The Special Trees of MSS

Today the Enviro Kids were out and about looking for the 4 most special trees at MSS. These are of course: Puriri, Matai, Totara and Kowhai.
We went on a tree scavenger hunt and had to locate and sketch each of our house trees.
Below we have included photos of our beloved house trees with a couple of the Enviro Kids.
Our trees are all native. We have some great big, mighty specimens in our grounds. If you don't know where they are located you can ask an Enviro Kid and they will show you. Each of the house trees has a ribbon in the house colour tied around it. Check them out.

Cate and the Totara

Finn and the Matai

Hamish and the Kowhai

We've found the Puriri!

Summer's Message

Summer designed a poster to share her feelings about being a kaitiaki of the environment...

Why do we want school chickens?

Keep chickens for eggs

Keeping chooks provides your household with a daily supply of sensational tasting eggs from a sustainable pet that consumes your kitchen waste and weeds from your garden.

Keeping chickens is a great way to turn waste into food, entertain yourself (and your kids), and they increase the nutrients and health of your soil while eating bugs, insects and sometimes mice.

Environment

Raising and feeding chickens diverts (methane creating) organic waste from landfill, assisting us to slow climate change.

Sourcing your eggs from your backyard instead of the supermarket ensures the quality and freshness of the eggs and allows you to be sure the chickens have been treated well.

Wellbeing

Adding chickens to our backyards introduces the endless entertainment of their scratching, preening, socialising and pecking. Fresh food is always good for us, and knowing our eggs are coming from well loved birds in the backyard (rather than cages in a overcrowded commercial shed) allows us to sleep a little better at night.

Sustainable Living

A great web page about what sustainable living is and how we can live more sustainable lives.

http://www.sustainableliving.org.nz/

All the Amazing MSS Habbitats...

Thornton and Annika Rm M

Maia and Megan Rm L

Hamish, Ella and Cate Rm T

Maia and Bonnie Rm S

Sienna, Ryan and Zion Rm J

Simon and Matty Rm B

How one amazing Kiwi is making a difference!

Go to the link below to view the video from Seven Sharp. It ties in with our litterless lunches theme. One lady making a real difference, inspirational!

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/staggering-number-plastic-bags-dished-nz-supermarkets-revealed

Science Art

It was a cross curricular session in Rm I. Art and Science combined. We created leafless, stark winter trees with masking tape on a white background. Then we dyed the background over the tape and the science happened here! We salted the wet dye and it causes a chemical reaction that looks very effective. Then we peel the tape off the dry page and draw black pen decorations all over the trees.

So far so good Rm I, watch this space...

How Much is too Much?

Last term on Enviro Action Day we has a litter less lunch competition. On this day we knew classes would want to win so we expected there to be very little litter and it to be a very close competition. Unfortunately there was a lot of litter. Look how much in the pictures below.

We are looking forward to hearing back from classes with their PMI charts about litter less lunches that they discussed on the day.

Enviro Action Day- Term 2

What a wonderful day. The sun shone and we all were very busy!

Rm I and their Isopod habitat!?

We (Mrs Palmer) chose to create a habitat for isopods because they start with I just like us! Isopod is a fancy name for a slater or wood lice. We think these invertebrates are pretty interesting with their multiple legs and mini suits of armour.
Look at us drilling and creating their haven below.

Rm A Litterless Lunch Winners!

A HUGE congratulations to Rm A. Winners of the Litterless lunch competition that the Enviro Kids ran on Enviro Action Day. Only 3 pieces of litter! We were really impressed, well done Rm A.

Exploring the area for our new chicken run...

Potential Hen House?

Sarah, Mirryn and Gemma check out the seedling nursery as a possible hen coop? Just kidding Mrs Cowan!

Palm Oil- NZ Child

Here is a link http://tvnz.co.nz/sunday-news/young-environmentalist-video-5974814 to a Sunday story from 2014 about Charlotte a young NZer who loves orangutans.
We had a talk about palm oil production and deforestation in rain forests. 

Enviro Action Day Term I Images

Backyard Chickens Website

http://www.backyardchickens.com/

A really informative website for the Enviro Kids in 2016

Building a Hen House...

Hmmm... 32 helpers, ranging in ages from 6-11, and one chicken run, can we do it? Yes we can!

Watch this space.

http://www.countryliving.com/gardening/garden-ideas/how-to/g1147/ultimate-chicken-coop/?

Step by step photos and ideas for another chicken coop.

Enviro Action Day Term 1 2016!

It's nearly here! Enviro Action Day is  this week on Wednesday. We will kick off with a whole school enviro assembly. See you there.

Don't forget to bring a piece of fruit to school for making fruit kebabs on Wednesday please.

Collecting seedlings

The Green Team have been collecting seedlings from under the trees at the top of the field. Now we need to pot them up.