Save our Sand Dunes!

On Friday Room 4 went down to the New Brighton Sand Dunes. We have been learning in R.E. all about caring for the whenua (land). It was a beautiful and sunny day to learn all about an important part of the land in New Brighton. We met the instructor and she took us down to the dunes and began teaching us all about how dunes are formed from the rocks coming down from the mountains and being ground up by the rivers and ocean to form sand.

We first learnt about how the dunes protect us from the wind and waves. The class was then split into four groups and given the challenge to make a dune 1m long and 30cm high. We then learnt about the special plants that grow on the dunes to hold it in place and protect the animals. Marron grass grows its roots down to hold the dune together, the pingāo grows its roots wide so that it holds the top sand down. The ice plant and purple groundcell provide protection for the animals and add colour to the dunes.

Some of the animals you may find at the dunes are the Katipo spider (New Zealand's only poisonous spider), skinks, and sand scarab beetle. They all like hiding in the plants and the hot dry sand.
It was such an informative trip and was interesting to hear that you can help protect the sand dunes by planting new plants.

Science is fun!

On Wednesday we tried  science experiment, testing surface pressure We blew up balloons and place them under a table. Next students made predictions about how many students could stand on the table before the balloons popped, our guesses were from 0 to 10. In the end we discovered six students could stand on the table.

What we discovered is if the more balloons there were the more they could absorb the weight. We learnt about how the density of an object affects its ability to absorb pressure from another object. Look out on the students blogs for their recount on the science experiment.

Amazing Athletics

On Tuesday the class competed in their very first senior Athletics day. This was good practice for the following years when they will qualify for zones. I was so impressed with how everyone gave it their best go and gave everything a try.

We finished off the day with a house relay where the teachers ran the first part of the relay. It was lots of fun and very tiring, the next day a lot of people had sore muscles.

Wonderful Worship

Yesterday Rooms 2-4 went to the church to sing worship. We learnt a great new song that gets to the heart of our mission as Catholics. We are hoping to make this a more regular part of the week so students get the opportunity to worship God.

We loved the song and singing it, check it out below to have a listen. What worship songs do you like or would you recommend we sing?

Mrs Tyro's Baptism

Today Mrs Tyro was baptised. It was such a special event and wonderful to see her welcomed into our church family. The students this week have been learning about what baptism is and the symbols for baptism. We also discussed the words that Father Bryan would use as he baptised Mrs Tyro. Check out the students blogs tomorrow to see their digital learning object (DLO) on baptism.

You can access their blogs on our class site for direct links

 

Responsible Choices

We did some learning yesterday about how to make responsible choices. This connected with our health learning this term. The students enjoyed acting out different scenarios and how they would respond to them.

What advice would you have for making good choices so we can have healthy relationships?

Fitness

In Room 4 we do fitness breaks twice a day to get our bodies moving so we can get our brains thinking. We often do shuttles to work on our cardio. We also do exercises like lunges, squats, basketball shots, star jumps, planks, burpees while we wait for our buddy to do their shuttles.

It is a great way to keep our bodies healthy by keeping fit. How do you like to keep healthy and fit?