End of another great year in Piwakawaka

 This is the link to our End of Year video.  Enjoy!

Beach Clean Up

 On a not so great West Coast Day Piwakawaka and the Crusaders Enviroschools leaders went to the Hokitka beach to conduct the Sustainable Coastlines Litter Intelligence Survey.  Whilst the Crusaders leaders worked with Emma Hunter from Sustaibale Coastlines on the Litter Intelligence Survey Piwakawaka did a beach clean up. 

The Litter intellligence survey requires us, along with Hokitika Primary and St Mary's, to survey the same 100metres of the beach and add our findings to the Sustainable Coastlines data base. We found 14 pieces of litter, categorised them, weighed them and added the information to the data base.

Along the beach we found five bags full of various litter including china plate pieces, plastic, drink bottles, wrappers, shoe inners, cartridges form fire arms and more. We bought this back to school to dispose of. Thanks to all the wonderful parents that supported us.

Korfball

 Torsten came and gave us Korfball lessons today. Korfball is a cross between netball and basketball. There are eight players on each team. Teams are mixed. It is very fast. The rules are pretty simple apart form the new one we learnt today about being either on defence or attack, and swapping our role after two goals were scored.

Our school now has it's own equipment so we are going to be able to practice regulary. 

We can also attend Korfball camps to improve our skills. There is a tournament for Year 5 and 6 students. We are really excited tot think that next year we could be playing in this tournament. Her eis some of the action!

Have you ever tried a new sport like Korfball?

We made it to silver for Enviroschools

 We made it! Kaniere School has earned their Silver Enviroschools status, the first in Westland. It was a lot of hard work. Our Crusaders representatives Zoe Adlington, Elizabeth Olson and Isla Martin stepped up becuase our senior leaders were away at camp. They gave Regional co-ordinator Zoe Watson a tour of our school, after welcoming her along with their Piwakawaka classmates, and talked about all the projects wer have worked on since becoming an Enviroschool in 2010. 

On the last day of term we had a big celebration with Fiona from the Department of Conservation presenting the Crusaders team with the Silver Certificate.  Our leaders gave tours to parents and we had a shared lunch.

We planted a Rata tree to mark the ocassion. Teno pai Kaniere!

Energy!

 Piwakawaka have been studying energy. Thi has included personal energy and solar energy. We created  exercise programmes, solar ovens and wrote explanations. Our solar ovens were used to cook Somores for the class, YUM! We have also learnt about energy in space, learning about aurora!

Spring has sprung!

Every year the ASB Bank in Hokitika has a window display to support Daffodil Day. If you don't know Daffodil Day is a fundraiser for cancer research in New Zealand. On Friday the class created some daffodils to use in the window display. We had a whole patch... so hopefully the window will be a riot ofcolour. We are definitely feeling the spring vibe in class.

Visit from the Health Nurse

Our local Health Nurse visited Piwakawaka Last week. Stephanie talked to us about washing our hands properly so we can aviod catching viruses. Before we eat we need to santise or wash our hands. We all lined up in groups to practice washing our hands. Stephanie had sprayed some pretend virus on them, then we washed and dried our hands. Stephanie then checked using an ultra violet light to see how clean our hands actually were.  THe Ultra violet light shows germ areas as white and the claen areas purple.

When it wasn't our turn we watched some Nano Girl videos our viruses and how to stop them sticking to our skin. There was a very simple experiment where you float cinnimon or pepper on a bowl of water. First you dip your finger in the water and all the 'germs' stick to the skin. then you drop a couple of drops of dish degerent into the water and watch as it repels the 'germs'. This shows us we need to use soap. Wateris not enough to clean our hands.