Construction table and Project Learning!

This week the children have been learning about frogs. They have been doing project based learning where they can choose an activity to do each day based around finding out about frogs and tadpoles. We have also had some great constructions made from all the wonderful bits and bobs some of our parents have brought in! Thank you very much! 

Beach Education

On Monday and Tuesday this week the whole school went down to Kaka Point for Beach Education day. They really enjoyed swimming and learning all about the dangers of being at the beach. They will now know how to keep themselves safe this summer!

Tawhai Camp

What an exciting two days the Tawhai Team has had. We were lucky to have great weather on Thursday for a walk to Jack's Blow Hole and then to explore Earthlore. A highlight for the children was cooking their own teas on their hobo stoves and then finding crabs after tea. On Friday we had a look around the Owaka Museum and then a swim before coming home. Thanks to all the parents who helped make it happen!

Last week, Fraser, Nathan and I were lucky enough to attend the mothnet workshop at the Orokonui Ecosanctuary. Here's what we got up to.
 

Making Cereal

Yesterday the Tawhai team used their new knowledge of volume and capacity to make some cereal. They had to measure carefully how many cups of each ingredient went into their cereal. They then had to advertise their cereal to the rest of the class. They needed to think carefully about the persuasive language they would use to help it sound appealing to others. 

Elliot's Oral Language

Today for oral language Elliot brought along his guinea pigs. He brought them as his favourite toy. He had to think carefully about persuading us that they were a good toy.

Pizza Making

Tawhai had fun on Wednesday making pizza's with Mrs Wilson and talking about shapes, rotation and reflection. 

From Moo to You - Farm Visit

Last week the junior school was lucky enough to have a look around the Shore's farm. The children were able to see the process from 'Moo to You' first hand! A huge thank you to Mark Shore who was a fantastic host! Also a big thank you to the parent helpers who made this trip possible. 

Anzac Art

At the end of last term we talked a lot about Anzac Day and what it means to different people. We then created some art. Each piece of art is showing poppies in a different way. 

Alfie's, Max's and Bella's art 

Toby's, Melania's and Henry's art

Jayden's, Lucy's and Riley's art 

William's, Addi's and Isabel's art 

Jack's, Elia's, Brooke's and MarkThomas's art 

Nathan's, Marco's and Elliot's art 

George's art

Light the way.

For our tuning in session we experimented with light. In these photos we were seeing what happens when you poor water in a glass that is placed on top of a counter. To our amazement the counter disappeared!! We then learnt that this is called refraction. 

Dioramas

We have been working so hard finishing our dioramas of our habitats.  We have written reports about our habitats. Make sure you check out our individual blogs to see all of our wok.

Mustelids!

Incase you haven't heard already, our poor chicks that we incubated were put outside because they were stinking up the classroom,  were killed. :(

Our chicks hatching from the incubator

Jonah the first chick hatching.

We have endeavoured on a journey to find out what killed our pets. We have done some research and think that it is probably something from the mustelid family. Our research can be found in the post below. We also discovered that these pests are wreaking havoc to our native bird population and have been doing a lot of reading about pests and our wildlife in class.


Yesterday, Nathan bought in some ink tracks from Gotcha Traps Ltd. We put them out with different baits.

Peanut butter lure

banana and honey lure

ink tunnel

tinfoil attracts stoats

chicken lure

When we checked the tracks this morning we were a bit disappointed with only finding one print. Hopefully we lure more in tonight. Here is the track:

See if you can figure out what left this track with the guide below:

What made these tracks?