History on the Beach

We were privileged to have a local Howick historian, Alan, join us today for a fact-filled wander on the beach. Alan was full of interesting stories and a wealth of knowledge - I think us adults enjoyed listening to him as much as the children!

Come on a mini-tour with us...

The gun battery on the beach. This was built so the area could be protected from possible invaders in World War 2. We learned that when they wanted to show the big gun to a crowd of onlookers, it jammed! People also patrolled the cliffs and beach, carrying wooden rifles so they would look armed to anyone on ships.

So many shells and little creatures to discover. Do you remember what this is?

Treasures on the beach!

This squirter looked like a brain.

It's hard to believe that there were once a lot of boat sheds here. A terrible storm washed them all away.

A rock with its own moat!

Amazing things live under rocks.

Can you see the evidence of a long jetty from long ago?

Time to explore!

So much life on the bottom of a rock!

Out on the reef

It's more fun in the water.

Making great discoveries.

Play time!

Do you see the starfish?

Even the sea has grass!

Discovering...

We learned that Neptune's necklaces are hung up in some houses in Ireland. When they dry out, it's time for harvest.

Question for the day: How can feathers hold water without feeling wet?

Thank you so much, Alan, for sharing your wealth of knowledge with us. We loved it!

In the afternoon, we thought more about history. What did people use before computers or electricity? I shared one of my favourite stories, 'Click Clack Moo', by Doreen Cronin, then we pretended to 'type' messages of thanks to Alan.

Some singing and a game of Frogs and Crocodile ended our day today. Thanks for joining us!

Next week, we'll work with another visitor, learning all about Maori culture. Yay!

Look Closely

Today was a day for noticing things we sometimes miss and I was proud of how the children discovered many things.

We started with the beautiful poem picture book called 'Step Gently Out' by Helen Frost, with close-up photos taken by Rick Lieder. They encouraged us to be still and watch to discover the hidden world of insects.

Time to bring out the magnifying glasses! After looking closely at our fingers and clothing fabric, we walked to the forest and the beach with the aim of looking closely at the branches, leaves, grass and anything else to see what we could discover.

Who would have thought that the short walk would reveal so many beautiful and interesting treasures? Gold in branches, running ants, diamonds in the sand, little feathers, shiny spots, sticky webs, fat veins in plants.... when we look closely, the world is a fascinating place!

We walked to a section of beach where we hadn't yet visited and were delighted to find a water tunnel. It made booming echoes when we yelled into it! (Listen to the video.) Some day, we should get torches to explore.

The rain took us by surprise and ended our time at the beach with a quick walk back to base.

After lunch, we continued to look closely, using our magnifying glasses to play 'I Spy' with many of the treasures we'd found and collected at the forest and beach.

We also painted and created crayon rubbings or tracings of the found objects. There are some creative artists in this group!

After tidying up for the end of our time together, we practised 'looking closely' with our other senses - this time our ears. The goal was to listen very carefully in a game of Granny's Keys to hear who was crawling to steal them from under Granny's chair. It was hard to hear people - they moved so stealthily!


Ideas for home:

- Spend time outside and look closely. You don't need a magnifying glass to discover many hidden wonders when you spend time quietly outdoors.

- Why not sketch what you find?

- Found art can be fun too. Collect leaves, twigs and other small things you find. Then arrange them to make a shape you like and glue them down onto paper. You might want to spray it with hairspray or paint it with glue afterwards to make it shiny. You could also paint it all one colour so people notice the textures.

- The book we read is of a poem. Can you try to write a poem about something you notice when you look closely in nature? Perhaps one of the photos will give you ideas. If you do write one, share it with us!

Look Up!

What a fun day of making and playing today with record numbers - 17 kids!

The theme today was 'Look Up' - thinking about what is above us. We started with reading the 'I Spy in the Sky' book by Edward Gibbs and many people were good at identifying the different birds from the clues in the text.

Time to practise looking up - we went for a short walk through the forest path and spent time looking into the trees. The flame tree flowers are blossoming and we found a tui singing strongly at the top of one tree. The leaves and smaller branches swayed and shook in the breeze, which led us to think how the wind moves other things.....

Like kites! Back to base where we made our own kites with A4 paper, string, a kebab stick, tape and strip cut from a plastic bag.

Then down to the beach to fly the kites, play, explore in the low tide and have lunch.


So many discoveries! Caves, crabs, shells, bugs, pipes, branches, clay and puddles.... and the best bit was how well our kites could fly!

It was a slow walk back up the hill to base for the last 45 minutes - we were tired out!

'Blown Away' by Rob Biddulph was a fun story for the afternoon as we thought about how wind power is used, not only for kites, but sails, windmills and kite surfing. I shared how I sail in my kayak with an umbrella for a sail - this picture is to prove it. (Me coming back from Waiheke Island one day.)

We finished the afternoon with some singing, learning the 'In the Jungle' song and singing it like mountain gorillas, sleepy lions and swooping birds.


Ideas for home:

- Look up in your garden. What do you notice? A fun activity is to lie down under a tree when the sun is not straight over you and spend time watching the sky through the branches. Notice the clouds, movement of the wind, leaves falling or rustling. Are there birds or bugs that you can see? Nests? You might want to draw what you discover or write about it. Personally, I just love lying down, looking, making the clouds into animals in my imagination and just relaxing.

- experiment with dropping different items from a height to see how aerodynamic they are - not things that can break though! Try different leaves or cut and fold paper to experiment. What things stay in the air for longer? Do any spin? What factors make many items drop quickly to the ground?

- Look up how to make different kinds of kites and try making one!

- What else uses wind power? Could you try to make something?

Wonderfully Wet Water!

The weather report suggested that today would be full of rain, so I thought it would be great to think about water and rain today. What a surprise to have a full day of bright sunshine instead! No matter - we still thought about the water cycle and how important water is to people, animals and plants around the world.

To start thinking about how clouds work, we played with tissues. They were light and very white at first - we could blow them easily into the air. Then we started dipping them bit by bit into water. They went a bit greyer and got too heavy to stay in the air for long. Finally they became so sodden that water dripped out of them. Rain!

How does rain get into the clouds? You might want to try the experiment we tried together at home. Get some very hot water into a glass jar and cover it with a lid with ice on it. When the hot water meets cold air, it condenses, then precipitates as rain.

We also noticed that when we added food colouring to the water, it made the rain coloured as well, just like how when water is very polluted, it can cause some of the pollutants to get into the rain too. Not good.

Our first picture book today was 'Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain' by Verna Aardema.  In some parts of the world, like the African Plain in the story, water is very precious and people hope for rain so their crops and cattle won't die.

Beach time! As we walked down, we looked at a storm water drain that had been blocked up in last night's storm. Among the leaves and mud, we found some rubbish that we removed, clearing the drain itself when we came back.

The storm water outlet pipe at the beach was gushing water out in a big waterfall but we couldn't get right to it because of the high tide. Instead, we played in a big tree and explored the forest, picking up rubbish as we went. It was sad to see how many people don't seem to care about keeping nature beautiful and throw things on the ground, even when rubbish bins are nearby.

After lunch, we read another book, 'Water, Water!' by Window on the World. Photos showed us how people in other countries treat water. We saw more pictures of farmers in African countries, standing by dry, cracked ground, while in Bangladesh, the rain was pouring! One interesting observation was that many people didn't have taps at home and they had to carry water from a river or a well to their houses. They bathed with cups and buckets and were careful not to use much water.

We finished the day by 'rain painting.' Colouring thick paper in with watercolour pencils, we then 'rained' on it outside to blend the colours and see what would happen. They got so much brighter and some fabulous colour mixing happened.

Water charades and Duck Duck Goose ended our time together for today.

We are very privileged to have so much clean water in New Zealand. Let's treat it like the treasure it is!


Ideas for home:
- Monitor your water use at home. What do you use it for? How much do you think you use? Can you think of any ways to reduce your water use?
- Create your own 'rain paintings' next time it rains. Paint some thick paper with watercolour paint, food colouring, cordial sachet powder or watercolour pencils, then put it out in the light rain for a while. See what the rain does to your art!
- Blocked storm water drains can be a problem in New Zealand after heavy rain because areas flood when the water can't drain away. Can you design a better system to stop this happening?
- Think of the countries we visited in the 'Water, Water!' book. Which one/s would you enjoy visiting or living in and why? Which one/s do you think would be the hardest to live in and why?
- Design a poster encouraging people to not pollute water. What do you think are the main things that pollute water in New Zealand?
- Try our science experiments again at home to teach your family about water and rain.