Our Arataki Trip

We recently went to Arataki Visitors centre in the Waitakeres.

 

When we got there we had to spray our shoes to protect the Kauri trees from disease.

 

We split into groups and one group went on the nature trail first. We heard lots of birds but we didn't see many. Long ago it used to be a potato farm before it was a forest.

We saw Rimu trees and years ago, the leaves were used as hair combs.

 

Birds eat the berries and then poop out the seeds which then grow into more trees. "I think its very good because when trees get broken down they get replaced with a new tree". (Ella M)

 

"If the seeds that the birds poop out, if they are on top of eachother the seed on the bottom will push the other one out." (Ida)

 

We made a forest with our bodies. "Canopy is the top trees and it blocks some sun." (Ella R)  

The sub canopy is made of plants like ferns.

"Plants need light to grow so they need space." (Josh)  

Then comes the shrubs and ground cover.

 

The giant Kauri is the king of the forest. The biggest Kauri tree there is 600 years old but they can live for 2000 years!

 

"We learnt how old a baby tree is. A baby Kauri is 15-20 years old." (Lily).

 

"When Nikau palms are babies they look like grass but they're not." (George)

 

One tree we stopped to look at was the Tea Tree, known as Manuka. Captain Cook used to make tea out of the leaves when he came here.

 

There were a lot of spider webs in the forest and some were made by sheet spiders. Their webs were flat like a sheet of paper.

 

We learnt about when the trees die bugs and insects eat into them and make air gaps. The wood gets crumbly (decomposes) and ends up on the forest floor, becoming part of the soil.   This soil feeds the new trees growing so it is recycled.

Poem of the week

listen to ‘Poetry reading by Dinosaurs group’ on Audioboo

Bugs Poem Reading

listen to ‘Bugs poem reading’ on Audioboo

Nika's Memory Box

Memory Boxes

Chinese Performers

Today we watched a performance of some Chinese martial art students and their teachers.
The youngest student was 15 years old and she was amazing. She used a great big long stick which made a loud bang on the floor. She also did a fan martial art dance.

We loved the musicians who played beautifully and really fast. We liked the bamboo flute played by Mr Wong. Some of the students acted as the animal characters from Kung Fu Panda and we had to guess which animal they were.

There were also Tai Chi and Kung Fu performances. It was very interesting that the master who could lift his body off the ground and swing a long chain underneath is one of the few people in the world who can do that.

By Room 4

Memory Boxes & Magazines

Room 4 students need to have a shoe box or other lidded box of similiar size ready for week 3.

If anyone has any magazines that you have finished with, we would appreciate some for classroom activities.

Thanks.

Joanne

The New Building Opening

Today the school had a ceremony for the opening of the new building. There were two dances. One of them was a Tibetan Chinese Dance and one was a Building Dance. We liked the costumes of the Chinese dancers and thought the dance was beautiful. Ella R's sister was in the building dance and we thought the hip hop dancer was very cool. We liked that there were lots of different costumes.

The mayor of Auckland, Len Brown was here and some of us got to shake his hand or give him a high five!

Three girls got to help cut the ribbon to officially open the new building.

Mr Cain ("the school boss", said Lukas) gave a speech.

By Room 4 children

Term 2 welcome

Dear Parents and Carers of room 4 students, I am thrilled to start working here and have enjoyed starting to get to know your children. Thank you to the parents that have had a chance to come and say hi. Room 4 have already settled in very well to the start of a new term with a new teacher and a few changes to the routine. My hope is that you will hear from your children that they are doing a lot of peer discussions and getting excited about reading and maths. They may bring a book in from home to read during silent reading time if they wish. This term we are continuing the Treasuring topic and will be working on creating our Memory Boxes.

At this early stage of the term I am introducing new activities to the class to support their learning for literacy and numeracy. I am also spending time hearing them read, talking to the about their writing and finding out their talents, interests and setting goals.

Homework: Reading books will be going home every day plus a poem every Friday. Next week (week 2) we will be starting a new spelling programme.

Our term class goals are: To learn all of our addition and subtraction basic facts (instant recall) up to 20. To attempt tricky words in writing by breaking the words into chunks. To learn the important words for writing (lists will be going home for homework to learn).

Reminders: *** I apologise - I had put the wrong date originally for Wheels day! Monday 13th May – wheels day for Years 1-2. Bring a bike or scooter and leave resting against the classroom on the deck area.

My email is joannew@parnell.school.nz if there is anything you need to let me know or would like to ask.

If you have any of these items you no longer need (that are still in great condition) and would be happy to donate them to Room 4, we would be very grateful: • Large cushions or bean bag for our reading corner • Low children’s stools for a quiet work table

Kind regards, Joanne Whitney

VISUAL ARTS FOCUS

WE worked with an artist to helped us to paint landscapes on canvas with acrylic paints.

Our theme was the Parnell environment before man began using the environment.

We think out work looks fabulous.

A cake made with the apples we grew

An Apple & Blueberry Cake.

We used the apples from the apple tree and we added extra ingredients to bake our cake.

The blueberries turned parts of the cake greeny - blue.

The cake was delicious.

Dads at Work @ school

Two dads came in on Saturday to build a platform for the gardens. This will give somewhere to stand and work on the garden and it will be a nice place to sit with our friends.

Thank you to Jim's and Devon's dads. Jim and his came along to see what was going on.

Our Pacific Culture Experience

Year 2 went to the Aotea Cetre and we had so much fun.

Thank you to all our parent helpers who came along to support us.

We worked with the Pacific mamas who helped us make the hairbands and taught how to say greetings in different Pacific languages.

We used plastic strips for the hairbands. That was good for the environment because we reused something and made it into something completely different.

Later we went to the Edge to dance in front of the computer. We waved our hands and legs quite a bit to show the images on the screen!