Welcome Back for 2019

Welcome back to all our keen Eco Kids! The Edible Gardens have been thriving over the summer break. Today we ate fresh tomatoes & giant carrots that we picked ourselves.

What will we be looking at with Mrs Daniel in The Green Room this term?

Year 1 - The Sunnyhills Care Code - How do we look after our school environment?

Year 2 - 5+A Day - Growing, & eating healthy food

Year 3 - Do The Rot Thing - the nutrient cycle

Year 4 - Kauri Dieback

Year 5 & 6 - Sustainable Energy

Enviro Leaders - Eye On Nature Recycled Sculpture Competition

Greenfingers Gang - tending to our orchard and edible garden every Thursday lunchtime - all welcome.

Home School Partnership:

If families would like to contribute raw fruit and vege scraps to the compost bins in the edible garden that would be awesome.

Are you a keen gardener? Mrs Daniel would love help in the Edible Garden. Please share your expertise. Email christined@sunnyhills.school.nz if you can spare some time.

ANGUS - THIS WEEK’S SUNNYHILLS ENVIRO HERO

ANGUS - THIS WEEK’S SUNNYHILLS ENVIRO HERO

Angus explains, "My dad and i walked from our home down the Rotary Walkway. We picked up a whole bag of rubbish including dead lighters, plastic bottles, plastic bags and nappies. We did it cause we know the estuary goes straight to the sea. We know it's already not the cleanest place and we don't want anymore plastic to go there because sea life can swallow it and it'll get stuck in their throat and they can die."

What will you do this week to help our environment?

Cassie & Eliza - Kaitiaki o te Moana 🐳❤🌏

Cassie from Room tekau ma iwa and Eliza from Room rua tekau ma rua are gaurdians of the sea! Cassie's family have swapped from plastic straws to paper. Tino pai! Lisa's family use metal straws. Awesome! Will you say no to plastic straws too and help save our sea animals?

Also a big thank you to Grangers in Half moon Bay for choosing to go straw free. We hope you lead the way for other local businesses to follow.

Vote for Bird of The Year

Please take time with your whanau, at home, to vote for the BIRD OF THE YEAR

https://www.birdoftheyear.org.nz/

A fabulous way to learn more about our precious endemic fauna.

Comment with which bird you voted for, to be in to win a Sunnyhills prize.

Tending To Our Winter Crops

To finish off our enviro lesson today, the middle school tended to our winter crops . We fed the orchard and vege gardens with worm tea. Can you see our baby apples and just germinated broad beans?

Room 16 hunted down worms to go into our vege patches. We found big fat gray excavator worms. Their tunnels will make the soil light for our veges' roots to grow through and easy for water to soak into.

Room 18 also thinned the carrots we had planted last term, so the ones that are left will have space to grow huge. The carrots we picked were sweet, crunchy and delicious.

What's your favourite winter vegetable?

Room 3 Discover Some Mini Mates

Today Room 3 had our first Eviro lesson with Mrs Daniel. We went to the edible gardens to learn more about fruit, veges and how Sunnyhills is growing sustainably.

While we were there we learnt lots of Te Reo Maori names the fruit and veges and how everythingis interrelated. Do you know what an aporo is?

With our super powers of observation we noticed lots of little mini beasts in our gardens. Mrs Daniel said some were garden helpers. There were lots of curious questions, so next week we're going to break into buzz groups to research what we saw. Stay tuned for when we report back!!

Look what we found in our next lesson:

The Greenfingers Gang

Today was the first meeting of the Greenfingers Gang; Sunnyhills kids of all ages who are keen to get into the garden.

With Mrs Daniel and Mrs Venville we cleared weeds and vege beds to make room for new plants. There was lots of smiles as we worked together in the sun. Big kids buddied little kids. Brothers worked alongside sisters. We tasted cherry tomates and found lots of garden helper bugs.

Next week we're looking planting seeds for winter crops.

Room 16's Harvest;Sharing with our Community

Today Room 16 harvested fruit and veges from the edible gardens; marrows, rock melons, capsicums and cherry tomatoes.  We tasted the rock melon and put the rest of our harvest in a basket.

We also pulled out the dead sweet peas and put their stalks in the compost. We then began the cycle again by planting peas. Next we'll feed the soil with worm tea and compost. We're being sustainable!

After school we gave the fruit and veges away, for koha,

to our Sunnyhills families. Everyone loved the giant marrows. It feels great to share!