Year Five - Our Final Ready Steady Go Session

 

Today we were greeted at the school gate by the Travelwise team and a ZEBRA.  They were congratulating the tamariki using active travel.  Great timing for our last Ready Steady Go session.

We began by reviewing everything we've learnt about getting to school in a safe, healthy and environmentally friendly way, with a summative quiz, in our online workbooks.

Then we brainstormed the key ideas and words. We used these to create a catchy song to promote active travel with AI on Suno.

Listen to some of our tunes here:

Grace's Reggae Song

Angela's Walk to School Jam

Warren and Donglar's Rock Song

Renee's song

Emily's Anthem

Aelene's Catchy Tune

Alysia Sunnyhills Stroll

Emersyn's Song

Year Three Follow the Carbon Cycle

 Today Year Three investigated how we can be sustainable with our food waste.  Making sure no nutrients are lost, so we can keep growing new food and trees that give us oxegen and so that no parts of the world become a toxic dump.

We watched this video describing how Sunnyhills is sustainable with our scraps and talked about how we can do this at home with our own compost or the green lid bin.

Next we ate tangelos from Mrs Daniel's tree. "They taste zingy" said Joshua. "That tasted juicy" added Bella.

We collected the scraps and put them in our hot composters so the FBI (fungus, bateria and invertebrates) can break them down into new soil.

Next we each collected some "cooked" compost and put it on the Mara Kai ready for our spring planting. The compost was full of life! So many invertebrates! 

Room 18 found some pumpkin seeds in the compost that had germinated.  We potted them up in some soil to see if we can grow some delicious pumpkins to eat.  Free food!

Lastly, we recorded the carbon cycle in a diagram in our books: grow food - eat food - put scraps in compost - put compost on gardens and repeat.

Next time we're looking forward to investigating the invertebrates we saw,

Professional Development - Mission Heights

An inspiring visit to Mission Heights School:

Seedling tunnel house

Experiment to show compost soil structure VS chemically fertilized soil

Tapapa for growing kumara slips sustainably.

https://www.nzaee.org.nz/resources/earth-dreamers 

Year Four - Aihe Investigation

 Today Year 4 are taking a mathematical look at dolphins/aihe.

What do we already know about our Hauraki Gulf neighbours the dolphins?

James "They use clicks and whistles to communicate"

Chase "They are mammals"

Ariella "The Chinese River Dolphin went extinct because of pollution"

"Spinner dolphins talk with types of splashes" Rigo

Curtis "Dolphins are clever"

We watched a video of dolphins in our Gulf. 

What did we learn?

Awa "Maui dolphin are the most endangered"

Payton "A group of dolphins is a called a pod"

Alonso "Bottle nosed dolphins so all the tricks"

Luke "Maui and Hector look the same but they are different species"

TJ "Maui is the smallest dolphin"

"Maui's dolphin is named after Maui because it only lives where Maui cast his hook" Allan

Next we got into groups and ordered different types of dolphins from biggest to smallest based on our prior knowledge.  Then we check against information. Afterwards we went outside and estimated how big the dolphins were, then we measured exactly.

Lastly we drew a dolphin in our book and added facts we had learnt.  Pack a litter free lunch to help protect our dolphins.

Year Five Rangatira

 Today, Year Five showed our rangatiratanga by sharing our Travelwise learning with the Year One's and helping to get our kura ready for the open day.  Mahi pai!

Year Three - Dirt Made My Lunch

 

Year Three are learning about the FBI - fungus, bacteria and invertabrates.  Our super hero clean up crew.

What is fungus? 

Aiden "Mushrooms are fungus"

Vincent "Like mushrooms that grow on things like old wood and rotten things in the ground"

Edison "They spread nutrients to the trees"

What is bacteria?

Amelia "Some bacteria is not bad"

"Bacteria can easily spread"

What are invertebrates? 

Don't have a back bone.

Kaylee "Like a crab"

Ananya "A snail"

Aila "A worm"

We saw the FBI breaking down food.  GROSS! So why are they so important? They break down dead things and return the nutirents into the soil.  Without them we would have no kai!

How did dirt/soil make our lunch?

Koen "My potato chips are from the ground because potatoes grow in the ground"

Today Year 3 learnt about the FBI - fungus, bacteria and invertaebrates.  We watched them break down fruit.  GROSS. So why are they so important to life on earth?

Brylee "They help plants grow because they eat the dead stuff and make it into soil so plants can grow"

And alllll our food come from plants grown in good soil.

We investigated our lunchboxes to see how all our kai came from the soil.

Chace " My chocolate cookie is from the ground because the cocoa beans grow in the ground and the flour is from wheat that grows in the ground"

Lucas "The sugar is from sugar cane that grows in the ground"

"Pepper comes from the soil becasue it's peppercorns"

"My oranges are from soil" David

Even things we thought were not from the ground like Yukult we realised still needs nutrient rich soil as it's made from milk from cows and cows eat grass that grows in the ground. We thought about honey too ...bees drink nectar from flowers that have grown in the ground.

We went to the school composters to see the FBI at work. Then we picked an ate a cabbage grown with the soil we made from food scraps. Yum. Thanks fungus, bacteria and invertebrates. 

Next time we're going to feed our Mara Kai with compost ready for spring planting.