School is fun because we do lots of things at school like playing with your friends. You can go to the library and lots of things to help us learn.

Try this link for an activity about the wetlands. Remember to post a comment about something you found out.

http://www.ecan.govt.nz/wetlands/

Today we watched a section on the DVD "Timaru Then and Now." It clearly showed how much the coastline of Timaru has changed.
Tomorrow we have a training for the cross country down at Ashbury Park. We still need more parents to walk down with us, so if you are available in the morning please come and join us.

Debbie came and visited us. She talked to us about things we see at wetlands and things we shouldn't see. Debbie taught us about some life cycles and food chains. We made a food web by making lots of different food chains. This is a picture of our food web.


Here are some questions about the things Debbie taught us:
What would happen to our food chain if man fished out every single eel and trout from our waterways?

What would happen if some pesticides got washed down the waterways and killed all the alage and weed on the bottom of rivers?

What are some ways that rubbish has got into the wetlands?

Why is rubbish bad at our wetlands?

Which area had the most diversity, the Washdyke Lagoon or the Otipua Wetlands?

Week 4 Term 2

Science Week was a fantastic opportunity for the children to be exposed to a range of experiences. I hope you all enjoyed trying some of the challenges for homelearning.
Please remember to return permission slips for the Cross Country. We also need three parent helps to help supervise on Friday 9 - 10.30.
This week our focus in reading is skim reading to find information in non-fiction texts. We will also be 'making connections' - thinking about the things we already know.
Our focus in writing is report writing. We are using mindmapping to help record research notes and will use this to write an information report. The children are learning to put information into their own words.
For numeracy, children will be returning to their cross-grouping classes and starting work on multiplication and division. Check that your child can skip count in 2's, 5's and 10's.
Tuesday afternoon is the Parent/Student afternoon. Come along to the library and learn about how to post comments on the blog, using the class learning caves, lexile reading and play some numeracy and literacy games with your child. This is from 2.30 - 3.40.

Washdyke Lagoon/Otipua Wetlands

It would be great idea to take another trip to the lagoon or wetlands(or both) with your family. There are some spare copies of some of the activities we did in the classroom if you would like to take a copy of these down with you. This would be a great way to reinforce our learning and give the children some extra time to think about some of the concepts. We learned about some of the plants and birds that live in these places and the purpose of the wetlands. The wetlands clean the water and act like a sponge. They are also a safe place for wildlife to raise their young and find food.

Room 2 were so excited to hear from Abigail. We are really missing you too. Keep in touch and let us know what you are doing.
Miss Kent

On our trip we went to the Wetlands first. We saw lots of birds, plants and trees. The wetlands are very important because it cleans the water before it goes out to sea. Hilary came in to teach us how it works. Some people were rocks, Caleb and I were raindrops. We had to get past the rocks and out to sea. The second time we had to hug plants and shake hands with fish, then rocks we had to go around and then into the sea we went.
Kate

We went to the lagoon and we saw a guy called George. We looked out of telescopes to see birds. We saw lots of different types. We saw pukekos, black swans, a heron, a shag. On our way back we collected lots of shells.
Maddie

We went to Washdyke Lagoon. We had to go over the fence to get there. When we got there we went down a track. We started to look at the shells. First we went to see Geroge. We had to jump over some lakes. I had a look through a telescope and I saw lots of different types of birds.
Millie

When we were at the wetlands we drew some pictures of some plants. We saw some flax, cabbage tree and toitoi. We opened some seed pods from the flax.
Ben

This term is going to be really fun learning about Caring for the Coast. We are going for a trip to Washdyke Lagoon and Otipua Wetlands.
Kate

Everyday we have been running behind Miss Kent. She leads us along somewhere and some people can't keep up. We are running for cross country fitness.
Sean

On Friday some people had chicken noodle soup for lunch.
Sharleka

On Thursday we did some drawings of frogs.
Jamie

This term is going to be really exciting for learning team 2. We are going to learn interesting stuff and we will get brainier.
Emily A