Showing posts with label science and literacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science and literacy. Show all posts

Tuesday, 19 June 2018

Inquiry update: Time to take action!

Taking action

We have come a long way on our journey to being kaitiaki of our local environments. Our capes are ready to go and we have done some great thinking about our own strengths. But now we have to take some action to make our environment a better place by taking some action. We had a good walk around in our school and took notice of all the things that we could do to help. This tied into our literacy for the week where we put our ideas in writing.

I can make more plants for hedgehogs.

I can make a bird house so the cats can't get the birds.

I can recycle so animals don't die and so the plastic doesn't go in the sea.

I can reuse rubbish to make a hut.

One of the key things we noticed was that there was a lot of rubbish around the grounds that animals might mistake for food. One of the actions we decided to take was to spend some time each day looking after the grounds by picking up some of the rubbish and taking photos to show other people what happens when we don't put it in the right place. Here is what we found in just one day!


We have many great ideas and are showing our creativity by building some models of what things might look like. Here is a rat trap designed by some of the awesome Autahi thinkers:


Creating new things and taking action is all part of the inquiry process. We are reflecting on all the things we have learned so far and challenging ourselves to try and make things better than they already are. Through experimenting and building we are using our problem solving skills as well as working together as a team.  

Friday, 21 October 2016

Growing Things

This term we are loving planting and watching all sorts of things sprout and grow. Last week we planted some beans, peas and sunflower seeds.








We put them in a sunny spot and made sure they had enough water. Nine days later and look and what has happened:

   

We were so excited to see they have sprouted and are beginning to reach for the sky. We spent some time doing observational drawings and labelling yesterday afternoon. If you look closely you can see the roots growing down and the sprout growing up. Some even have leaves on them.