Stem Challenge

This week the Kauri Team have been taking part in a STEM challenge. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. That means we need to use skills from all of these areas to help us solve the problem.

In room 21 we built bucket towers, have a look at our creations.

Butterfly Creek

To follow up all the learning we have done about spiders and insects, last week we went on a trip with Room 20 to Butterfly Creek.

There was a lot to see and do there and we had a fabulous time.

Paul showed us a giant weta and told us all about how it was dying out, there was only one island left in New Zealand that they lived on. But because of a breeding programme they are now living on 3 islands. Miss Williams got to hold the weta, she said its legs tickled her hands and its abdomen (tummy) was cold.

We all went exploring around and saw lots of amazing creatures, there was a farm where we could pat the animals.

A dinosaur kingdom where the dinosaurs moved,

There was an aquarium, we managed to find Nemo, Marlin and Dory in there. There was a butterfly room full of all sorts of tropical butterflies. Because the butterflies are from tropical places it was very hot in the butterfly room.

We met Paul and another keeper in the butterfly room and they told us all about blue tongued lizards and tarantulas. Zoe asked Paul if tarantulas are mean because sometimes they bite humans. He told us that no animals are really mean, the only reason they hurt other living things is because they feel threatened or because they need to eat.

Most of us agreed that the butterfly room was our favourite. If you stood still long enough then the butterflies would come and land on you.

Just before we left we got to see the crocodile show. Paul and another keeper were feeding scar, an Australian Salt Water Crocodile. Check out the videos below of Scar jumping for his food.

You can see all of the photos from the trip in our Butterfly Creek album.

Big Aroha

Last Term our school put together a music video for the band The Slacks, who performed at our school fair. Check out the video below