Cleaning the tadpoles!!

Cleaning and caring for our pets is an important part of the programme teaching respect and care towards our living creatures.  What super helpers we had here today!  We have been watching our tadpoles closely and one now has front legs!!  Cleaning their tank we got to take a closer look.  Our tadpoles are a little wiggly, they can be quite fast to catch.  Hey, What's that we notice?? - tiny sea snails and mosquito wrigglers??  The snail slowly slithers up the side of the tank, while the wrigglers just wiggle and wiggle, bobbing up and down in the water.  Where did they come from?? How cool is that! Our very own little Eco system inside our tank.  This will be interesting for us to watch.  I wonder what the wrigglers will turn into?  Will our snails grow?  Only time will tell, we will have to make a point of checking each day for changes.

Bee and insect house!

As pollinators bees play an essential role in our gardens.  They transfer pollen from one flower to the next, fertilizing plants so they may begin developing fruit and seeds.  Most plants require the help of pollinators such as insects and birds to develop.  Unfortunately bees and other beneficial insects are under increasing threat due to pesticides, parasites and climate change - but we can help them by planting flowers to attract them and by providing them shelter.

While at Bunnings Teacher Deanne came across a bee and insect house that
would be just perfect for this purpose and it also came with seeds, how fantastic is that!

We found a great spot for it to sit - Under our new garden arch that will soon be fully covered with Star Jasmine flowers and right in the middle of our flower garden.  Our mix of seeds that came with the bee and insect house included a range of flowers that will attract our insect friends, we each took turns to sprinkle some in the garden.  Once our plants are flourishing we will start to hear lots of buzzing in the garden!!  Yay!!

Thank you everybody for continuing to embrace the opportunities for us to grow and learn about the ways in which we can be great Kaitiaki's of our environment.

Baby Spiders

A spider had laid her eggs in our resource room and they hatched. Jo noticed dozens and dozens of spiderlings with their mother. Everybody was very excited to see them - most of us had never seen a baby spider before!

Otto's Birdsnest

Otto brought in a birds nest that he had found. 

He told us "I found this nest at my house, it fell out of the tree."

 Lots of people were very keen to have a close look at the nest as this isn't something that we get to see up close often. After having a good look we discussed what the nest was made of  "hay, dirt, sticks, leave and grass." "They (the birds) like leaves, they make it nice and comfy"

Emma Tran wondered "how did the birdies make that house?" 

What an interesting thing to have a close up look at a nest. Thank you Otto for sharing it with us!

Our New Swing

 

A courier arrived with a huge package for us! What a surprise it was a blue barrel- What should we do with it? On closer inspection it was a barrel swing, big enough for two people to fit inside! We spent the rest of the day trying it out, using our social skills to take turns at being in the swing and pushing the swing. It was so much fun! 

Can You Make A Home For Me?

We decided to make a collaborative art piece, sparked from one of our interests and local residents the frogs. It’s been neat having the tadpoles here at Uxbridge so we can explore the lifecycle, habitat and features of tadpoles and frogs. Art is a great way of expressing oneself but we can also gain an understanding of the children's prior knowledge (what they know about a topic) from a simple drawing, in this case a habitat. The kaiako were interested to use this piece of art to collectively gain what the children already knew about frog habitats, then we will compare this with another art colab, after we learn more about our froggy friends.

Set out was a large piece of white paper, some paints and frogs with the question “Can you build a home for me?” , they set to work.

“I have a little swamp over here.”- Leo G

“I have made mine like a spa. It has a hot part and one part is cold.”-Cam

“That is a pond I do.”- Chloe

“I’m mixing yellow, brown and green to make swampy water.”- Elle

“This colour is two. Mix paint.” - Harrison

As you can see from the narration of the children, they are not only talking about the habitats of the frogs but gaining art theory, through practical exploration of colour-mixing. Ka Pai Tamariki!

Now as we watch and wonder...What is happening to our tadpoles? Have a look in our tank...I spy with my little eye something that begins with L and rhymes with pegs….”

Cicada's- Up Close

We hear them chirping away as a beautiful background to our day, but what do we really know about Cicadas?

Maya found an interesting discovery at her house and brought it in for us all to enjoy and look at. It was a cicada husk. How fascinating!

First, we took turns to have a look and see what parts we could see, the husk looked like it was living but it did not move. We found out that it as an exoskeleton that shed from a cicada.

Many of the tamariki went on a hunt around the garden to see if they could find any more and guess what??! They did an it was very exciting. Felix and Otto were really taken by the husk hunt and wanted to continue looking for them for most of the morning.

We have had wonderful drawings of cicadas, talks about the life-cycle (which is fascinating)! We have researched with the tablet so the tamariki can witness a cicada emerging from the husk and read some interesting facts in books. Did you know that cicada’s only spend around 2 weeks above the ground?! These sneaky little insects spend most of their life underground, drinking nutrients from the tree roots as nymphs. After years they tunnel up to the surface to find a mate and lay their eggs before the cycle continues underground again.

Together we decided to make a display of this on our wall. Come and have a look by our stairs! It is great to collaborate, we worked as a team and it is going to be an ongoing display that will develop with our learning. Chloe, Stevie and Harrison were great at cutting out the blades of grass. Otto and Felix helped paint the tree trunk. Elle created the tree- top using a Nikau frond that Nikki had brought in from her home, first she created her own picture and the tree top came up beautifully. It was decided that she could paint a larger one would for our display tree. It created the perfect pattern!  Otto came up with the idea to place some REAL cicada husks on our stump, brilliant idea. We have been collecting and can't wait to add them. 

We even have more little insects joining our wall daily, beautiful creations made from our tamariki.

Since, many more of the children have found husks, bringing them in to share with our Uxbridge friends too, special taonga from nature. We really value these special treasures that come in as we all learn from them and they spark interest in many children. And so the journey begins, as we hear the sweet sound of the cicadas we can smile as we know what they have been up to! We are exploring our natural world.