Wednesday 12 December 2012

Old Blue Story


After thinking about saving Rowi Room 13 started to think about other endangered birds- our teacher read us the story of saving the black robins of the Chatham Islands. Room 13 thought this was a great book to read. Old Blue was the rarest bird in the world. This book is one of the best children's books and it is a true story.  If the rarest bird in the world can be rescued from extinction, then given human determination and effort, no species need to become extinct . From 5 black robins to 130 black robins how did it happen? This book was written by Mary Taylor. Dr Don Merton helped save the rarest bird.

We recommend that every New Zealander should read this amazing book!

Saturday 8 December 2012

Flags Project with Artist Tiffany Singh

 The Year 4-6 classes have been involved in an art project with performance artist Tiffany Singh for the Auckland Arts Festival in 2013

We looked at Tibetan prayer flags and designed personal flags which captured the most important ideas in our lives. We looked to the future and the dreams and hopes which are important to us.

Prayer Flags (image from Creative Commons)


We found that strong themes were peace, friendship, accepting others' beliefs and customs, human rights and helping refugees all round the world. These ideas were developed by Room 13 as we explored the concept of Globalisation and looked at all the ways we are connected to each other locally, in our school and wider community, nationally, and globally.

We discovered that we are a nation of immigrants: we all come from elsewhere even the first Pacific Voyagers who came to Aotearoa one thousand years ago.

We also now appreciate that the world is a shrinking place in terms of travel and people moving from country to country.

Many people are also forced to become refugees because of war in their country.

NZ has had a history of accepting refugees from many countries around the world. Learning about their plight has made a big impact on us.






We designed symbols that were
 personally meaningful. 
We changed some very famous symbols.


We explained our designs to Tiffany and her mother...
Tiffany's mother...


 

It was hard to transfer the pencil designs to the fabric!

A film-maker filmed the process as a documentary record of the project with school children





This message is very clear...

It was good to do our pencil sketches first so we knew the
message we wanted to give to the audience


We can't wait to see all our flags at the exhibition Tiffany Singh will assemble at the Auckland Arts Festival in March 2013!

The exhibition is called Fly Me Up to Where You Are.

Thank you so much to Tiffany and her awesome team of helpers!

Sunday 2 December 2012

CC's saving rowi

I am proud and I think I did really well on my saving rowi poster because the message is clear.  i am really proud that i tried really hard and i persevered on this cause it's really important to me and our class.

Ukelele Heaven! Kiwileles Festival 1 Dec 2012

First job: Putting up the school pop top



Imagine a 3,000 strong ukelele orchestra of children! This was the magic of the Kiwileles Festival in Henderson, Auckland, on Saturday 1 December this year. 

14 Room 13 children elected to go to the festival and experience playing in  a huge group.

More photos will be added to the blog in the next week.

Passing the time before the parade of schools
Balloons, free face-painting, ukelele entertainment groups, food, fun and laughter ...

The captivating clowns on pogo stilts were a big hit







Ukes tuned and ready to go...

Music stands, pegged and ready...

(Kiwileles Festival website photo of the crowd)

Our view from the Yellow Group
 looking at the audience

                                                      All smiles...

 Playing with Dave Dobbyn!

20 songs..... yes we are ready! 


Youtube link to opening song – Kiwi Ukulele


Youtube link to UkeJam's photos of the Kiwileles Grand Parade

NZ Ukulele on Facebook (great photos from Trevor Villers)


And here is a link to the rehearsal we did at East Tamaki School:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=472846452736235&set=vb.141626879191529&type=2&theater







This was our school's first outing to the festival, with just 14 children, but the teachers there all agreed it will be a regular calendar event for children keen on playing the ukelele at EPS.

Roll on 2013!



Tuesday 6 November 2012

CAB's Mulching

Mulching is really good for plants because the grass takes all the oxygen and water away from the important plants. So putting mulch over the grass does two things. One - stops the grass from growing and two - the plants don't die they stay alive. Oh and one more thing, the mulch makes the garden nice and pretty.

Healthy Plants need water, sun and sometimes even some sheep poo that's sheep pellets because it is good and healthy for your plants.

PS's Mulching Explanation

Mulch is a kind of bark that helps plants grow.It traps all the moist in the roots of the plant and the grass will give all the water to the plants.

Mulch makes plants grow tall.So that it really makes the community look good.Mulch is very obvious to make just a few easy ingrediants

KLK Mulch

Mulch is bark being cut into little pieces we call it mulch. Mulch also helps the plants grow by blocking the grass from taking all the sun and water.

Mulch keeps the soil moist and keeps plants and the area clean and it also keeps the weeds away from the plants.

Mulch always helps the plants grow because it is very healthy for the plants.

Mulch is very good for all the plants in the gardens. Mulch is  healthy for the plants its also like food for people. Mulch is tiny pieces of bark. It keeps the plants clean. 



CD's Mulching Explanation

Mulching is good for plants. 

Mulch can be made out of wood (bark chips), grass clippings or special plastic weed matting that lets the rain through but not the weeds.

Mulching is good to keep the soil moist.  Moist means wet.

 Mulching keeps weeds away.

It also keeps plants area clean.

GM's Explanation About Mulch

Mulch is often bark chips and mulching helps healthy plants to grow.  plants grow fast that is why mulch is healthy for plants.

Mulch will keep planted areas clean, and the soil will also be kept clean if mulch is spread around the plants.  people like mulching which helps every plant.

Mulching is when people are in their garden and they are getting mulch to spread around plants.  this keeps the soil moist.

Mulch can keep the weeds away from growing plants and that is how it will grow healthy and nicely.

When gardeners want to keep everything clean it helps the environment and keeps more plants growing.


Mulch by LW

Mulch is made out of bark that is cut into little pieces.When it's cut into little pieces, we call it mulch. Mulch helps plants to grow healthier.

Mulch keeps soil moist so the water can be used by the plants instead of evaporating.

Mulch also keeps weeds away. When you put mulch on top of weeds, the weeds die and the plants are protected.

It keeps plants clean too! It gives a lot of nutrients to plants and they are more healthy. 

NM-S Mulching

Mulching is something good for the plants.  It's good because it protects the plants that need a lot of protection, such as native plants.

The first benefit to mulching is that it keeps all of the weeds away.  That is a good thing because it kills the weeds, and the weeds take all of the food, water and nutrients away from the plants.

The second benefit is that it keeps the soil moist and this is a good thing because water and moist soil is just what the plants need. 

The third benefit is that it keeps the plant area clean from grass and dirt.  This is good because it looks nice.

The result is super healthy plants. 

Our school has been mulching around the native plants.

BWH's Benefits for Mulching

Mulch is bark, leaves, inorganic and organic material.  Mulching is good for plants.

The first benefit of mulching is it keeps soil cool at day and warm at night.  Makes the plant clean and healthier.

The second benefit is that it keeps weeds away from the plants water.  

The third benefit is that it keeps the soil moist because it traps the water in the soil.

To conclude there are three good reasons why mulching is good for plants.

The Benefits of Mulching By AT

Mulch is something that can be put on plants so the plants grow healthily.  Mulch is often made out of bark and used around plants and trees.  It keeps the soil moist.

Mulch is also put around plants to keep weeds away.  Plants need more water than weeds.

Mulch also keeps planting areas clean because it keeps the dirt away and the plants and their beautiful colours  can be seen more easily.

Mulch is a protective covering because it keeps the weeds away from the important plants that we need.

Mulching at our school helps our plants grow because school is closed for 6 weeks in the long holiday period and it keeps the ground  moist.  Water does not evaporate so quickly when plants have a good layer of mulch material.