Enviro Schools Update

The Green Thumbs Environmental team has been working on getting our Environment Silver Award. We are being interviewed on Tuesday the 11th of November. We helped host the Te Anau Environment Hui. It was such an amazing experience and we enjoyed it so much. We hope we can do it again very soon. Mark, Pat and Amy from Environment Southland helped us a lot throughout all our years being an Enviro School and are so proud of our amazing accomplishments as an Enviro School. We are proud of our fun times as the amazing Enviro School that we are. Hopefully we can continue being an Enviro School and we hope we will get our Silver Enviro School award. Then later on we hope to achieve the achievement of the Gold Enviro School award.

By Fergus, Jake and Jayden

Corrugated Iron Bird

Bird Nesting Box

Willow Hut

Native Tree Area

Enviro Schools Hui

On Thursday the 23^rd of October all the Enviro schools came to Te Anau for a Hui. First of all Kids Restore the Kepler did a speech, secondly we split up in our groups for a tour of the bird park. In the duck enclosure there were two goose nests with eggs. Then we went to see the kaka. The kaka eats kowhai leaves. After that we jumped into the cars and went to the Kepler track. At the track we did all sorts of fun activities like the blind game when a buddy guides you to a tree blindfolded and then you have to find it again with no blindfold. Then we learnt to use a tracking transmitter and find birds. We meet Billy the stoat again and set off a stoat trap. Then we walked deeper down then track to a huge tree. We got back to the car park and did some trading. We traded honey for a bird nesting box and Snapdragons for a corrugated iron bird. We finished and everyone went home.  It was a very enjoyable day. We are looking forward to the next hui.

This is a cat caught in a trap.  

Jayden

Here is Jayden sharing his poem.

Jayden

Enviro jobs

On Friday the 29th of August we did enviro jobs around the school like filling the sand pit, repairing the willow hut, picking up rubbish, weeding the garden and filling in the hangi pit. It was our spring cleanup for the school. We had lots of fun doing are jobs and we wish we could do it again.

Lindsay, Connor, Jonty and Cory filling the sand pit.

Jayden, Caitlin, Fergus and Teagan fixing the willow hut.

Luke and Esther are weeding the garden.

 Tessa filling the hangi pit.

Thomas and Destinee are filling the new garden boxes.

Te Anau School Hangi

On the third of July Te Anau School had a hangi to celebrate the end of their Matariki topic. Over Term 2 we all did lots of art through out the classes. At the start of the term Room 12 was put in charge of digging the hangi. Over a few weeks we completed it. It was hard work. When the day came for our hangi it was cancelled but Redcliff restaurant kindly cooked our vegetables and Dale’s hangi team cooked the meat on BBQs. We also sang songs like at a traditional Matariki celebration.

We had some food once we sang our songs. Yum Yum. We had lots of different varieties of food like root vegetables and meat. We reckon the best one were the chops. Once we finished eating our parents looked through the classes. What a day. But it wouldn’t have been possible with out the parents, Dale’s team, the teachers, Redcliff, Kiwi Holiday Park for donating their place, Mr Rush and all the children.

Written by Thomas, Lindsay and Jayden

Takahe Visit

Takahe visit

On the 12^th of June 4 students of Te Anau School went up to the Burwood Takahe breeding center to visit the school’s adopted Takahe called Murchison.

When we got to Burwood we had to climb an awkward ladder to get in to the enclosure.

At Burwood there are about 33 Takahe that is about 11.5% of the worlds Takahe population.

Unfortunately we didn’t get to see Murchison but we saw a lot of Takahe the same age as him so we sort of know what he looks like.

We helped catch takahe by blocking the exits when we had finally cornered the Takahe the DOC specialists weigh them by their legs. Also looking for good blood tip feathers so they can figure out which gender they are.

By Jayden, Fergus, Samantha and Esther