Harakeke Flowers

 

Room 18 have been learning about Harakeke, its uses and the tikanga (customs).

Today we went to the Nature Trail to cut some Harakeke. Hazel said a Karakia before the leaves were cut which gave thanks to the plant. Well done Hazel!

Tikanga of Harakeke
Do not cut Harakeke in the rain or at night
Do not eat by the Harakeke
You need to finish what you start
Do not cut the baby (rito) or parents (tipuna) of the Harakeke whanau (family)
Give your first piece away

Star, Grace, Sarah, Austen and Rachel from year 6 were our experts today and helped us weave Harakeke flowers. We all found it difficult with our first piece, but we kept trying and with the girls help we made two flowers to take home.

We must remember to give our first piece away and then we can keep our second piece.

Working together in Room 18

In Room 18 we are working on our presentations for our inquiry Flower Power.
We chose who we would like to work with and how to present the information.
We decided the topic to present either Pollination, Life Cycle of a Plant, Harakeke or Parts of a Flower.
We are practising what we are going to say in our presentations and we are all looking forward to listening to Room 18's presentations.

Planting Sunflowers

Today we planted our Sunflowers with Room 14.
Many of us had never gardened before so we learned a lot about how to plant our Sunflower.
We had to clear the soil of weeds, dig holes, mix in potting mix into the soil, plant the sunflowers being careful not to break the roots, cover it with soil and then give our Sunflower a drink of water.

Seed to baby Sunflower

Our seeds have grown and we have baby Sunflowers.
We have learned a new word, Germination.
Germination means "begins to grow".
We learned that inside the seed is a root and a shoot or stem.
When the seed starts taking in water the seed swells bigger and bigger until the coat splits apart.
The seed uses energy to grow from the food it has stored.
The root begins to grow downward and the baby stem begins to curl upward.

Riley's Recount

In writing time we are writing recounts and we are learning to:

answer the four W’s in our opening statement – When? Who? What? Where?

write about something that has happened in the past

write about what happened in order

add descriptive language so that our writing is interesting to read

Here is Riley’s Soccer Game story. He has met all our learning intentions.

Go Riley!

Soccer Game

On Sunday 17 March I was playing a soccer game. We were playing the 10 year old division side and we were playing at Riverhills. Our whole team is 9 year olds.

We were playing in the wet drizzling rain. Everyone came with warm coats, track suit pants and scarfs except me, all I came with, was a soccer jacket and soccer pants. Everyone thought it was going to be postponed but no we still had to play in the pouring rain. Every mum didn’t want to sit down and watch but all the boys in my team including me and the dads wanted to stay.

Our coach Buzzer told us what position we were playing. He put out some cones to tell us where we were playing. Before the game started we did some training such as: stretching, shooting, passing and tackling. After we did training with Buzzer it was time to play the real game, I was playing striker. My Dad was refing the game. The other team looked quite big and tough and I was quite nervous. The other team was starting off.  My Dad blew the whistle and I charged up trying to get the ball. The other team quickly passed the ball to his team mate and my friend up front with me got the ball off the other team, he passed it to me then I ran up and shot, I scored! Everyone clapped and I gave my teammates a high five. It was 1 to 0 with only about 5 minutes into the game.

My Dad blew the whistle and this time I let my teammate get the ball and when he got the ball he passed to me then I passed back to the midfielder’s. The midfielder passed back to the defenders, the defenders passed back to the goalie, the goalie booted it up the field and then my teammate shot and scored. It started to hail a little bit so my Dad blew the whistle again. We scored again. Soon after that it was half time and the score was 4-0 to us. I quickly drank my drink and I was on the bench for a little bit, I was watching my teammates pass and score.

By the time I got on the field again it was 5-0. I ran up to the goal, my friend crossed it in I shot and I scored my second goal.

The man blew the whistle, they started to pass a lot. Our opponent went down the side of the pitch crossed it in and they shot, it took a deflection and went in the goal. We kicked off then we had a run down the field and someone passed to me, I shot but their keeper saved it. Then their keeper kicked the ball as hard as he could and passed it to their guy and only one of our guys was back. They had about 4 people luckily they scored but we didn’t really care because we were winning 6-2 with only about 5 minutes left. We kicked off, we passed, then we ran up, it hit the post then rebounded to our guy he shot and scored.

The game was over and it was so fun we won 7-2. We shook their hands. I was so cold so when we went home I had some lollies then a warm bath.

By Riley

Self-watering Seed Pots

We have turned plastic bottles into self-watering planters for our Sunflower seeds. We had to read the instructions on the packet of seeds to see how to plant our seed. The seed had to go down 2cm deep in the soil.
We waited and waited ...

Carlos's flower experiment answer

After leaving the flowers for a couple of days we can see blue dye in the petals veins. This means that the stem sucks up the blue water and the water goes all the way to the petals veins. This is how the petals get water to survive.

By Carlos