A Dietician comes to school

Mrs Pennington, a Dietician and parent at our school,kindly agreed to talk to the Junior classes about 'Healthy Eating' and the range of food we should be eating to stay well.

She talked about eating 5+ fruit and vegetables a day.Last week we tried eating lots of different chopped up raw fruit and vegetables-they were delicious!

Mrs Pennington also told us that our body is like a car-it needs fuel to keep it going!

Breakfast is probably the most important meal of the day as it helps to keep our bodies working during the day.

Mrs Pennington had to study at university and take some science subjects to learn to be a dietician.

Tracking tunnels

This week we set up our home-made tracking tunnels in Ngahere Reserve.
We put peanut butter out to lure in any pests that might be in the reserve.

Can you see the fresh tracks?

What do you think has been walking through this tracking tunnel?

Planting seeds in recycled cans

Room 3 children each planted a couple of dwarf bean seeds this week.

Although the weather has been cold we hope with sun and water they will grow on our windowsill. Mrs King had lots of old cans to recycle for our planting.

Soup making

Near the end of Term 2 the Enviro-Gardening Group at school got to make soup.
We used a soup mix but also added some vegetables from our school garden.
The children who made the soup were from Rooms 4,7 and 10
Gee it tasted great on a cold winters' day-yum! Well done kids and Ms Brunton.

Baking vegetables

Studying healthy lunches meant we all got to eat a baked vegetable at school.

Most children had potato or kumera to eat. We found out that these vegetables have hardly any fat in them and are good for you. They tasted delicious on a cold day!

Tupare Walk

Rooms 1,2 and 3 had a Winters' day walk to Tupare gardens recently.
We saw lots of beautiful trees like the native rimu and kauri-but also lots of decidious trees as well. The Junior classes saw and heard the Waiwakaiho River in the distance.

Children enjoyed walking up the zig-zag pathways.It was a lovely afternoon!

Making a bird ball

To attract more birds to our school grounds Room 3 made a 'bird ball'.

We needed dripping,breadcrumbs,some bird seeds and a pinecone to wrap it all round.

We needed to put it in the fridge over night to harden. We had fun!

It is fast being eaten by silvereyes but have a look in the kowhai tree by Room 4.

Planting fun

Room 3 children proudly show off the plants they have put in the ground.
We were lucky to have a fine day and then it rained all weekend to help the plants get established. Thanks to Mrs Small for organising this day and Mr Tapp from DOC for assisting.

Ngahere Reserve

On Friday 3rd June all pupils from Mangorei classes got to plant one native plant each.We enjoyed putting sheep pellets in the holes and then carefully planting these trees in our Ngahere Reserve.

Getting involved in science

Children got to check the Lake's water temperature and clarity at Rotokare. We got to look through leaf litter and find bugs. The activities to identify insects and leaves were interesting. We also got to see a tracking tunnel and try to identify the tracks inside-it wasn't that easy but good fun getting involved in conservation, nature and science for the day!

Visit to Rotokare Scenic Reserve

On the 19th May all 4 classes from our junior school headed down to Lake Rotokare for the day. We were met by Melissa the educator who planned an excellent day of activities for us. These included finding out about the pests that used to live at Rotokare and why the fence is up. Melissa did an experiment and showed us with a container of water how much fresh water there is in the world and why Wetlands are important and worth looking after. We all had an informative bush walk and managed to fit in a quick lunch as well!

Naming trees in our bush

Room 3 visited our Ngahere Reserve at Mangorei School and began to identify some of the native trees growing there. In class we looked at such things as different shapes and colour of leaves. With drawing pencils we made observational drawings of kawakawa,kowhai and mahoe.

Wetlands are important

One of Ms Hunt's messages to our children.

In class we will discuss more about what it means when "special plants and other animals have adapted to live in wetlands"
Janet also showed the children a baby kahikatea plant because they love swampy places such as wetlands to grow in.

A local author visits us

Inglewood author and conservationist Janet Hunt visited our junior classes this week.

Janet has a wealth of knowledge on Wetlands and has written a book on the subject.

She read us a book she has written- 'E3 Call Home'. This interesting story told of some wetland birds called Godwits, and their incredible journey to Alaska and back to New Zealand each year.

Visiting Wetlands

During April, all the Junior classes from Mangorei School visited some local wetlands near Lake Rotomanu.

Mr Archer, the environmental education officer from the Taranaki Regional Council told us that wetlands are important as they act like 'sponges' holding water and helping to clean it.

Lots of different birds live in wetlands and special plants grow there too.

Wetlands are sometimes called swamps, bogs or estuaries. They can have salty water in them.

Plasticine shapes in water

Room 3 children rolled a piece of plasticine to find out if it would float or sink.

It was interesting to see that most shapes sank but when we made the plasticine into a boat shape it floated. We talked about why this might be. Do you know why?

Floating an egg in water

We had two containers filled with tap water. We added salt to one container and found that our egg floated in the salty water but not in the plain water.
The children had to think and share amongst themselves as to why this happened.
We decided that adding salt changed the water and made it 'heavy' and the egg was light enough to float in it.

Floating and sinking

Room 3 tried floating and sinking plastic bottles-first with nothing in them,then with water in.

We didn't have much luck sinking those in our school pool!

Then we made some predictions as to which household items might sink or float.

Most children were surprised when a tennis ball,lemon and apple all floated-we talked about them having lots of air inside to be able to do this and their weight compared to water.