Sam the Trap Man - Rat/Stoat Trap & Possum Trap Update

We have been having trouble with our traps - they aren't catching anything! So we asked Sam Gibson who has worked with DoC and Goodnature to come and talk to us about trapping. He was full of information and helped us relocate our traps. 
Sam lowered the rat trap. It was originally 12 cm off the ground but is now only a shaka (a term he discovered when he was in Hawaii - it's a handshake) from the ground. He also put the possum trap in a willow tree because possums will only climb for two reasons; either to be soclal or to eat. The willow tree serves both purposes. 
He also told us lots of other interesting information. Some we had learnt from our research at the beginning of the year (but we had forgotten lots) and some we had never heard of before. We will post our top 5 facts on our individual blogs soon.
We also now have the Goodnature dashboard so we can see where our traps are and any hotspots. What do you think a hotspot is?
Sam also gave us two more traps for the sheds we have seen rats in at school. We were so excited because it took us ages to get the ones we already have.

The shaka

The A12 possum trap being

installed on a willow tree.

Here's what we can see on our Goodnature dashboard. We can zoom in and out on the laptop. It will also collate all our information so we can study the graphs.

Stolen Artifact - Carmen Sandiego Strikes Again!

We got such a shock when we arrived at school this morning to see crime scene tape on the windows and door, and our classroom was trashed. Desks had been tipped over, books and unfix blocks were scattered everywhere and our art work had been dumped on the floor. 
Then, in our Drive, was a message from A.C.M.E. It seems the villainous Carmen Sandiego has stolen something from school and the detective agency need new recruits to help solve the crime. So today, we started our spy training. We need to complete a course that includes code breaking, memory training, target practice, laser beam avoidance, bomb squad training, evidence destroying and an agility course. Failure to pass will result in expulsion from Spy School and a possible short-term memory wipe.
We have put our fingerprints into the A.C.M.E computer data base system, made up our code names, talked about the Spy Code of Ethics (you can see these on our individual blogs) and passed the agility and stealth tests.
When we pass the training, we will be able to work out what has been stolen.
Here's the letter we received today:

Greetings Room 1

You have been invited to a Spy Training Camp (during class time) where you will sign up to be ‘Agents in Training’ and complete our initiation programme involving code cracking, fitness and stealth activities, disguises and Code Names. Then, The Chief (your teacher!) will assign you to a case. We will be chasing Carmen Sandiego, a criminal mastermind, across the globe.

The scenario so far...
A.C.M.E. Detective Agency has issued an all-points bulletin. Carmen Sandiego has turned rogue again and has escaped. She has made contact with her V.I.L.E. (the Villains' International League of Evil) henchpeople. They are on the loose and ready to spread more mayhem around the world!

A.C.M.E. Detective Agency requires more agents which is where Room 1 steps in.
Who is she? Our target! Carmen Sandiego, a criminal mastermind and the elusive nemesis of A.C.M.E.  Detective Agency. She is a former A.C.M.E. agent and ringleader of V.I.L.E. (Villains’ International League of Evil). Sandiego often stole rare works of art that were iconic to a particular locale, then meandered on a path through various cities and countries in order to throw the detectives off of her trail. Agents piece together clues related to those locations, thereby furthering our progress and learning in the process. Henchmen, by such names as “Ruth Less,” “Joy Ryder,” “Yul B. Sorry”, and “M. T. Pockets,” will be captured by detectives along the way, each of them leading us closer and closer to capturing Sandiego.

The Chief will drop clues that you will take home to research. The clues will lead Agents to locations all around the world. At each new destination, students will place a marker on their Google My Maps and are encouraged to write a ‘fun fact’ about the country, name it’s capital city, currency or official languages.

The chase is on!

Kind regards,

A.C.M.E. (no real names will EVER be revealed!)

Making Movies with Kieran

Room 1 were in Room 8 learning how to make movies.

Kieran made this movie in Explain Everything.

Parihaka

We have been learning about Parihaka...

One hundred and fifty years ago there was a village in Taranaki called Parihaka. It lay between the Taranaki coast and Taranaki mountain. 
This village was special because people from many different Māori tribes had come to live there. Many had had their land confiscated and needed a safe place to live – to grow their food and raise their families. Parihaka was also a special place because it was a place of peace. 
The leaders of the village were Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi. They didn’t believe in fighting. They had heard the words of Jesus in the bible which said, “If anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer him the other as well”. They told the people to put away their weapons. They told them that if government soldiers came to take their land, they should greet them with gifts. 
One early morning in Parihaka an important event occurred. The people were just beginning to move around the village when a large albatross came down to land on Tohu’s marae and left a feather there. The people believed that the albatross was a chiefly bird with much mana. By landing on Tohu’s marae, the albatross was indicating that Tohu was a great chief and the people should listen to him. The people began to follow the ways that Tohu taught them. And the albatross feather (or raukura) became an important sign for the people of Parihaka. 
The children of Parihaka were called tātarakihi which means ‘cicadas’. The older people said they sounded like cicadas because they chattered so much. The children had jobs to do at Parihaka. They helped to 
feed the hens and the pigs, and they helped to grow food in the gardens. They also played together and learned to dance and sing. 
One day Tohu and Te Whiti called the people to the marae, and told them: 
“Kua rere mai te kōrero ki ō mātou tāringa, āpōpō ka tae mai ngā hōia ki konei ki te raupatu i ō tātou whenua. Me noho tātou ki konei, ki runga i te marae ātea, tatari ai ki a rātou. Ka tunu ngā wāhine i te parāoa mā rātou , ka waiata hoki ngā tamariki ki te ope hōia.”  
“We have heard that the soldiers are coming tomorrow to try to make us leave our land. We will sit here on the marae and wait for them. The women will bake bread for them and the children will sing and dance.” 
So, late into the night the people of Parihaka prepared for the soldiers to come. Just before the sun rose the children went out onto the road leading into the village. When the soldiers arrived with their guns they saw the children of Parihaka singing and dancing in the road with albatross feathers in their hair. 
The children couldn’t stop the soldiers from entering the village and taking the men to prison, but they made the soldiers ashamed of their swords and their guns. No-one was killed in Parihaka that day because the people refused to fight the soldiers with weapons. Instead they stood up to them with courage and mana. Sometimes the descendants of the people of Parihaka wear albatross feathers to remember the dignity of their tūpuna and how they resisted giving up their land without using violence.

(from the Caritas resource)

We created a google drawing showing the values the people of Parihaka showed. You can see these on our individual blogs.

Smart Media - Real of Fake?

Room 1 created some images to show us how images can be altered.

Take a look - are they real or fake?

Ghost

Term 4 has started with a hiss and a roar and we have jumped right back into learning. On our Reading taskboard, we have a new rotation that links to the book Mrs Naden is reading to us every day.
This term we are reading Ghost by Jason Reynolds. It is about a boy called Ghost (his real name is Castle Cranshaw) who impulsively challenges an elite sprinter to a race..and wins! An Olympic medalist track coach sees he has natural talent. The thing is, Ghost has something else too: a lot of anger, and a past that he tries to outrun. We are only up to Chapter 4 so far and it is intense!
Our Reading tasks vary; some are drawing, some are Minecraft, some are research, some are Lego, some are word meanings, plus lots more. You might see these tasks on our individual blogs throughout the term.

Hatching Chickens

In our class we have borrowed an incubator from Mrs Wagner's son because over the Christmas holidays last year our school chickens were stolen. We have school chickens, so we can sell the eggs in the office. We use the money for our Enviroschool projects. The money also pays for the chicken feed.
Anyway, in Term 1 we borrowed an incubator but couldn't get any fertilised eggs. We had to wait until spring time to try again. We now have 8 eggs that are being kept warm inside the incubator. But it isn't just a matter of waiting for them to hatch. There are certain things we have to do. Here's what we have found out:
1. Fill the base completely with water. Place the thermometer end into the lid. Place the lid back on and let the incubator reach 37.5 degrees Celsius and 40-50% humidity.
2. Mark the eggs on one side with an X and the other side an O - so when we turn the eggs we will have an X facing the top and then next time we turn them there will be an O on top.
3. Once the incubator is at 37.5 degrees Celsius, place the eggs into the incubator in the centre all facing X upwards then cover with the lid again.
4. Turn the eggs at least 4 times a day for the first 18 days. Each time the eggs are turned, make sure it goes from X to O to X to O etc.
5. Keep filling the small water tray part to keep the humidity at 40-50% for the first 18 days.
6. On about day 10-12, carefully shine a small torch or phone light against the shell. You will be able to see the veins and the new chick forming. If there is nothing, the egg is infertile and no chicken will hatch.
7. Follow all these instructions till day 18 with humidity and turning daily.
8. Day 18 don't turn the eggs, just fill the larger outside water tray and inner so the whole bottom is full with water and bring the humidity to between 70-80%. Cover with the lid again and do not disturb the incubator again.
9. By day 21 our eggs should be pipping and hatching. Try not to disturb the incubator and let the chicks sort themselves. If cracked, but still stuck in the egg shell, we can give them a slight bit of help getting out of the eggs but we have to be careful. Try not to open the lid while the eggs are hatching as this disturbs the humidity and each time the incubator has to build the humidity up again.
10. Once a few or all of the chicks have hatched and fluffed up in the incubator, remove them into a box with a heat lamp, shallow water container and chick crumbles for the first day or two. If any eggs remain unhatched, replace the lid quickly and leave for a couple more days. If they still don't hatch, turn off the incubator and dispose of the eggs.
11. Once chicks are in a brooder box - if they are all huddled together they are cold so the light needs to be lowered. If they are all spread out, the light is too low and needs to be higher. Always have fresh, clean water and keep chick crumbles available all the time. After 3 months, change to a pellet for another 2-3 months then at 6 months when they begin to lay, they can have layer pellets, grains and food scraps.

Things we are having trouble with;

• keeping the temperature at 37.5 degrees Celsius
• keeping the humidity between 40-50%
• turning the eggs 4 times a day when we leave school at 2.30pm.

October - the Month of the Rosary

October is the month of the Rosary. We are learning about the different prayers we say for the different beads. Our task is to write a set of instructions so we know which prayers to say. Check out our individual blogs at the end of the week as we will post them when we have finished.

Silver Reflection Day - Enviroschools

We are aiming to be a Silver Enviroschool. For this to happen, the students of our school need to be able to explain a lot of things that have been happening. This week, Kirsty and Kauri from Tairāwhiti Enviroschools will be coming to our school. We will welcome them with a whakatau, then show them around the school telling them about what we have been doing and why. Then  each class will tell them about the 5 guiding principles (empowered students, respect for diversity of people and cultures, Māori perspectives, learning for sustainability, and sustainable communities).
Room 1 will also be telling them about our rat trap journey so far. The video we have made for them to watch is here.

Rat/Stoat Trap and now a Possum Trap: Update

If you have been reading our blog then you will know we are passionate about the native reserve we have been planting and looking after for a few years. One of the main problems we found when we set tracking tunnels is that the rats, stoats and possums have been eating the native seeds, berries and insects. We originally borrowed some traps from DOC and caught some massive rats. Unfortunately one trap was stolen. We knew we had to buy our own ones so we researched what traps we wanted to buy for our school. We finally decided to buy Goodnature’s A24 rat/stoat trap and the A12 possum trap. One of the reasons we thought these were the best was because they reset themselves and we were having trouble looking after the traps over the holidays or when the wet weather meant we couldn't get down there. The next problem was funding it. We applied for some grants but were unsuccessful. We didn’t give up. We decided to apply for a grant from the Tairāwhiti Enviroschools and Eastland Port and we were successful! So we bought the traps. Once they were delivered, we set up the A24 last week and the A12 this week. The A24 has a chirp in it which we have synced to Mrs Naden’s phone. When we catch a rat or stoat it will send her a notification. We tested it out and it works. Now the problem is, whenever we hear her phone ping we all jump up and shout “WE’VE GOT ONE!” and head for the door. But Mrs Naden’s checks it and says, “Sorry guys, it’s just a text!” She’s thinking about putting her phone on silent!



Next time we will video landscape!

Advertisements

In Reading, we have been learning to identify the author’s purpose. It’s as easy as PIE (persuade, inform or entertain). We have been creating advertisements to persuade you to either buy Sploosh or a foot odour cure. These two ideas came from the novel we are reading in class called Holes by Louis Sachar.

We thought carefully about what our adverts needed:

• The price
• Persuasive language to entice customers
• An eye-catching image
• A catchy slogan
• Where this item can be purchased
• A celebrity endorsement

Check out our individual blogs to see them. Here's Catalina's:

Amazon Rainforest Wildfires

We saw the Amazon Rainforest wildfires on the T.V. news last week so this week we have been reading articles and watching videos about them. It also tied in with our expositions (persuasive writing) on climate change. 

.

We were shocked at how many fires there have been this year and wondered about the effects they are having on the wildlife and tribespeople who live in the rainforest. 

As part of our Reading task, we created google drawings highlighting the effects of the fires. We thought carefully about the message we wanted to convey. You can view these on our individual blogs which will be published in the next few days.

Maths Quizzes

For Maths Week last week, we began creating our own Maths quizzes. We carried on with these this week.
We have been learning to:

• link slides to slides
• duplicate slides - design once & use again & again
• think about the maths currently being learnt and use this in our slides
• respond appropriately if the answer is wrong in a positive, thoughtful, helpful way
• design slides so they are appropriate for school (thinking of a theme)

We also thought about making our slides attention grabbing.

Check out our individual blogs and play our Maths quizzes. They will hopefully be posted by the end of the week.

Here is Catalina's for you to try:

Interdependence Inquiry

As part of our Interdependence Inquiry, we helped the bees and flowers by planting more flowers. 

Bees and flowering plants have a mutualistic relationship where both species benefit. Flowers provide bees with nectar and pollen, which worker bees collect to feed their entire colonies. Bees provide flowers with the means to reproduce, by spreading pollen from flower to flower in a process called pollination.

Interdependence

As part of our Inquiry, we are learning about interdependence. But what is it? That's exactly what we had to find out for our Reading task this week. Check out our individual blogs to find out what it means and examples of interdependence.

Tom Fedro Art

Chicago artist Tom Fedro creates art with zing and boundless humour. His art is innovative, creative and playful. He combines pop art collage and whimsical portraiture that has a rhythm all of its own. Bright colours, big features and bold lines that seem to be electrically charged, represent an exciting way of seeing and experiencing the world through his eyes. 
We created Tom Fedro inspired paintings using his artwork Once Again as a starting point.

Learning Intention: 
WALT use painting techniques.
Success Criteria: 
We will use:
• Both sides of the paint brush
• Bright colours
• Bold lines
• Tints and shades to show light direction

Check out our masterpieces on our individual blogs.

St Mary of the Cross MacKillop's Feast Day

Today is the feast day of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop. Our school celebrated a lovely mass together with our parish community.
Mary MacKillop was the co-founder of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, a religious order who predominantly served people who were disadvantaged by poverty or isolation. In 2010 Mary MacKillop was canonized a saint by Pope Benedict XVl. She lived a life marked by virtuous actions. With the help of others, Mary did good work out of love of God and neighbour. Mary didn’t only help children by running schools, she and her sisters also helped other people such as homeless women and children, poor elderly women, orphans, and people in jail.
Since 1913, the Sisters of St Joseph, also known as ‘Brown Joes’, have played a big
part in Catholic education right here in Gisborne. Both St Mary’s Catholic Primary
School and Campion College have Brown Joe origins in their DNA and the gift of the
Josephite charism lives on today in the hearts and minds of many of our parishioners.

St. Mary of the Cross MacKillop, pray for us.

After mass, Room 1 answered three questions about Mary MacKillop. You can find their answers on their individual blogs.

One of St Mary MacKillop's quotes that we live by is "Do your bit" so we also celebrated her feast day by doing just that. We planted more native trees in our Rerenga Awa, weeded around some that are already established and picked up the rubbish that had blown down there.

Bees

Descriptive Writing

For Writing, we are learning to describe. This week we read a piece about Winter and analysed the good bits and brainstormed what else the writer could have done. Then we co-constructed our success criteria and decided what we wanted to write about. 

Now we are writing our own. We will post these on our individual blogs towards the end of this week.

Holes by Louis Sachar

This is the first week of Term 3 and we have jumped right back into learning. On our Reading taskboard, we have a new rotation that links to the book Mrs Naden is reading. Every afternoon, she reads the book and we follow along on the T.V. as the book is also on Mrs Naden's kindle which links to the laptop. 
This term we are reading Holes by Louis Sachar. Our tasks vary; some are drawing, some are Minecraft, some are research, some are Lego, some are word meanings, plus lots more. You might see these tasks on our individual blogs throughout the term.

Science Fair

For the past three weeks, we have been carrying out our Science Fair investigations. First we had to decide what we wanted to investigate and form a question and hypothesis. Next we worked out what materials we needed and how we were going to carry out our experiment (method). After that, we recorded our results, talked about what worked, what didn't and how we could improve it. Then we wrote up our science experiments on shared google slides, displayed the information on our science boards and created QR codes if we had videoed anything or wanted to explain something to you. Throughout the week, we will be posting our google slides on our individual blogs - keep an eye out because they will appear at different times during the week.

Sketching Wolves

For the past two weeks, we have been learning how to sketch using a 5 point tonal scale. Using our 6B sketching pencils, we followed Mark Crilley's YouTube tutorial on how to sketch a wolf. 

We were so excited and proud of our results that many of us carried on at home, and also came to school early to do more before school started.

                       

Rat/Stoat Trap Update

The rain finally cleared and it was a beautiful day to go down to our Rerenga Awa to do a quick clean up of rubbish, see how the new natives we planted are doing, and check out our traps to see if the rats liked the dog biscuits we laid as bait. And they answer is.....NO! The traps have not been touched. We're going to reset them again with a rotten egg. The white trap that Josh is holding in the photo had cheese - it looks like they didn't like that either. We still can't find the peanut butter container on Mrs Naden's desk so she will bring in some more...unless someone has some nutella at home they could give us a scoop of?
We'll also have to do some weeding around the natives when it's not so boggy.

                                                        Mrs Naden's own 'rats nest'! 
                                                       (where is the peanut butter jar?)

Chemistry

This term we have been learning about chemical reactions and finding out about mixtures, substances, reversible and irreversible change.
For today's experiment, we made gummy worms. Now we are using appropriate words and phrases to exlplain what happened.

Saints and Inspiring People

In R.E. we are learning about saints and inspiring people. Today we learnt about St Maximillian Kolbe:

We were amazed that he gave up his life for a friend. Now we are busy researching other saints and inspiring people. We are focusing on:

• how the saint was treated by other people and why;
• what they did that inspires us and why they are good role models for us today;
• finding out why they are a saint;
• identifying the way they responded to Te Wairua Tapu (the Holy Spirit) and followed Jesus;
• would being a saint be easy? Why/why not?

Our research will be collated into a report on our chosen saint.

Rat/Stoat Trap Update

Today we went and checked out the rat/stoat trap we have set in the Rerenga Awa. We are trying to catch rats and stoats because they are eating the native berries, seeds and insects down in our native reserve. How do we know they are down there? We set tracking tunnels last year and found rat and mice footprints in them. 
It's been a while since we've been down because when we scheduled it in, it was raining, then we got side tracked with our science experiments. We were puzzled to find that something had made a nest in the trap. Mrs Naden and Mrs McCormack got some bark and fossicked under all the fluff and feathers...

But it wasn't fluff and feathers...it was...a decomposed rat! We thought the stench had been the rotten egg we had put in as bait! 

If you look closely, the thing that looks like a stick on the bottom left hand of the photo is actually its tail, and you can see its two claws! Luckily there was some wild mint growing, so we picked it and smelt it so the revolting smell would clear from our nostrils.
We have read that dog biscuits is good bait so we are trying that instead of a rotten egg. We also set our other rat trap but the peanut butter has gone missing from Mrs Naden's table. We got some cheese from the staffroom fridge (sorry teachers - you will be one piece less at morning tea time tomorrow!) and have set that one by the fence line because we think the rats like scurrying up and down it. We will keep you posted on how we go. We now know that we need to keep checking the traps every two weeks and not get side tracked. (although seeing a decomposed rat was pretty awesome!)

Learning About Change

Have you ever wondered how crystals are formed? This week we explored how they are made, conducted a science experiment, then read and wrote about what happened.

The technical language (key words) we learnt and used were:

• dissolve
• observation
• evaporate
• crystal forming chemical
• solution
• atom

 Our crystals are growing in our room

Can you explain what happened and why?

Mother's Day

In Writing this week, we wrote ten things we love about our mothers. We had to include specific nouns, adjectives, juicy verbs and a simile. Then we went onto the festisite, selected the Valentine image and typed our poems in. After that, we had to problem solve how to get our poem back into our drive ready to print to put inside our Mother's Day Card.
Here's Jemima's poem for her mother:

River Clean-Up.

After Mass today, our community got behind our school's river clean-up. Room 1 knows they are responsible for looking after God's creation, and today showed just what that means to them.

  

Get NZ Writing!

We have been a part of a nationwide scheme to get kids writing. Our first task was to write a class ‘colour’ poem.
We selected the colour BLUE and every student wrote one line, containing the colour, on a strip of paper. We then stuck each strip of paper to a shared surface and read out loud as ‘a poem’. Together, we proposed changes and reordered the strips of paper to make the poem ‘better’ (editing).  Reasons were encouraged like “it sounds better” (rhythm) and “it creates a better picture” (imagery). Then we gave the final poem a title. Read it aloud here. It is fabulous!

Kawa of Care

This term we are focusing on following our Kawa of Care.

We made our Kawa of Care earlier this term.

Google Docs Ninja Challenge

We all did this challenge this week.

Some of us got to the Black Belt.

Here is Catalina's doc showing all the things she can do.