Room 35's Visit to the Travis Wetlands

Today we had a great learning experience when we visited the Wetlands. Some of the things we learned were:

If one creature from the food chain dies then the whole food chain can be affected.
The difference between omnivores, herbivores and carnivores.

Different species of birds take shelter at the Wetlands and different birds have different features.

 When the birds migrate to the Wetlands they are refueling like a plane landing in an airport.


Paradise ducks with white heads, are the females.
The backswimmers have two legs we can see while their other four legs are hidden  so they can swim faster.
Many of the birds have legs which bend backwards which helps them to not sink into the mud. 



The mites are the smallest water insects.
Different species of birds eat different things.
When the food chain is disrupted, there would be so much plankton below the surface of the water that the plankton on the bottom would rot because they wouldn't get the sunlight. 
All food chains start with plants.

Plants produce their own energy in a process called PHOTOSYNTHESIS.
When the damselflies are young ( at the nymph stage) they live in the water.
The Godwits fly to Alaska and back in Summer  - 10,000 kilometres. 
Some insects have hooks on their legs so they can hook onto plants in the water.
The Wetlands provides a good, safe nesting ground.
There are heaps and heaps of different species that live in the water.
The small, clustered leaves at the bottom of the pokaka tree, protected the tree from moa and at the top the leaves are more spread out. 
In the 1800's, 95% of Christchurch was a Wetland but now only 3-5% make up Wetland areas in Christchurch.
About different creatures such as scaup, spoonbill, shoveller, backswimmer, pied stilt, leech
There is a type of mite which lives in the water.
The kahikatea can live for 1000 years. 

The Wetland acts like a sieve as well as a sponge - if you're not sure why, just ask all of us and we will tell you all about it.

We learnt so much today!  Happy times and wonderful learning happening!





 

The Cross Country Run

The Cross Country was fun.
This Cross Country was the FIRST Cross Country of  Waitakiri primary school.
The year four girls ran first in the Cross Country which the room 35 year four girls weren't happy about! The year four girls had to wait in the freezing cold for 8 more races, but we still had FUN!
This Cross Country was the BEST Cross Country EVER!!
Room 35 did really well and four of our Year five boys got into the zones. They were Jhan, Ethan, Angus and Jamie.

Flatman Visits Waitākiri School River Campus

We are sitting in the libary waiting quietly asking"when is flatman coming?" Finally the teacher spots Flatman the Christchurch SUPERHERO! They told us to sit quietly and wait for fFatman to come in. When he came in everyone was cheering for him.We settled down and started asking
questions.One of the questions was , "what inspired you to do what you do." He said when he was young he loved super heroes.When he was two, he dressed up in his superman costume and he went to the top of his two story building and jumped off the top to see if he could fly ,when he then hit the ground. He was lucky not to get seriously injured.We asked a lot of other questions and learnt more about him and the fabulous work he does to help our community.  Soon it was time for him to leave. On the way to his flatman car he gave us a lolly each then we had some selfys then he left . What a great guy. He does so much to help the needy. Keep it up Flatman!

Flatman Visit

Last term someone named Flatman came and visited our school. We had lots of questions for him. Some of the questions we had were, Do you have another job? If you do, do your work colleagues know you're Flatman?Did you buy your suit or are you good with a needle? Will you ever reveal your true identity? How did you get Quake Kid for a sidekick? We were expecting him to come in the Flat Mobile but he came in a small mini van with a picture of him on the side of it! Before he came in we were sitting on the library floor in lines waiting for him to come in (it was exciting and nervous making,

all at the same time. After a bit he gave us some treats.We really enjoyed having Flatman here.

          By Ethan and Eben

Our turtles

Last week we had Mrs James for the whole week and made these terrific turtles! We had heaps of fun

creating our sea turtles. We think they look cool.