Using our philosophy to look after our sea life

Posters for saving our fish

Collecting fruit

What is Beauty?-Room 14 has been wondering about Beauty and what it means for our learning/school community today at Explorer time they invited people to help with the drains, picking up fruit, sorting rubbish and making posters for the school to remind others about looking after our living communities.

Room 19's Elephant Market

Room 19 are holding a market next Tuesday, March 31st, at lunchtime and after school, to raise money to adopt a Sumatran elephant. An elephant won't actually come to live on the school field. The money we raise will go towards helping a group called the International Elephant Project protect elephants whose habitats are shrinking. The rangers put a GPS device on one elephant in a herd, and if the elephants stray too close to food crops belonging to villagers, the rangers go and scare the elephants away. We think it is a winning situation for both the elephants and the people in Sumatra.
We've had to learn lots about all sorts of things: elephants in the wild, elephants in zoos, Sumatra, running a market, finding recipes to make, asking permission, pricing things, advertising.....we are crossing our fingers that all our work is successful and we raise enough money!
Here are some photos of us getting ready:

 A prototype for an elephant helper hat.

 Planning the hats.

 A very impressive elephant helper hat.

 And here we are listening to the radio advertising group share their ad about the market over the intercom!

Room 14s Zoological garden

Creativity looking for opportunities -zoo making Room 14

Building on each other's ideas -zoo making room 14

Making connections Zoo making room 14

Collaborative Zoo making

Nature to wire!

The children looked really closely at plant structures and replicated them in wire.  Some got their ideas from animals that have been discussed in the classroom- a bat hanging from a tree and two caterpillars on a leaf.

Wow, Physics on the Field

Explorer Time provided magnificent learning once again today. One of the exciting things that was happening was the tyres on the field. The children set up ramps, added weight to the tyres and made complex courses to see if they could speed up or slow down the tyres. The children had many wonderings about what was happening, and have many plans for next week.

Exploring Ideas

With a range of amazing learning opportunities on hand, the children of the Whetu Syndicate had a great time today. We look forward to reflecting and wondering about what might happen next.

Tall Tower Challenge

A challenge was set to build a tower as tall as a child.  The children were so excited to share their building of Lego.

Physics experiments

The children wondered how high could they make the tyres go. They used the hill as a ramp to give the tyre extra energy.

Animal Habitats in Room 15

In Room 15 we have been learning all about different animal habitats, from deserts to polar regions, from grasslands to tropical rain-forest, from the ocean to mountains, woodlands, swamps and our very own New Zealand bush.  We have learnt how each of these habitats is home to very different plants and animals.

In pairs we researched our chosen habitat using books and the internet.

Working together to find out about our habitats.

Fintan and Harry research desert habitats

Hugo and Sammy research swamp habitats

We used our research to create a picture that would tell people all about our chosen habitat and which animals call them home.  Here are some of our pictures so far:

The woodland habitat by Nathan and Harrison

The New Zealand bush by Imi and Ariana

Interesting ways to communicate

We have been discussing ways in which animals can communicate with each other; whether it is by a call, gestures or other ways.

As part of Explorer Time students were able to make up their own language. This was mostly done by assigning a different sound to the alphabet. For example A = tor - every time a word has an A the sound would be tor.

Check out the thinking and learning that has gone into this in the video below...

Herbert and Harry

Room 14 has been looking at what it means to be part of a learning community through philosophy and art ,drama and dance we have  explored ideas around 'what is a good life?' Ideas emerged around sharing, what is mine? And what do we value?

Our spider wonderings Room 14 which led us to ask what is an Ecosystem.

Cricket is awesome!

Whetu have been lucky enough to have had some expert training in Cricket skills recently. How appropriate that the World Cup is being held at the moment.

Check out Room 30 doing some great learning.

And we can't forget James' awesome crown made from grass roots.

Nature Art, Hedgehog Signs, Alien Spaceships.....it's Explorer Time!

There was so much happening in Explorer Time today it was hard to keep up with all the learning!
Lots of things were happening with boxes. Different habitats were made with a whole selection of materials, and an alien spaceship, with space for all it's occupants, was created.

Beautiful, collaborative nature art was made.

Willow sticks were used a loom.

More amazing plaster of paris nature sculptures were made.

Tyres were rolled, and rolled and rolled.

The signs for taking care of the hedgehogs were designed and started.

We finished with a beautiful instrumental piece composed in Explorer Time.

It was another fantastically fabulous Whetu afternoon!

Real Life Hedgehog Problem Solving

For a week or two now there have been an adult and baby hedgehog living in one of the gardens at school. This has meant lots of opportunity for discussion about hedgehog lives, and also discussions about how having 850 children checking on them each day is probably not in the hedgehogs' best interest. 

At playtime this morning, a group of Whetu children discovered to their horror that the baby hedgehog had a hair tie around it's neck. They found Hayley on duty, and talked about what a problem it would be if the hair tie stayed on as the hedgehog grew, and about possible solutions to solve this problem. After much discussion about ways to hold a hedgehog, and many children eager to help, Hayley cut off the hairband. 

With one of the deep understandings of our CIB inquiry this term being the idea of rights and responsibilities, the children are now planning ways to get the message about the potential consequences of littering out to all the other members of our school community.