Natural Disaster Readiness with Year 3

 Today Year 3 learnt that nature isn't always kind, but we can be prepared.

What are some of the natural disasters we know?

Zoey "Tsunami & flood"

Rhyden "Hail, lightning, earthquake & fire"

Margaux "Whirlpool"

Shion "Volcano"

Isla "Slips"

Elsie "Hurricane"

Christina "Snow Storm"

Billie "Bee swarm"

Jack "Coconut falling on your head"

Mahina "Sandstorm"

Amelia "Cliff crumbling"

Milan "Cyclone"

Sammy "Tornado"

Ciaran "Forest Fire"

We revised the things we can do in the event of a natural disaster:

- drop, cover & hold in an earthquake 

- ring 111 in an emergency

- learn your address and parent's phone number

- check heavy objects in the home are secure

- learn the tsnami alarm that tells us to move to high ground 

AND lastly please discuss a fire evacuation plan at home with our families.

By completing these activities we are in the draw to win an iPad from  Civil Defense.  Fingers crossed!

Year 6 Work on Natural Disaster Readiness

 

Today, it was the turn on Year 6 to work on their readiness for Natural Disasters. We're hoping to be one of the lucky schools selected for a special assembly and ipad prize draw. We took part in Civil Defense's Get Ready School Challenge: Look out for more information coming home with your tamariiki. Does your family have a fire evacuation plan?

https://getready.govt.nz/involved/schools-challenge Get Ready School Competition

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv5IxXf91uE

2026 Waste Audit

 Today, Year Five helped Ms Daniel conduct our waste audit to see if we are being successful in diverting waste away from landfill.

First we played a game to see if we knew the right place to put our waste.  We had to choose between:

- paper recycling

- soft plastic

- comingled recycling

- general waste (red lid bin)

- food scraps / hot compost

- garden compost / worm farm

- hazardous waste

- op shop

There's so many places we can send our waste to be reused, composted or recycled so our world doesn't fill up with rubbish.

Afterwards we did a reading comprehension to analyse the results of the last waste audit.

Lastly we sorted all the waste from one day and weighed it:

Hot Compost 3.25kg (2.22kg in 2024)

Soft Plastic .35kg (soft plastic not collected in 2024)

Paper Recycling 1.25 kg (5.9kg in 2024)

Comingled Recycling 0.2 kg (0.1kg in 2024)

General Waste 1.25 kg (3kg in 2024)

Concerns -

compostables in waste 0.2 (Puka tea bags are recycleable) (0.72kg in 2024)

contamination in paper recycling 0.01 Room 1 

contamination in recycling 0.05 (Up and Go boxes can't be recycled)

Can ice block sticks be composted? Yes :)

Recycling in waste 0.05 (1.08kg in 2024)

Analysis: 

Last time we had 3kg of landfill waste and this time we had 1.25kg.  What a dramatic drop! One reason may be that we made it a school rule that the Wednesday pizza boxes had to go home. 

Total diverted from landfill went from 8.22kg to 5.05kg.  This is because there was much less paper in the paper recycling bins (5.9kg vs 1.25kg), so that's good news.

Contamination dropped from 1.81kg to 0.35kg. That's another huge drop!  Teachers and students on the whole are putting waste in the right bins.  

We still have some work to do.  We are not perfect.  The Eco Group will analyse more and see what actions we take to improve the contamination rate.  We can't wait to share our awesome results with other Enviroschools.

How could we celebrate our wonderful waste reducation?

Jase "Have a free lunch order"

Theo "Classes have an ice block (nice blocks)"

Alyssa "Spend the first or second block in the gardens"

"A day off of school" Nick

"Have a litter hunt" Caden

"Get to go on an adventure by ourselves"

"Make a litter hunt group" Theo

"Next specialist everyone make like pumpkin soup" Chace

Year Three Kai Continued

Today, Year Three were back out in the Mara investigating kai.  First we observed the differences since we were last there in March:

Zoe "The leaves had gone from the fruit trees.  Last time there was lots of fruit and leaves"

Augustino "Cabbages were growing"

Evie K "There was no more leaves on the apple trees and no more apples"

Isla "The leaves will come back in spring"

We tried silver beet fresh from the garden.  

Next we thought about the differences between home grown kai and kai we buy in the shops.  Kai we grow at home is fresher and takes a lot less energy to transport and store so it's better for the environment.  We can't grow all our kai, but it's great if we can have a couple of fruit trees or a small veggie garden at home.

We created diagrams to show the differences between homegown and store bought kai. 

Lastly we thought about the senses that we use when we eat and created a vocabulary bank.

Next time we are looking forward to finding out the groups we can put kai into and how the different food groups are good for our bodies.

Room 7 had a slightly different afternoon because they had the big job of collecting all the bins from around the school for tomorrow's waste audit.  Also, when they were in the Mara Kai they say a HEDGEHOG.  At first it was curled up and then it was waddling around the garden. This led to some hedgehog research.  Did you you know they can swim? Their quills act like a life jacket as they are filled with air.  Unfortuanatley they below in England - they are now considered a pest in New Zealand.

Next time we will be doing a special Civi Defense lesson, then we are looking forward to finding out the groups we can put kai into and how the different food groups are good for our bodies. The children want to end this unit by making kumara soup from the mara.

Greenfingers Gang on the hunt

 Today, the Greenfingers Gang got bust tipping compost, weeding and lastly protecting our Mara by setting rat traps. Stay tuned to see if we catch anything. 

Year Six Continue Our Estuary Inquiry with Watercare

 Today Year Six learnt about how we can observe what live in our fresh water ways, with Kathryn from Watercare.  We learnt about the common risks to our local waterways - detergent, nitrates, oil, plastic litter and paint. Sadly litter is a main pollutant.  What could we do about that?

Next, we used magnifying glasses to find macro invertebrates in the samples.  Who knew there were so many bugs living in our freshwater?! Lots of life means healthier water.

Observation, identification and recording of data

Good news! We saw six types of macroinvertebrates, so the water was relatively healthy.

What we found:

- leech

- microvelia

- water boatman

- water mite

-damsel fly

Freshwater Leech

Water Boatman

Lastly, we chose one water bug to find out more about and created research posters. Check them out HERE

Thank you to Kathryn and Watercare for the wonderful hands on learning.

Year 4 Get Ready School Challenge

 Nature isn't always kind. Today, Year 4 thought about how we can get ready and be prepared if a natural disaster strikes.

What sort of things could we get ready for?

Arjun "Earthquakes"

Theo "Volcanoes"

Amelia "Tsunami- my dad went through one in Samoa"

Caden "Tornadoes and Cyclones"

Karina "Fires"

Kimaya "Flood"

Nick "Rockslide"

Amelia "Sinkhole"

Azara "Pandemic"

Archer "Heatwave"

We practiced 'Drop, cover & hold" to prepare for an earthquake.

We took part in the "Get Ready Schools Challenge" by completing eight activities:

1. Practise drop, cover, hold for an eearthquake

2. Learn the 111 emergency number, your address and your parent's phone number off by heart - we'll learn this at home if we don't know alreadu.

3. Check big objects are secure around the house

4. Know who is responsible in the event of an emergency

5. Know the types of hazards that may happen in New Zealand

6. Know how to respond to  hazards

7. Create a fire escape plan with your family - we'l do this at home.

8. Know how to evacuate for a tsunami.

REMEMBER to talk about this mahi, complete the fire evacuation plan with your whanau and memorise your emergency contact details.

THEN return the sheet with the dog on it to your teacher to enter the IPAD draw.

Lastly, we drew our families evacuating with our 'Go Bags' in the event of a volcano.