A few pictures during morning tea...

Here are a few pictures showing off our school Enviro efforts in the class gardens...

The garden has been enjoying the rain and is looking very green!   Our community have been very kind and we have had many seedlings donated to us over the past few weeks to put in our gardens...silverbeet, onions, fennel, strawberries, beetroot, lettuces are just a few of the plants that we have been donated to plant.  We have also planted more basil and some tomatoes.

We are also really excited about our new garden going in.  This garden is due to our growing roll as well as our growing enthusiasm for growing our own kai:)

We have been making and adding more decorations to the quiet area.

Here's Charlie and Bella playing noughts and crosses in the quiet area.

Our  passionfruit vine is PUMPING!

Making Bags

Last week, the team from Flag the Bag came in to show us how to make a re-usable bag from an old t-shirt.  Here are some of the fab results.  We are planning to make a lot more bags so we can give them out at the craft fair and encourage people to FLAG THE BAG!

We were lucky enough too that Nicky brought in the Flag the Bag team's bag chain.  The chain represents all the bags that were used in one hour at one supermarket!  It was SO big, it nearly stretched right round the field and Karma had to climb up into the crows nest to try and fit it all in the photo!

More about the sand dunes...

After we had heard a little about the sand dune plants we looked at the dune that some students from Wainui Beach School had planted 6 years ago.  The plants were still there and the dune was looking good.

Next we went along to the planting site in front of the surf club.  Some of us were a little disappointed because the site where the Coast Care Group wanted us to plant is great fun to slide down!  Mr Logan explained how the dune was eroding and that if we didn't plant it and stay of it that the dune would disappear and then the Surf Club would be in danger too.  We decided to be Kaitiaki of the dune and tell people why it had been planted up and let them know how important it is to stay off the dune.

A planting team from Room 10 stayed behind to plant the dune, while the rest of us went to a SECRET spot for a picnic:)

Our "secret" spot was down the back of Mrs Harris's section by the Hamanatua Stream:)  We got to see how the stream winds it's way down the hills to the sea.  Ms McVey told us all about how high the stream can get sometimes and how it too can cause erosion sometimes.

It was a great day out and about!  We all learnt a lot and it felt good to help out!

Sand Dune Resoration

Room 10 and Room 3 went down to the sand dunes in front of the Wainui Surf Club to meet some of the members of the Wainui Coast Care group and help them plant up the dune in front of the Surf Club building.  We talked about how plants on sand dunes are important because they hold the sand in place.  We learnt that if we had no sand dunes that out beach would disappear.  The creatures who live in this zone would loose their homes and the buildings on the beach front would be in danger of eventually washing away too.

Here's what Hugo, Israel and Felix wrote about the dunes...

Sand Dunes...

When you are on the sand dunes you are killing plants and making it easy for tsunamis to get in onto the land. If we don’t have sand dunes we will have no beach. Did you know that if the dunes were gone, the beach front houses would be on the beach, literally.

By Hugo.

Sand Dunes          

The thing that I learnt today is that  sand dunes are really important.  If you slide down them  and  do it too much, the plants will fall down and then the houses will fall down into the sea. IF THERE'S NO PLANTs THERE’s NO DUNES!!!!!!!!    

BY Felix

Sand dunes

One thing I learnt about dune plants is salt spray, they need to survive salt spray that is when a wave crashes down on the dunes and makes them salty.

Next is erosion, for an example if there were no dunes the waves would take dirt, sand and houses because the dunes hold the dirt and sand that’s why they are so important.

Did you know a tsunami wiped out 10,000 people in Indonesia once at Phuket.

By Israel