Term+1+-+2011


 * __**Term 1: 1st February - 15th April 2011.**__

media type="custom" key="8709090" Tuesday 15th March: Cornflake the clown came to make us laugh || March 24th & 25th media type="custom" key="8830944" || **highlights were seeing the rare endemic takahe and kiwi.** media type="custom" key="9258564" || **Star students** media type="custom" key="9258638" || we are year 2 and year 3 students. media type="custom" key="8253284" || **Here is our art work** media type="custom" key="8788828" || Bubble work 31st March. What is LIQUID? || **We are enjoying working** **on the FREE RICE** **games click on this link** [|FREE RICE] || Learning Lots at Lyttelton Main School. Term 1: Life long education for the Juniors.
 * **Our end of term trip was to Willowbank Nature reserve,**
 * Here are all the room 4 students,
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Like most of Lyttelton, the juniors at Lyttelton Main School have had an eventful term! They have really made the most of education at LMS, appreciating the learning environment and their time together. We have been impressed at how focussed they all are. Rooms 4 and 5 are really enjoying the alternative huge teaching space in the school hall (which had originally been classrooms) and the team teaching with Mrs Caddick and Mrs Rossie. Fridays are our creative day: celebrating achievement in junior assembly, singing, recorder lessons, poetry, art and craft sessions and special afternoon activities such as tabloid sports, balloon games, team building games and the much enjoyed parachute games.

Our end of term trip was to the Willowbank Nature Reserve with a special focus on conservation, environment, and native habitat of our NZ birds. Rooms 1, 2, 4 and 5 all were captivated by the pair of Takahe that Willowbank is now a home to. The children enthusiastically researched and made fact files and created art work about special birds.

Their pre-visit work really deepened their understanding of how special their first hand experience was of these extraordinary and rare birds. The children were thrilled to see the pair close up in real life and made the most of this awesome opportunity. (See photos).

After the visit the children could identify 14 separate habitats and match them to the correct native creature, they each made up an impressive “Care code” for an animal/bird of their choice from what they had seen; they could all identify the environmental priorities and basic needs for these. They learnt the meaning to a lot of new vocabulary: endemic, native, predator, endangered, nest egg programme, food chain, habitat, nocturnal, introduced, bill, kiwi, takahe, weka, extinct. Wonderful work…holiday well earned. Roll on term 2!
 * Here are some extracts from the Takahe Fact Files written by the children after researching about this rare bird in readiness for seeing the pair of Takahe at Willowbank Wildlife Reserve.**

· **//The takahe was found in the 1940’s and is rare because they can’t fly. I can’t wait until I can see them.//** **(Tane aged 6)** · **//One of the flightless birds is the takahe, Willowbank has two living there.//** **(Rata aged 7)** · **//People thought they were extinct but some scientists found out they weren’t extinct in the 1940s. Then they told everyone that they weren’t extinct. They couldn’t fly and are much, much fatter than pukeko. The Takahe have more colour, there are 250 left in NZ.//** **(Magenta aged 7)** · **//People used to think that takahe were extinct but they were just very rare, they are also one of the world’s flightless birds. Most people get mixed up with pukeko except there are quite a few differences, the takahe is fat and pukeko are thinner and takahe have fat stubby legs for on rocky tussock land, while a pukeko has thin long legs for wading through muddy water.//** **(Ciara aged 7)** · **//Takahe have beautiful feathers: green and blue and its big beak is red and its legs are red too.//** **(Annie aged 7)** · **//The takahe is rare. There are only 250 left in the world. Willowbank has 2. Takahe can’t fly so they are easily killed by prey.//** **(Scarlett aged 7)** · **//People used to think that the takahe was extinct but they weren’t. The takahe are endangered, they are really rare.//** **(Poppy aged 6)**


 * Lititia (aged 9) researched and wrote this excellent fact file:**

**The Takahe:**

· **//An endemic bird meaning it is only found in New Zealand.//** · **//Numbers about 250 making it an endangered bird.//** · **//Looks like a big, beautiful over-weight pukeko!//** · **//Rescued from becoming extinct and now living on pest free islands.\//** · **//Millions of years ago they lived in dense forest and had few enemies so they didn’t need to fly.//** **//Over generations their wings became unused so they were large and flightless.//** · **//Takahe once lived all over NZ, now they only survive in the remote Murchison mountains.//** · **//They became threatened by introduced stoats and deer that ate their favourite tussock grasses.//** · **//Dr Geoffrey Orbell believed there were still takahe in the valleys of the Murchison Mountains//** **//and spent his weekends and holidays in the 1940’s looking for them. .//** **//First photographs to prove they were not extinct were taken on 20th November 1948.//** **//The valley where he found them is named Takahe Valley and the nearby lake called Lake Orbell.//**