Week 2 Term 2 2008

We have finished off our inquiry on ‘discovering our backyard’ by writing a personal recount about planting our planter box. Three of our personal recounts were shared in this week’s newsletter.



We planted some plants. I looked at the flowers. The flowers looked pretty. We put the box with the flowers in by the post. Then we watered the plants. Then I showed the flowers to Mum.
By Grace



I went to plant the flowers. I put the soil in. I put the flower in the box in the middle. We watered the flowers. The box looks stunning. We hope the butterflies land on the flowers.
By Georgia




I went outside to plant the flowers. I put the dirt in the box. I put it by the post.
By Ben


This week we have started this terms topic of ‘discovering people who help us in our community’. Through this topic we are going to explore the following questions – What is a community? Why do people belong to a community?

We started by looking at our school community. We listed all the people who help us within our school. Next we took our class camera and went in search of the people we listed. Each of us in turn took a photo of the people we found – it was great fun. Next week we will write captions to go with our photos and will display them in our classroom.

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Week 1 Term 2 2008

This week we were delighted to look at an email sent by ‘the butterfly lady’ with photos attached of a butterfly being tagged. We have also looked at comments left on our blog – it’s so exciting to be left messages.

We recapped our learning from last term and made a shopping list of all the things we needed to buy at the garden centre. Every class sent a representative to the garden centre. We were all keen to go so after a discussion it was decided to pull a name out of a box of all the names in our class. Using this approach Kaiyu became our representative.

On Wednesday afternoon with our shopping list in hand Kaiyu went to the garden centre. At the garden centre the group spoke with Astrid – an expert on gardening. She provided the children with a pamphlet which explained which plants to plant to attract butterflies. Interestingly the pamphlet referred to the monarch butterfly site we had already looked at as a class. Astrid showed the children which flowers from the list that were available for planting and the children helped to load up the trolley with kale, verbena, and dianthus.


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Back at school – On Thursday Kaiyu and the other representatives talked about their experiences before we planted up our planter boxes. We all helped to fill the box with soil and to water the plants. It was a great afternoon. Mrs Heasman came out to see us and was very pleased. It was a great afternoon and at the end when we looked at our planter box and we felt very proud of our efforts. One of the children in the Totara Team walked by and said we’d made our school look beautiful. It was a fantastic way to conclude a wonderful inquiry on discovering our backyard.

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We have also displayed the butterfly art we finished at the end of last term. We have also begun working on kidpix again, this time to show the life cycle of a butterfly. We will post these when they are finished.


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Week 11 Term 1 2008

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This week we have been busy investigating the cost of planting some flowers in a planter box. We emailed our Principal Mrs Heasman to seek permission. She sent us back an email to let us know we could plant some flowers and had some questions she wanted us to answer. We sent another email answering all her questions and to let her know that we are very excited about planting flowers in our school grounds. It will be a great way to start the term after the holidays.





We were very excited to get a message on our blog from ‘the butterfly lady’ and have sent her an email attaching photos of some of our work and have asked her if she has ever tagged a monarch butterfly.

We have also written some facts about butterflies and moths and the differences between them as well as something we knew that was the same about them. These facts are to go with the wonderful moths and butterflies we drew on the computer using kidpix. This work is on display in our classroom.

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Week 10 Term1 2008

This week we wandered around our school grounds to see if we had any plants or flowers that would attract butterflies into our school grounds. While we were very happy to find a hibiscus plant, we found that our school grounds had the most beautiful trees BUT very few flowers

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Later we discussed what we think we should do about it. Grace thought we should plant some seeds and grow some flowers. Charlotte thought we should buy some plants from the garden centre and plant them in a pot. Tony thought we should plant some more hibiscus plants. Harrison shared that to grow flowers or plants we need sun, and rain Grace added and soil. Next week we are going to take this investigation further and find out what and who we have to contact to undertake planting in our school grounds.



Also this week class members brought in some interesting things to share – Kaiyu brought in wetas he'd found in his parden, another class member brought in a leaf eaten by something. She was sure a caterpillar had been munching the leaf but wasn’t able to find it anywhere.

Week 9 Term 1 2008

This week we have explored the life cycle of the butterfly. We have watched a video clip of a caterpillar emerging from its egg case from the monarch butterfly site. It was so amazing we watched it over and over again – inviting rooms 2 and 3 to join us.



From the same website we looked at a power point put together by the ‘butterfly lady’. We learnt how to tell a difference between a female and male monarch butterfly as well as what plants monarch butterflies liked to get nectar from. One of these flowers is the hibiscus. The next day one of the class members brought in a hibiscus flower to show us.




We have also used the kidpix computer programme to draw ladybugs

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At the end of the week we used props and costumes to retell the lifecycle of the butterfly. Oh the fun we had. We videoed each section and hope to put it together as a little video.

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Week 8 Term 1

Our ladybug information reports are up. Below are the ladybugs that the children drew to go with their information reports

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We have read the book ‘the praying mantis’ and have enjoyed learning all about them. When we started this inquiry we found a praying mantis on our swan plant and it stayed on that swan plant for weeks. Tara wondered if the praying mantis and butterflies were friends.





We found this website and found an answer to Tara’s question - unfortunately the praying mantis and butterflies are not friends as the praying mantis eats butterflies.
We each drew a praying mantis and next week we will write an information report on them.




This week we have also looked at the differences and similarities between moths and butterflies. We have read books and looked at a website. We presented our findings using a Venn diagram.

Week 7 Term 1 2008

We started the week by making potato hedgehogs. We had to be very careful but it was a lot of fun. Afterwards we pretended to be reporters and were videoed as we each recorded a fact about a hedgehog.



Grace had been on a ladybug hunt in the weekend and had collected ladybugs for us to look at. We decided that they were looking a bit hungry so placed them on our old swan plant covered in aphids. We watched as they began to eat them!.



We also went on to this website


where we tried to save the rose plant by getting the ladybugs to eat the aphids.

We also finished making our pet ladybugs. Just look at our faces we were so very proud of our work.
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We have written information reports about ladybugs and drawn ladybugs flying. These will be on display in our room.

On Thursday room two shared some exciting news with us – they had found a weta on the carpet in their room. They brought it through to us and we let it out on a piece of cardboard and watched it scurry across the cardboard, and hang upside down inside the container. – wow.