinary day out at the Eye On Nature Event held by the Manukau Beautification Trust at the Botanic Gardens.

We took part in four activities throughout the day hosted by Auckland Museum, Beez Things. Auckland City Council Parks and Conservation Volunteers. It was a wonderful opportunity to connect with experts and learn how we can promote our own well being and the well being of the environment.

The activities included making musical instruments, exploring a glass beehive, finding Edible native plants and testing the health of freshwater streams. All the hosts were impressed with Sunnyhills tamariki's enthusiasm and knowledge.

Thank you Manukau Beautification Trust and all the sponsors for this opportunity! Nga mihi nui to our parent / caregiver volunteers!