Term 1 2018 Room 22 "No Care/ Self- managing Gardens

               Setting up a "No Care" or Self-Managing Garden Terrarium to enable students

       to observe how the Water Cycle works in Nature, 

BUT right in the classroom.

                                   

                    On Friday 9 February we in Rm 22 decided to make a "No care garden" to see                      how the Water Cycle in Nature works in a closed glass jar right in front of us 

in our classroom.

                            First we planned what we wanted to make as a group. Everyone was
                                                        very excited about the hands-on learning.

       Then we collected all the materials we needed from our very own school grounds to make our                                                                                   terrarium

                                  We named the materials we needed and labelled them


                                       
             Only plant a few plants about 3 small plants to prevent overcrowding in the glass jar.

      We all participated in setting up our no care garden, even  Hayley's teacher -aide, E.

                                   

                It was truly a fabulous Friday hands-on activity which everyone in class enjoyed.

                                       
                         We loved that we all could have a hand in making our nature project.

                 Even Hayley, our youngest  classmate got to help by putting the soil into the 
                                                                   terrarium jar.

     Each one took turns to put pebbles, soil and plant small plants in the glass jar. 

It was a bit tricky planting plants in a narrow-necked jar but we managed to do it as a team.

                                         
                        Finally 2 cups of water was added to set up the no care garden. 

                                             

That water is meant to evaporate during the day, condensate during the early morning where the water droplets slides down the glass back into the soil like precipitation to be re-absorbed by the roots.

                   Then our teacher helped to seal off the glass jar around the lid with masking tape 
                                                          to keep the bottle air-tight.

Then she wrote down the day, date and year (Fri 9/02/2018)

That's how to make a SELF-MANAGING garden.

           So when the sun rises in the morning and heats up the water in the terrarium, the water evaporates,  and when the water vapour touches the cold glass it cools and condenses to form water droplets, especially during the early hours of the morning. These water droplets collect and become bigger and then slide down the glass back into the soil like precipitation or rain to be re-absorbed by the roots of the planting.

                      And so this process goes on and on in nature which is known as the Water Cycle.

                                     

Leadership Term 3 How I can be the Leader in ME? Week 2

                                         How I can be the Leader in ME?
We are sharing our statistics data on Leadership roles that we took  in class like Follow the leader, Make pathways as a leader and frozen sculptures in a team.

 Mr Edwards asked some of us about what we were learning in Maths. Amber and Nekjot told him where we got our data from and how we recorded it on a tally chart and how we plotted the data on a bar graph to share with others. We also asked our buddies questions about the data.

We are sharing ideas and proofreading with a partner in a donut circle on a persuasive text that we wrote in week 2 -'Should children do homework'.

Look at Hayley engaged in her reading follow-up retell activity on 'Billy at school'. The teacher only supports Hayley to take ownership but she is keen to do her part in the learning. 
                                           What an awesome leader. Way to go Hayley!

 Presley blew us all away on conference night when he took the lead and showed leadership in talking about his learning without any prompting from the teacher. Keep up the keen attitude of driving your own learning! 

More  engaged groupwork in tally- chart work in Statistics. All of us take different roles to get the job or learning done.

We support each other in plotting leadership data on the Bar Graph to show the results clearly.

                               We love to work as a team but also be the leader in ME.

How to be kaitiaki for the Animal Kingdom in term 2 - Designing a 3 - D model of the Short-tailed Bat's sanctuary or enclosure

How  to be kaitiaki for the Animal Kingdom?

In term 2 of 2017 we were wondering 

How  to be kaitiaki for the Animal Kingdom.

Students in our class were interested in studying native mammals of NZ that live on the land.

So we went online to find information and look at youtube clips on native terrestrial mammals.

And guess what we found? 

That's right! We found out that there is only one terrestrial mammal that is native to NZ. 

And it is none other than the lesser Short-tailed Bat which is also an endangered species.

So we designed a 3-D model of a Short-tailed Bat's safe sanctuary or enclosure

 

To start off we first drew a plan to design a short-tailed bat's enclosure like Amber's plan.

Noah and Harlem helped Bob to construct the bat's safe sanctuary in his special place or shed under the school hall.

Our friendly caretaker, Bob the builder, got a 50 by 60 cm base board and in the centre  a wide tree stump was screwed on to represent a willow tree with a hollow carved out as a roosting nest for bats to sleep. 

  

Then he attached three other wooden poles to represent the native trees in the forest.

 See how eager tool-man Bob gets, once he is given the chance to assist kids in constructing their models.

Way to go Bob!

This is what our bare model turned out to look like after we sawed it, nailed it and screwed it.  

It was a busy Friday afternoon for us as we painted it, pasted bits of grass, leaves, stones and sticks onto the board to create a natural forest-like habitat for our native short-tailed bats to roost in.

All we need to do now is to make a 3 D furry and cuddly short-tailed bat that hangs upside down in the hollow of the willow tree -stump in the centre.

Where in NZ  are the lesser short-tailed bats found?  

What is the short-tailed bat's Habitat?

This is how the colony of short-tailed bats hang upside down to sleep.  

  

 These are the main predators that prey or feed on the lesser short-tailed bats.

















 The wood rose is is an threatened  parasitic plant that lives under the ground . It grows on the roots of native trees and shrubs in the forest. If the short-tailed bat becomes extinct, so too will this rare plant. Maori know it as "pau o te reinga" which means flower of the underworld. 
The bat likes to drink the nectar in this plant's flower. As the bat eats the nectar from this flower, it also pollinates the flowers. So if the bat dies out, the wood rose could die out too.

Kaitiaki Sharing Outcome Day

 Kaitiaki Sharing  Outcome day in term1

On Thursday 6 April 2017 we celebrated our Kaitiaki outcomes with our whanau. 

Priscila's Mum Linda, Amber's Mum Lenny and Sione's Mum Lotu loved our presentation. Yeh! you guys are amazing, room 15.

After morning tea our class went to the hall to receive our pledges for being the great Kaitiaki for Fruit Trees at SPS. Pauline and Raina read out our class's pledge.

Can you read out our class pledge?

Pauline presents part of our Fruit Tree inquiry for our visitors.

 Our parents came to support us and find out what our inquiry is about.

First Room 21 students visited us and enjoyed our inquiry presentation.

Here is Raina who shared the second part of the inquiry presentation.

We made a Wall Chart about the 4 inquiry groups' research work on Fruit Tree Kaitiaki

We travelled around to other stations to see what they had to share on outcome day.

We all felt proud of our hard work being kaitaiaki of SPS by the end of the day!

Planting citrus Fruit Trees at SPS

Fruit Tree Planting on Friday in Term1 2017 

 First we had to find a suitable site to plant 2 citrus trees.

Then we went on a tikki-tour to look at the water harvester from which we will get water to water our fruit trees 

 Thereafter we checked out the worm farm from where we plan to get compost to plant fruit trees.

 It was really smelly when we opened up the worm farm.

 Then we looked at the wooden boxes where all the compost goes out from the worm farm

 Here are the two citrus trees that we were going to plant to add to the other 25 fruit trees already growing in SPS orchards.

 The big one is a lemon tree

                                                     
                                                     And the little one is a lime tree

 Here is an example of fertilisers that Izna and Stevphayn holds up to help plants grow healthy.

 These strong boys helped Mrs Yakas clear up some big grasses to make space to plant the two little citrus trees.

 It was hard work that Friday morning before lunch.

 Holes had to be dug for the citrus plants.

 We used spades to shovel out the dirt and make space for the new trees

Heaps of work was done to prepare the space and the holes for the trees.

 Mrs Yakas is a great kaitiaki for the plants, trees and lawns at SPS.

 She showed the boys how to dig a hole for planting plants.

Meet Carol Yakas our very own Kaitiaki for our gardens at SPS

My teacher likes to talk to Carol but to us she is known as Mrs Yakas

What a Fabulous Friday for planting Fruit trees.

  This is how fertilisers look and feel like.

 This is how we planted the lemon tree.

 Then we pressed the dirt firmly around the tree to anchor it well in the soil.

 We are the proud kaitiaki of our citrus lemon tree.

 First we put fertilisers in the hole before planting the shorter lime tree.

 Then we planted it and patted the dirt firmly like so.

 My teacher used the handle of the spade to press the dirt around the lime plant to anchor it firmly.

 We enjoyed planting Friday very much.

 We are all looking forward to seeing bountiful lemons and limes in the future seasons.

 We said Thank You to Mrs Yakas for helping us plant the fruit trees.

  Noah and Harlem were chosen by our class to be the kaitiaki who water the trees twice a day for the next two weeks.

 They fetch water from our school's own Water Harvester. There's 2 of them, one in the Outdoor classroom and another one in the Juniors.

  Guess what soon we may have a water harvester in the middle school area. That will make it easier to water the plants around the school.

 Thank you Noah for watering me smiles Lennox Lime.

 Thanks Harlem I was really thirsty just a little while ago sighs PK Lemon.

 Great kaitiaki boys, keep it up!

 Thank you Raina for doing the survey of the and collecting data on our 27 fruit trees at SPS.