Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Enviro Fernz Gully Adventure
The Year 2 Enviro Fernz and a few seniors made a great discovery while on a Gully Mission... PINECONES. We wondered what we could do with these and someone had the great idea of collecting them off the Gully floor and filling our pockets so that we could take them to the Garden to Table teacher to see if they could be of any use. It just happened to be that Bob was cranking up the Pizza Oven for that days lesson and was running low on wood. So we went back into the Gully and filled sacks, with pinecones and small branches from the big Redwood Tree that lives there.
Year 1 - Tidy Kiwis
The Year 1s at Meadowbank are in charge of the tidy kiwi buckets. A group of children use the buckets and tongs to pick up rubbish and place them in the correct rubbish bins. After studying knowing what rubbish goes in what bin, i.e. for the worms, and recycling. We hope to keep the junior side as litterless as possible. We will keep this going for the rest of the year.
Photo to come!
Junior Enviro Fronds Action Group
Junior students have been involved in collecting seeds from the school swan plants. This involves putting bags over the seed pods of the swan plants, and waiting for them to dry. Once these have dried students empty the bags and place them on another seed pod. We are going to plant these seeds so we can increase our swan plant population in school.
We have also been trying to spot caterpillars on the swan plants. This year there doesn't appear to be as many, but we are finding lots of wasps. When we make a discovery we transport the caterpillar to our Butterfly Hospital in the Butterfly Meadow on the Senior Campus. Here the caterpillars are safe from wasps and have lots of swan plants to munch on before they turn into a chrysalis and then into a beautiful Monarch Butterfly.
Follow this link to see the process and learn how you can do this at home.
Year 4's Garden to Table Program
In Term 1 the Year 4's have started their journey at the Garden to Table classroom.
We have been learning a range of new skills to be able to plant, grow, harvest, prepare and share within our classes and the wider school community.
We have learnt a lot about the equipment we need to use in the garden and which tool is best for particular jobs, like the hand fork for weeding.
We have enjoyed spending time in the garden and getting familiar with the different gardens around our school, sampling produce from the garden and discussing what we could plant in the future.
Our parents and grandparents have been supportive by coming into school and assisting us in our learning.
Here are a few pictures of our journey so far.
Year 1's Gully Walk
Year 1 went for a walk through the gully to look at the Pou (Maori guardians) and to have a look at the Butterfly Meadow. They are excited about taking responsibility for maintaining the Butterfly Meadow this year!
Enviro Leaders' Trip to Grey Lynn Kindy
Earlier this term, some of the Enviro Leaders attended an enviro cluster meeting at Grey Lynn Kindy. Grey Lynn Kindy are an enviro focussed learning centre. They have worm farms, rabbits, a fruit dehydrating machine, swan plants, compost bins and more. They make tea using dried herbs and fruits from their gardens and they make ornaments for the garden using recycled materials. Their projects and inquiries are driven by the children's interests.
Their gardens are sustained over the school holidays by a community system that is in place - one family starts with the key for a week and they water the plants, feed the rabbits, distribute the worm tea and harvest any fruit to take home and eat! That family then passes the key on to the next family.
It was amazing to see what another learning centre is doing for enviro and we hope to implement some of their ideas into our enviro program at Meadowbank!
Their gardens are sustained over the school holidays by a community system that is in place - one family starts with the key for a week and they water the plants, feed the rabbits, distribute the worm tea and harvest any fruit to take home and eat! That family then passes the key on to the next family.
It was amazing to see what another learning centre is doing for enviro and we hope to implement some of their ideas into our enviro program at Meadowbank!
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