Plastic number 2

Last week we had a massive discussion about Plastics when we learnt they couldn't decompose.

This week Harriet shared about plastic number 2. So we did some research on plastic number 2.

Mrs Mardell knew that the ECO store a NZ company used plastic number 2 and its made from sugarcane. You can follow the link to learn more about the plastic the ECO store uses.This is sustainable meaning we can generate more sugarcane AND we can recycle it. We also learnt that anchor milk comes in plastic number 2 bottles.

They call plastic number 2 Carbon Capture plastic. this little video explains it.

We agreed though that less plastic was still best.

Being environmentally wise with plastics

Ben, Izzy,Ethan, Fletcher,Paddy,Grace,Sulaisea,Harper,Scarlett, Amaya, Payden,Sarah and  Yeji had a massive discussion about plastics in our world. 

We all know that plastic is not good. 

Mrs Cowsill spoke about Henderson Island in the Pacific ocean. 

The problem is huge. Here are some more links to find out more:

How did plastic get into our food?
The story of bottled water
Our place in the plastic world NZ

There are some awesome projects going on to clean our planet, but with more plastics being used. 

Find out how an 18 year old's invention is cleaning up some of the oceans.

Think....

It costs money - How is this funded?

Is this enough? 

Is it the solution?

What is the solution?

In NZ we have Sustainable coastlines  helping us to keep our coast lines tidy.

Garden to Table with Room 5

Week 1
We learnt where everything was in the school. Some of us were surprised that we have a fruity forest (It's growing), the Kakariki gardens, the garden beds on the steps, the raising pods close to the compost heap and the worm farm!

We found a Fejoa tree with Oyster scale that we need to spray.

We tidied up the raising pods

Week 2
Mothers day herb harvest with Miss Stevenson! 


Mrs Mardell is in Room 3.


Week 3
Its raining! 
Group 1 managed to do some weeding before it started to rain.
We decided not to spray the oyster scale on the fejoas with Neem spray as it would just wash off. We have to wait for a sunny day.

That's ok we've got lots of learning learning about why we compost and worm farm on the blog. 
Click on the links above to learn more.

Homework for next Thursday

Watch the videos on compost and wormfarming and read and think about the questions with the videos

Every Thursday

•  Remember your rain coat, sensible shoes and warm clothes, so we can get out into the garden.
• 
  
• You might like to get your own pair of gardening gloves at Mitre 10 or Bunnings.

Aphids Attack

Today we found our swan plants decimated by aphids. Decimated means destroyed.

There were so aphids that our swan plants were dying. Mrs Mardell decided that we should pull them out. 

We had questions:

What were aphids?

How do we get rid of them?

and Why were there so many?

What are aphids?

Aphids are pesky insects that like to eat soft shots on certain plants. 

Read about aphids here.

How do we get rid of them? 

We need to remove the aphids so they stop sucking the sap of the swan plants. When they puncture the shoot with their mouth pieces they can make the plant sick by introducing other diseases, as well as drinking the sap needed for the leaf shots to grow.

We can use a spray to get rid of the aphids. 

We can encourage ladybirds to come into our garden to eat the aphids. 

for more information on how to stop the aphids eating our plants read here.
We like to remove our aphids by brushing them off gently with a paintbrush. That way our  our caterpillars are not effected.

Think: what plants can we grow that also help to deter aphids?

Why are there so many?
Female aphids produce 5 offspring a day for 30 days! if all five of those babies are females this adds more aphids very quickly.

More about aphids

Coleslaw from the garden

Wowsers we have a cabbage!
Eeeewwwww cabbage! Children all over the world say.
Soggy cabbage is the worst way to eat cabbage!

We used our red cabbage to make coleslaw.

Red cabbage is not only much more exciting to look at, but it has more phytonutrients.
Phytonutrients are found in different coloured plants they are nutrients that give the plants their colour. Each colour provides different nutrients. When we eat the different coloured plants we get a variety of nutrients to use in our bodies.

Here is what we harvested to make our coleslaw.

Yes we are using super greens - kale.

What a perfect half a cabbage. No bugs inside!

We need to slice the cabbage finely. We could use the food processor, but we are practising knife skills.

We used the food processer to grate the carrot though!

We chopped up the herbs. We have mint and sage.

We took the tough stalks out of the kale and them sliced up the more tender leaves.

Mrs Mardell made a dressing from yogurt, orange juice, our herbs and a splash of apple cider vinegar. Apple cider vinegar helps to soften the cabbage and kale when we leave it to stand. The longer we leave the coleslaw to sit with its dressing on, the softer it becomes. This is why sometimes people don't put dressing on their coleslaw or salad until they are ready to eat it. They don't want soggy leaves, they want crisp leaves.


Then we tasted our coleslaw. Anything we didn't eat we put into the compost to recycle it back into compost for the next crop of vegetables to grow.

Blogger app is down but we've been busy

At the end of 2016 the blogger app went down which made it impossible to blog!

Mrs Cowsill's class had so much fun in the gardens and got to harvest much of the other classes work.

Feed the soil!

Today was all about caring for our plants. We can't take them for a walk but they still need feeding! 

First of all we pulled out the weeds because weeds take away food from our vegetables. 

Then Mrs Mardell sprinkled on blood and bone fertiliser. It's the most organic and SAFE fertiliser to use. We want to use safe products as we have small people around and these are vegetables we will eat. What we eat becomes us. 

The blood and bone was stinky a few people said. We discussed where blood and bone came from. 

We either raked the blood and bone into the soil or we covered it with ready prepared compost. 

When it rains the nutrients will wash into the soil and our plants will suck them up through their roots. 

What we planted: 

A courgette plant. An alternative name for courgette is zucchini. 

An aubergine or eggplant plant. (Another plant with two names)

Six cherry tomato plants. Because Tomoto plants produce big tomato crops they need extra food. We dug the holes deeper than we needed we put tomato food in the bottom, covered the food with soil, then planted the tomato plants on top. These plants we need to keep well watered to have lots of juicy fat tomatoes!