Kahikatea tree

Yesterday we stood underneath the giant Kahikatea tree in the Pirongia bush.
The one we were standing under was 54m tall.
Today we discovered that 54m was a very long way. With our whole class lying in a straight line we were still way shorter than the Kahikatea tree.
We used metre rulers to measure out 54m on our school field. We left one to mark the start (roots of the tree) and one to mark the end (tip of the tree).
Check out this video to see how short we were of 54m.

We also compared and contrasted the Kahikatea tree with the Skytower.
These were the similarities and differences we came up with using a Venn diagram.
Can you think of any others?

Day Two of Camp: Pirongia

What an adventurous day we had today. It was our second day of camp and we got to explore the native bush of Pirongia by walking the Mangakara Nature Walk. We found lots of interesting things to spot and look at a long the way. Plus we saw lots of places where things were working 'Interdependently.' For example the kereru (otherwise known as the NZ pigeon) likes to spread the seeds of the Miro and Tawa tree. So the kereru is helping spread these trees further into the bush while the tree is making yummy fruit for the bird to snack on. BUT the possums and rats love to eat the kereru and this can interrupt the interdependent cycle because without the bird the Miro and Tawa trees can't grow in other places.
We found a mighty Tawa tree that had fallen over in a storm nearly 13 years ago and we had to decide if it was dead or alive. We stumbled across a big boulder (rock) that we had to decide how it got there and we dipped our toes in the creek. Luckily our toes weren't nibbled on by water spiders or eels living in the creek.
Below are a few highlights from our day.

 1. What does that big black/brown thing look like to you? It looks like something is hiding in the bushes.

2. Who can find the face in the tree?

3. What do you see when you look at the truck of this tree?

Interdependence

We have been introduced to this big word called 'INTERDEPENDENCE.'
We have had a discussion around trying to figure out what this word might mean.
We know that being dependent is when we need others to do things for us that we can't do. We know that being independent is when we can do something for ourselves and we don't need help from others.
So what does it mean to be inTERdependent?
Here's a video to help explain.

Wonderbox

Today we began looking at our new topic for the term ahead.
We started looking at it with the introduction of a 'Wonderbox.'
Mrs Head pulled out some pictures one at a time and we had to write down what the picture was and make our prediction as to what our topic would be about.
Some of us guessed after just a few pictures and some of us activated our prior knowledge of Pirongia and knowing that we are heading there next week put the puzzle pieces together to predict we are looking at Native NZ.
Our bigger theme around Native NZ is looking at a big word called INTERDEPENDENCE.
This word was broken up into parts and muddled up when Mrs Head took it out of the 'Wonderbox.'
We got the word jumbled like DENCE   TER  IN   DEPEN
Some of us quickly made the word dependence and from that it we put the inter in front making INTERDEPENDENCE.
We will be looking more closely at what this word means and finding out some more about the bush before heading out to Pirongia on Tuesday.