'Going Bush'

Yesterday Ben Murray and 8 other chosen people from our school went to the 2012 Enviro schools Expos and the theme was, as mentioned in the title, 'Going Bush'. It was at the Kiwi Museum. We all gathered in the meeting room and got our name/group tags. The leaders of our groups each got a clip board with our group name and the time table on/in it. Our group name was Tawa. 'Going bush' was all about pests to our native environment in New Zealand like weeds and stoats and rabbits, etc. We learnt that African Club Moss ( a type of weed,) is taking over our native moss. And for anybody who is curious, it looks like a lot of tiny, thin ferns. There were also some other action stations, and there we learnt about insects, lots of ways of catching insects and trees, types of trees, and what people used them for before packaged food came along. (Such as what fruits you can eat, what Cabbage trees are used for, etc.) It was all very interesting, and we all had a good time.

By Ben Murray.

Maori Movement

We used an ipad app to make a sock puppet animation to teach some of the Maori words for movement. Here is an example of one.

A PhotoCard from Tyson

Created using Bill Atkinson PhotoCard, now available free on the App Store. This email includes one JPEG attachment.

Wheels day

Yay today's the day...Wheels Day!! Every body was at school on their wheels rushing to class.There were also sorts of things with wheels like roller blades,skate boards,inline skates,scooters and bikes too. Then all of a sudden the bell rang every sprinted to class.When every body was inside they were talking about their things with wheels. Meanwhile the other whanau group was getting ready to have there turn on the course's. They were rapidly racing round the field and the court. During the other whanau groups time on the Courts we heard a bid gigantic humungous CRASH!!! Every body blazed over to the window like lightning bolts. There it was a little girl crying outside our class window. After that accident happened another whanau Group went to the courts and field but we heard no more crashes.Finally it was our turn. Every body put on their helmets excitedly then the rest of our whanau group ran out like a herd of cats and we were the mice. So while we were getting
chased we went to the courts to find out the rules and other things we needed to know about. There was one more thing the teachers said No helmet no ride! So we went off to ride our bikes and the other things we brought. We were having so much fun until ring ring ring the bell rang but our legs and feet needed a rest. It was time to have lunch. The fun was over!
By Jade and Ella

Location:St Francis Xavier

E-waste

Today we went to the ICT suite. Why? To learn about E-waste. The person taking it was called Anna. We learnt that E-waste is electronic waste. Electronic devices have either a power cord or a battery. We learnt the reasons that people throw away their electronics. What are they? Well either they break down, or are out of fashion. We learnt how electronic devices change over time. Which, of course, which, of course, is why people get rid of their old stuff, to get the cool, new stuff. Which of course, is why people keep on making E-waste. We learnt lots of interesting
facts, but one of the most interesting things that we learnt was that 426,000 phones get discarded daily. We made booklets about everything we have learnt.

By Ben M and Callum.

Movement

Today we had an immersion activity for our concept this term "Movement."
We had many different forms of Transport to view- police car, ambulance, fire truck, milk tanker, motor bikes and our favourites some vintage cars. Mr Vesey (Erin's dad) brought along a pedal car that was a replica of an old sports car. It took him one and a half years to build it.

Our Challenges

As a reflective task we thought about the challenges that we have faced and what skills we used to help us face or overcome them.

Famous New Zealanders

Here is a slide show with some more of the children's presentations on famous New Zealanders.
Please click manually to view slide show