Visiting the Auckland Zoo

Blogging about the Zoo 

Walt: Report, Recount and Reflect

When:   We went to the Zoo in Week 7 of Term 2. 

Where:  The Auckland Zoo near Western Springs in the Pt Chevalier area.

What:    A school trip that follows on from our trip to Tiritiri Matangi in Week 5.  

Who:     All of Te Waka Ako syndicate, plus 7 parents and 5 staff. 

How:     Lucky for us, by double decker bus!

Why:     To extend our knowledge and inquiry into New Zealand Animals and how they are being
              impacted by us.

Thursday in Week 7 saw all of our seniors head out to the Auckland Zoo to check out the New Zealand animals in particular, but anything else too. We all were in groups with six students and had certain times of the day we could roam freely and other parts of the day in educator programmes. Fraser was Hauraki's educator and he was outstanding. He was super cool and hooked the students and adults in to learning ' big time'. The students were so well behaved that the educators met us at the end to praise them and tell them they were the best group they had had through in the last few years!! High praise indeed. Our group loved seeing the penguins and the Ruru owl in the New Zealand sections. And of course who doesn't love tigers. He came up so close to the glass!

The Zoofari programme is an outstanding opportunity for schools to take up. Many of our students either hadn't been to the Zoo or had only been with a previous school trip. The educators we met up with inspired the students so much. They were informative, friendly and upbeat. We also had 45min checking out the Bug Lad that is inside the Zoo at present.

Link = https://www.aucklandzoo.co.nz/get-involved/zoofari

We had lovely weather and could have stayed several more hours to check out all the animals.


 
 
 

Starting to Build

Our Installation Building started in Week 3. We nearly got it all done in one day with the help of two fabulous builders from a company connected to a staff member in our school. They let the students help out in different ways.
We used recycled timber for the whole structure and 6 pallets for the base.

 

By the end of the day all we needed to do was add wood to the roof line and battens on walls so we can attach the plastic bags to enclose it and a door to seal it up. The students were very excited and continued to happily collect rubbish from the classes.






A couple of weeks later the last of the construction works were done and we could attach the large plastic bags that we receive from the local supermarket with old bread in. These we stapled onto the wood so they overlapped. They have proven remarkably weather resistant! And Auckland has provided many tests with wind and rain battering us. 

 

 

ARTWORK MESSAGE

This Installation Art work is ‘talking’ about….. How much soft plastic is used by a small school of 10 classes in 8 weeks. We are looking at what we are doing to our natural world that is having a negative impact on the other animals that live in it. We are filling up the world with rubbish like we are filling up the house. It’s a house because WE (humans) are doing the polluting and we live in houses.

We want people to THINK about…..

Would we trash our house and leave rubbish everywhere? Why are we doing that to the World. Don’t we live in it? How we are affecting our World. How much soft plastic we are using and if it is all necessary. How can the world last with all this plastic. It might look beautiful on the outside but inside/ hidden is the rubbish.

We want people to TALK about…..

How people could change their habits or behaviours to use less soft plastic. How people could make sure all soft plastic that is used is recycled. How they could help clean up the damage so far. How they could help in any way.

Installation Art

 Hauraki are embarking on a project to create an installation art piece for our School Art Show in Week Nine of Term Two. We are looking at our use of soft plastic in the school and how we can minimise it.

Our Installation Artwork will be ‘talking’ about…..

How much soft plastic is used by a small school of 10 classes in 8 weeks. We are looking at what we are doing to our natural world that is having a negative impact on the other animals that live in it.

We are filling up the world with rubbish like we are filling up the house.

It’s a house because we are doing the polluting and we live in houses. What if we had to store all the rubbish we created in our house we lived in? What would we do?

We want people to THINK about…..

How we are affecting our World.

How much soft plastic we are using and if it is all necessary.

How can the world last with all this plastic.

We want people to TALK about…..

How people could change their habits or behaviours to use less soft plastic.

How people could make sure all soft plastic that is used is recycled.

How they could help clean up the damage so far.

How they could help in any way.

We will be collecting soft plastic that is brought to school each day from all the classes. Next week we will create the wooden frame 'house' to sit outside out classroom. We will cover it in clear plastic bags so the rubbish inside can be seen. Each day we will empty the bins into the soft plastic house. WATCH THIS SPACE!! 

This week all the students had to create a slideshow to present to the children of one of the classes in the school to tell them about our project and enlist their help with sorting their rubbish correctly. They will be sharing their slideshows on all their own learning blogs so check them out. 

Animal Classification.

Manisha's Drawing with links to every page on her slideshow. 

We have rocketed ahead with our learning about how to classify animals. After creating our skits we then had to add all that we learnt, or could share with others, or could research, about the different classes of animals on a slideshow. We had to focus on the attributes or characteristics of those particular animals. For example all birds have honeycomb bones so they are lighter and can fly easier. Our slideshow included one slide to compare invertebrates and vertebrates, then a slide for each of the eight classes we focused on.
Our next job was to create a classification map in google drawing of the Animal Kingdom and in each box add a link to the slide that had the relevant information. This was a much bigger task than we thought it would be, but we learnt so many interesting facts about the different animals.
One student in Hauraki loved this task and created an amazing slideshow of facts that she sourced from lots of different places. She then linked all her slides to her drawing. Superb work Manisha.


We learnt to research information and write it in our own words. We learnt about classifying information and why things are classified. Next term we will look at pollution of different animal habitats and what we need to do and can do to protect them and make a difference.

Cool being a Duffy School

Hauraki Likes to READ
After receiving the first of our Duffy Books for 2018 at a special assembly last week, we had time to hang out on our school field and read our books!

It was the beautifully sunny day before we all went off for Easter break,
so we lucked in with an Easter Egg as well.

We have many gorgeous Pohutakawa Trees lining one side of our playing
field and a fitness trail that circles the North side of the field. What better place to hang out and read.



After reading our books for 30 mins, we listened to the class novel we are reading - Sunken Forest by Des Hunt. We are lucky enough to have Des Hunt visit us next term to talking to us and have a writing workshop with us.

If you haven't read a Des Hunt book make sure you check out his website. He has some superior reads. Always based in New Zealand with environmental messages and LOTS of action. The main characters are always around 11-13 years old.

https://www.deshunt.com/

Animal Classification

Last Thursday and Friday we worked on investigating words that are part of the Scientific Classification of animals. Words like Vertebrates, Invertebrates, Mammals, Birds, Fish, Amphibians, Reptiles, Crustaceans, Arachnids and Insects. This was part of our Inquiry this year which is Curiosity.



We were put into groups and given one chromebook per group. Then we were given four minutes to find information about one of the words, to write onto a large piece of paper. When four minutes were up we shifted to the next piece of paper and word in a bus stop activity. Each time we needed to find new information if we could, to add to the page. We shifted nine times so we looked at all ten words!  There were two rotations of these groups happening in our syndicate at the same time and we found out heaps of information.

The following day we were matched up with the other group that started at the word we started with and told we had to choose the most important pieces of information that described this animal group and present it to an audience in some way. We had about 20-25 minutes over 2 days to come up with something fun. Here are our video clips of what we presented.

Sunken Forest by Des Hunt

Hauraki is reading Sunken Forest as a class novel and LOVING IT. Nothing better than giant eels and spooky trees!
We are only up to Chapter 9 but really engrossed in the story and looking forward to finding out what happens. Yesterday we created personal responses in groups of three, after just 3 chapters so we could discuss how we felt about the story. We will probably do this at the end of the book to see how our thinking has changed.



We looked at these six categories.....

 

Check out some of the groups work.....

Lavinia, Abby, Shabeera                  Faith, Ayva, Manisha                 Bruno, Toby Alex    
      
      Des Hunt is a New Zealand Author who uses adventure and suspense in his books a lot. they are always based in New Zealand with Kiwi kids and real environmental and social issues. 

We have a task board of activities that we will complete. As each item is finished we will attached it to a slide on our slideshows and blog them when we have finished.


If you wanted to check out the Synopsis of the book on Des Hunts Website the link is here.

Swimming

In this HOT HOT HOT weather we are thankful our school has a pool and a caretaker that keeps it super clean. Each week we have two lessons in our school pool and two opportunities to swim at lunchtime. Then 2 days a week for the first 5 weeks of term we also visit the local council pool for lessons in Water Safety as well as basic swimming skills.
We put together a movie of our first few times in the pools, but it is too large for our blog! :( Sad.
However here are some pictures of the awesome action happening.

 

 

 




Most of Hauraki love swimming and they nearly always bring their togs. They are really improving their diving  underwater swimming and general confidence in the water. Nearly all the class can swim 100m, which is 4 lengths of the Cameron Pool, nonstop. The others are well on the way and their skills have improved heaps in the last 4 weeks. Plus it is a heap of fun!!  

Check out these videos as well.




Cameron Pool is in the Mt Roskill area of Auckland and is run by the council through the YMCA Organisation.

Their Website is .......
https://www.ymcaauckland.org.nz/find-your-local/cameron-pool-leisure-centre/

Te Tiriti o Waitangi

Toby's Work 

In the month of February our Syndicate did lots of learning around The Treaty of Waitangi.
We read the books The Treehouse Treaty by .....
This is the House That Jack Built by Gavin Bishop and The Treaty House by .......

We also covered Te Tiriti o Waitangi by      from the School Journals, in group work and had questions to answer afterwards. Finally we competed in two Kahoots about The Treaty to see what we remembered. they were great fun and we did extremely well.
Zoe and Toby completed some great work and haven't yet got their own blog. Check out what they learnt.

Zoe's Work