Life and Death in our Class Garden

A praying mantis is eating one of our caterpillars. I don't think this is a native New Zealand praying mantis  because they have a purple and yellow spot  on their legs.






 

 



A butterfly has just hatched from its chrysalis. We never saw this chrysalis because it was hidden under some leaves. 
 

 How many caterpillars can you find? Look carefully....

  
 
 Can you see the chrysalis? The caterpillar  turned into the chrysalis during lunchtime yesterday, 13th March.
 

A hungry caterpillar.

The beginning of swan plant flowers. All our swan plants this year have been grown from seeds we saved from our last year's swan plants.

Can you see the yellow aphids?

I wonder where this caterpillar is going? It is on a dying poppy plant stalk.

I wonder if caterpillars like eating geraniums?

 

Follow this link to an interactive life cycle of the monarch butterfly - and just about everything you wanted to know about monarch butterflies in New Zealand. 

And here's an interesting link about monarch butterfly larvae (caterpillars) in outer space....  

Follow this link to see a video of a monarch butterfly laying its eggs.

Here's two videos to show you  parts of the caterpillar life cycle.

Today Huia1's second monarch butterfly hatched at 12:51 p.m. on Tuesday 13 March. Here are  some photos that were taken.

¿Dónde está la mariposa?
Aquí está la mariposa.

¿Dónde están la señora Lee y la señora Vincent?

We are at a weekend course for teachers of Spanish. It's like a sleep-over for teachers.  We  have to speak in Spanish the whole time. We also cook and eat Spanish food. We have got lots of new ideas to try out with our classes, and other teachers have viewed our blog and Spanish videos.

Estamos haciendo tapas. Tenemos cebollas, pimientos, pepinos, lechuga, tomate, papas, huevos, ajos, aceitunas, queso, pan, jamón, berenjenas, calabacines y champiñones.

Para postre hay flan.

Nos gustó la comida mucho. ¡Qué rica! Deliciosa...

Nos gustan enseñar y  aprender español. 

Hasta lunes...

Butterfly on PhotoPeach

Bob the Frog.

It was just an ordinary day in Huia1 until a couple of students found a desiccated frog(Bob), named by Caitlin and Shayla.  Bob was found on the window sill of Mrs Fowler's and Mrs Gifford's office.

We thought it might have been a Hochstetters frog because of its colour, but we soon found out it wasn't.

The first discovery of the frog was by Mrs.Fowler who had left it on her window sill until it was rediscovered again. She first found it in the corridor then put it on her window sill.
(How did it get in the corridor?)

These are some pictures of Bob out and about . . .

What's living in our garden...

How many of these insects can you identify?

 

 REMINDER:

1. And - a reminder to any Intermediates who want to enter the Maggi Schools Cooking competition:

Design a nutritious meal for a family of four. It needs to be prepared and cooked in less than 50 minutes and use at least 2 Maggi products in the ingredients. 

Bring your recipe to Mrs Davis by the end of Monday. 

2.

Travelwise Poster Competition

Due Date: 2 March 2012 

(Don't tell anyone, but Mrs Pearson has given us an extension until Monday morning,)

Two winners will be chosen and their designs will be used for the front and back covers of The Gardens Travel plan document.

Criteria:

-A4 Landscape or Portrait

-Design needs to include “The Gardens Safe School Travel Plan 2012”

-Needs to be colourful and show aspects of sustainable transport, e.g., walking to school, taking the bus, cycling etc

-Design can be painted, drawn or computer generated

-It must be named with year level included on the back for judging

Prizes awarded to other entries by Max the Pukeko on March 9^th

More goings on in our garden

Can you see a chrysalis on our olive tree? Look carefully... I wonder if the caterpillar thought that the olives were other chrysalises.  

Clue: Look at the bottom centre of the photo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can you find the bee in this photo?

Ants are attacking a small beetle. Well, it looked like it, anyway. The beetle ran away, under the flower petals.

Look very carefully for tiny aphids.

Look for a small white egg and a small caterpillar.

Can you see where the caterpillar has eaten the leaves?

A recently hatched monarch butterfly. 

And some tomatoes which just happen to be growing in our garden, too. 

Our Garden on a Rainy Day

The view from our classroom door. 

The playing court.

One of our caterpillars is turning into a chrysalis, on one of our poppy stalks.

Can you see the tiny aphids? Clue: they are a yellow-orange colour.

Can you see the baby caterpillar?

In our garden grow tomatoes as well as flowers. Can you find a tomato flower and some very small green tomatoes? 

Flowers and Caterpillars in our Garden

Week Four Already

Mrs Vincent has been challenging us to our full potential. We have been studying the Treaty of Waitangi and why it was needed to bring law and order to New Zealand. The Treaty of Waitangi is the founding document of New Zealand; it was signed in 1840.

On Valentine’s Day we wrote a poem by Robert Burns called My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose. We also heard it put to music, which was lovely.

Note from Mrs Vincent: In the You Tube video below, can you hear that the singer has changed the words from '"bonnie lass" to "bonnie lad"?  Also, she has changed the words a little bit. See if you can work out which words she changed.




Mrs Vincent has been reading us Castaways – a book about the ship wreck of the Dundonald. We are almost finished Chapter 2.

We have been learning how to upload videos posts and pictures on our very own blogs at  kidblog.org. We can update them as  often as we like. It is fun creating our own blog and uploading things. Kidblog.org is easy to use and it's completely free.

Once a week we have a quiz on current events recently seen on the news. We also do Anthology ( a collection of pictures, drawings and poems).  It is good to learn how to publish work in different styles. Mrs Vincent has been teaching us about simple sentences -  the name basically explains itself.

By Lauren

What's going on in our class garden?

A cicada

Can you see the caterpillar egg? It's white and very small.

Monarch butterfly caterpillars are back again. Luckily we have a small forest of swan plants for these hungry caterpillars. We have already seen some monarch butterflies around our garden.

Evidence a caterpillar has been this way...

The first week back at school.

Since school is back, our teacher has been keeping us busy.

We have been studying The Treaty of Waitangi. We learnt how they signed the Treaty and why it was needed.

On Thursday, Miss Griffin took Huia 1 and 2 out for fitness. In that time, we tested our  fitness abilities.

On Friday,  the intermediate team enjoyed an afternoon of different sports with different teachers.

Part 1 of the first blog of the year by new blog team members Lauren and Shayla. 

Huia 1, 2012 - Welcome back.

Tall poppies and busy bees  at work in Huia 1. 
Can you find the bee? 

As seen in the Huia 1 garden.