Our Garden Before and After the Weekend.

When we left school on Friday, there were lots of caterpillars in a forest of small swan plants. There seemed to be plenty of food for the caterpillars. Some were getting fat and we knew they were soon ready to turn into a chrysalises. We are already watching one chrysalis preparing itself to turn into a butterfly.

Look carefully. Can you find two caterpillars?

Holes in the wall can be quite useful.

Can you find the chrysalis, and at least one caterpillar?

A newly hatched butterfly.

Taking lots of photographs.

Monday morning. Look what's happened to all our swan plants. How many caterpillars can you see?

Can you find 3 caterpillars? What will happen next?

A caterpillar has found a sheltered spot to turn into a chrysalis.

Can you see the chrysalis?

Can you find a chrysalis, a caterpillar getting ready to turn into a chrysalis, and a caterpillar on the ground?

This caterpillar has found a sheltered place to turn into a chrysalis.

This caterpillar is on a poppy plant which had fallen over on the ground.

Can you find two caterpillars turning into chysalises?

This caterpillar may be looking for a sheltered spot to makes its chrysalis.

Do you know that caterpillars grow to 2,700 times the size of their hatching size, before they turn into a chysalis?

Monopoly Day 14th March

Here is a video of Monopoly Day 
by Karnjeet and Kyran 


Our school held a "Monopoly Day" on Wednesday to celebrate the anniversary of the board game Monopoly. Students and teachers dressed up as characters or features of the board game.

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