Year Five Forest Biologists

 Today Year 5 started a new mystery topic.  We learnt that when scientists classify animals it is called taxonomy. We began by stuyying the similarities between a mystery skeleton and a human skeleton.

Did you know that all animals can be seperated into two groups - vertebrates and invertebrates?

We could see a backbone so the mystery animals was a vertebrate.

We discovered the mystery skeleton was a bat.  

While we already knew some things about bats there was still lots of  to learn about our unique species.

 We read an article about pekapeka to find out more.  What did we find out?

Ruby "Bats live in NZ".

Ella "Rodents, possums and cats eat them"

Ranger "People build stuff and that's why they are enangered"

Ariella "If the short tailed bat go extinct so will the wood rose"

"It takes 8 weeks for them to be fully grown" TJ

We also discovered bats use echolocation to find their food. To explore this idea we played a fun  

blindfold game:

Lastly, we did a Kahoot to review all we had learnt about taxonomy and NZ native bats.

Peter and Zahara from Pestfree Howick said pekapeka live close by, so next want to know how to protect this unique species.

Year Three Food Chains In Our Mara

 

Today, Year Three explored how organisms interact in our garden eco system and how nutrients are passed along food chains.

First, we reviewed the concepts of producer, herbivore, carnivore & omnivore with a fun game.

Next we went into the garden to observe the organisms and think about how they might interact.  We saw a thrush eating a snail that had been eating our cabbages.  Thanks thrush! We also saw a cat that would eat the thrush if it gets a chance.

Afterwards we created our own food chain diagrams in our books, before finishing with a Kahoot to review all the new knowledge we had learnt.

Next time we are going to make those cabbages into Japanese veggie pancakes.

Year Six - Taxonomy, Bats & Botanists

 Today, Year Six continued their look at taxonomy and how we can use it to better understand and protect our native animals and plants.

We reviewed what we had learnt about pekapeka with a quick true/false cut and paste.

Next we watched a video telling us more about how taxonomy is used to classify all organisms on earth, before we learnt about Lucy Moore - a New Zealand botanist.

Lastly we followed up what we had found out about Lucy Moore with a Kahoot and a hunt around the school to find examples of flowering plants, ferns, mosses and cone bearing trees.

In Week 6 we are hoping to cook at eat kai from the Mara.

Year Four Ocean Scientists

 In this lesson we thought about all the incredible ocean animals we have learnt about this year and wondered why they are all so different. Well each animal is adapted to their environment and diet.

To explore this idea, we made observations of an underwater animal, a frogfish, in order to collect evidence that its external structures serve specific functions. In the activity, Frogfish Finder, we used observations to construct an argument that the frogfish’s external and internal structures work together as part of a system to support its growth and survival.

It was fun to make our own observation journals and we were amazed at the incredible adaptations of the frogfish.  

Year Five - Gardening, Sharing & Shining

 

Today, Year Five worked hard in the mara to harvest cabbages, refill the garden beds with compost and plant the last of our kumara seedlings.

Afterwards, we did our Ready Steady Go post test and read the Travelwise picture books

that we had created to Koru classes.

There was even time for a Travelwise Kahoot.  What a buy session!

Thank you for our mahi and leadership Year Five! Next time we're going to be learning about a mysterious native creature and the study of taxonomy.

Year Three Plant Out Our Koanga Kumara Tipu

 Today Yeaar Three did an amazing job of filling the beds with our own hot compost and planting out the spring (koanga) kumara seedlings (tipu).  The Eco Group gently watered them at lunchtime. We can't wait to dig them up for the 2027 Matariki hangi! Afterwards we learnt a bit more about the history of kumara in Aotearoa and did a kumara Kahoot.

Year Four's Terrific Team Work for Trees for Survival

 

What an incredible effort from Team 4 today potting up nearly 400 native tree seedlings.  We'll care for them until next winter when they'll get planted out by our Eco Group to enhance biodiversity, protect waterways and fight climate change.  Well done Year 4!