Thanks HVDRT

Take a look at our thank you card for the wonderful helpers at HVDRT (Hutt Valley Disable Resources Trust). Have a look at the post below this one to learn about all they did for us.

Clearing the Gardens ready for Term 4

We have been so lucky to have the help of the strong women and men at the Hutt Valley Disable Resources Trust (HVDRT) who volunteered to help clear our school gardens ready for term 4. After winter the gardens were overgrown, but now, with all the help, the gardens are already being planted by all our classes from New Entrants to the Year 5 and 6 classes, including the Enviro Group Greenies.
Take a look...

A great result! Thanks HVDRT.

COMPOSTING REVIVAL!

WE NOW HAVE COMPOST BUCKETS IN EVERY CLASSROOM! YAY!
We are composting all our food scraps into the compost and one junior class is feeding our 2 work farms. Thanks again to Mr Rubick for building our composting bays by re-cycling old wooden pellets!

Planting with the Greenies

A new take on "Diggers"

Our gardening Greenies have planted out herbs, vegetables and flowers into some of the school gardens. Yum! Can't wait to try some of those fresh edibles!

Composting system

We now have 2 new composting bays for our school food scraps. Mr Rubick kindly made these bins for our compost and now we are ready to get composting in all our classes.
Just remember that we don't put meat or chicken bones into the compost.

These composting bins can be found next to the worm farm in the school gardens. Thanks Mr Rubick!

Fonterra Milk - recycling

At school we are starting to get milk delivered from Fonterra. After lunch someone from the class will go and get a box full of cartons of cold milk and hand it out to the class. After that we have to fold it in a certain way. When all the cartons of milk have been folded and put in special bins they get sent all the way to Malaysia and get  made into roof tiles and booklets for people. 
I think the idea of having milk at school is good because milk makes your bones strong.

Bee-autiful Day

Four senior students went to Epuni School to learn how to care for bees last week.

 We met a bee keeper and tried eating comb honey.

We planted sunflower seeds. Bees love sunflowers.

We made gifts of packets of seeds to give away.

It is really important to care for bees. Without bees plants cannot be pollinated and so will not grow. Plants provide us with food, so bees are very important for humans to live. We need to plant flowering plants that bees love.

WORLD OF WASTE (WOW) tour

On the 6^th August the Year 5 and 6 Greenies went on a WORLD OF WASTE (WOW) tour with the HCC (thanks Micheline!). We learned all about how rubbish is handled safely in the Hutt Valley. We also learned about recycling by visiting EARTHLINK and the SEAVIEW RECYCLING STATION.  At The Dowse Art Gallery we learned about how Maori recycle plants into useful and environment friendly things. It was too wet to visit the WORM FARM. Here are some photos from our trip.

 Keeping safe

 

Recycling items

 Rubbish tip

 

Recycling station

 

Ready for transporting

 

Learning about Papatuanuku Earth Mother

PRUNING OUR FRUIT TREES!!

Yesterday we had a man from the Hutt City Council come and prune our fruit trees ready for spring.
He brought his own tools and knew what branches to keep and which had to go. Pruning the trees will make them better at producing fruit.

Environmentally friendly sandwich wrappers.

Take a look at Jackson's sandwich wrapper! No rubbish in his lunch box!

MATARIKI AND SUSTAINING OUR MAORI CULTURE

As an Enviroschool we know the importance of sustaining and celebrating our Maori culture. Here at Boulcott we have been studying Maori legends to celebrate Matariki. Here is some of our artwork about Matariki and these legends.

WELLINGTON HABOUR:

Once long ago, before the time of Kupe, when Te Ika-a-Māui was just fished from the depths of the ocean, there lived two taniwha, Ngake and Whātaitai.

In those times, Wellington Harbour, Te Whanganui-a-Tara, was a lake cut off from the sea, and abundant in fresh water fish and native bird life. Ngake and Whātaitai lived here in the lake at the head of the fish of Māui (Te Ika-a-Māui)...

MATARIKI:

Matariki is the Māori name for the small cluster of stars also known as the Pleiades or the Seven Sisters, in the Taurus constellation. In New Zealand it comes into view low on the north-eastern horizon, appearing in the tail of the Milky Way in the last days of May or in early June, just before dawn. This heralds the Māori New Year.

TAKING CARE OF OUR SCHOOL'S TREES

We have so many lovely trees here at Boulcott, some big enough to climb in. Some trees are still young and are trying to grow. We need to make sure we only climb or swing on the really big trees, otherwise we damage the smaller trees. Here are some photos of some of the damage caused already. 

We need to choose carefully when we want to find a tree to climb!

GREENIE GARDENS

We Greenies are starting our own GREENIE GARDENS in the school's gardens. We have 4 gardens just for the year 4-6 Greeneies to grow things. This week we weeded the beds and turned the soil. Next term we will be planting!

NOOD FOOD

Our Nood Food lunch launch went really well. We Greenies  handed out Greenie Points (like House Points) and lollies to the kids who brought NOOD FOOD lunches. It was amazing to see all the wonderful lunch boxes that had no rubbish. YaY!

We Greenies will keep choosing random days to hand out Greenie Points to great NOOD FOOD lunches.

  

    

    

We had heaps of fun!

"NOOD FOOD!"

Our Greenie Group had a rubbish audit and counted all the rubbish we bring to school in our lunchboxes in one week. They decided that our lunchboxes have way too much rubbish in them. So they began working on a project called “Nood Food” to try and cut down the amount of rubbish we all bring to school in our lunchboxes.

All the Greenies are going to visit every class and show a presentation about the results of our rubbish audit and the Nood Food project. Watch a small part of their presentation by clicking on the video…

If you want to watch the rest of the presentation come to assembly next week.

Greenies talking to the Hutt City Council

On the 19th of May 2015 two Greenies (Rishabh and  Kienan) went to the Hutt City Council 10 year planning meeting in Petone. (The HCC funds the Enviroschools projects in the Hutt Valley.) We went with Ms Nankivell and Micheline (from Enviroschools). We had to talk about what we Greenies have been involved in at Boulcott School.  We talked to Mayor Wallace and other council members.  He asked us about what changes have there been at school. We did an awesome job and because of that we got a hot chocolate and a piece of slice because we did a great job. We also got a photo with Mayor Wallace.

Here we are with Mayor Wallace.

Here we are talking about our school with the councillors.

 The Mayor is at the top table.

The Mayor was really friendly and interested in what we do.