Sprouting Kumara

 Just before the school holidays, Mrs McLellan showed us how to sprout kumara in our online meeting. 

1. Poke 4 toothpicks into the side of a kumara and balance it in a jar or container. 

2. Add water to the jar so that the bottom of the kumara is covered with water. 

3. Place the jar in a sunny spot for a few weeks and wait for the roots and leaves to grow.

Just before we could come back to school in our bubbles, Mrs McLellan carefully pulled off the shoots (with their roots)  and put them in another jar to bring to school. Here's a video of her explaining how.

In the afternoon of Bubble 7's first day back at school, we went to our school garden to plant the kumara shoots. First we had to clear away lots of weeds and overgrown vegetables. We left some parsley, curly kale and a cabbage growing. We harvested a handful of tiny potatoes and a spring onion (which we gave to the two gardening group students in the senior block). 

   

 

  

On a sunny afternoon, it was hard, hot work with our masks on! We filled up the compost bin, and worked together to drag the rest of the weeds to top up Dave's compost bin by the pool too. We were visited by a chirpy piwakawaka and were surprised by a spider, as we disturbed its resting place. We'll try to identify it in our bubble class this coming week.

 

When the garden was cleared, we worked in pairs to plant the kumara shoots. We put the roots in a hole, laid the shoot sideways towards the east (where the sun rises) and covered part of the stems. This is supposed to help the plant make more roots and grow more kumara. Then we watered our plants and headed back to the classroom for a well-deserved rest! Our bodies were certainly feeling the effort and satisfaction that goes into providing healthy food. 

  

Blog Ponder: World Car Free Day

 

Today is World Car Free Day. It is a day set aside to highlight the environmental pollution made by cars and encourage people to consider (and try) other options for transport like walking, bus, train, cycling, scootering, and so on.  As well as environmental benefits, the day can encourage our physical wellbeing (for example, getting exercise) and give us experiences of other ways of travelling around our communities. You can learn more about the way this day started and is celebrated here.

While we have been in Alert Level 4, many of us have not used our cars as much - or at all! The requirement to stay local has meant more people have gone for a walk or bike ride, or only used their car for short trips. At the end of the first Level 4 lockdown in 2020, a science project to monitor carbon emissions (one type of pollution from cars) studied grass clippings collected by volunteers at regular times over 12 weeks. The results showed that, in some places, the emissions were 80% lower in Level 4 than in Level 1!

Today, think about the way a car is used in your family in ordinary life (when we can travel freely at other alert levels). Below are three examples of opinions about this topic. Can you think of habits or ways you could change easily to rely less on cars? Do you think World Car Free Day is an effective idea?

Example 1: "My mum drives me to school. Then she drives my big brother to his school. We need a car."

Example 2: "I can use my scooter to get to school every morning. It will take me the same amount of time since we won't get stuck in traffic."

Example 3: "We live 4 kilometres away. There's no way I could walk or cycle to school."

In the comments below, add your ideas or respectfully respond to one of these situations, saying whether or not you agree and why. 

Oat the Goat thinking hats

 Kia Ora Bloggers,

This week is Bully Free NZ week and we are going to be reading more about this and doing some activities in our class.  This morning, we watched a story called Oat the Goat.  It was story that was about being nice to people and it had an important message about not bullying people. 

We were asked to do a thinking hat activity.  We got some ideas from the story and matched them to the different hats so we could think about our story in different ways.  This helps our understanding. Here are the ideas that we shared as a class.

Have a read of our ideas and have a look at the story yourself.  We would love some comments!