Rm 5 - Dana Taylor - danat@westernheights.school.nz

Rm 5 - Dana Taylor - danat@westernheights.school.nz

Thursday 27 March 2014

Westlynn Butterfly Garden Trip

We are learning about transformation and how things change. The Junior School went to visit the lovely gardens and wanted to get a close-up look at monarch butterflies.

 We discovered some wooden sculptures of birds up on a tree.......
 We liked finding other interesting artworks around the gardens.
 Why was there so much sawdust on the ground in this pergoda?
 We also went on a New Zealand Native discovery trail to learn more about the trees and plants that grow in New Zealand.
 Zayne's Mum Gitisha helped us to read the signs on the nature trail.

 "Oh dear!" We found a dead rat squashed on the ground! We wondered what had happened to it?

 We loved shouting out every time we found a new sign!
 There was a bunch of bananas in this banana tree! Jahvan found some of the bark of this palm on the ground, and he made a leaf rubbing of it when we did some artwork later in the day.
 Mrs Nummy showed each group where we could find a tiny monarch butterfly egg, a tiny caterpillar munching on a swan plant leaf, a chrysalis, and a butterfly!
 The speck is an egg, and the tiny line next to it is a beautiful caterpillar!
 Heidi's mum Jody helped us to read the signs in the Butterfly Gardens too. We learned that a boy monarch has black spots on the lower wings and a girl doesn't.





 Can you see the butterfly amongst these autumn leaves?


 Do you like our Class Portrait?! We love to make funny faces!!!!

Room 5 celebrated The Very Hungry Caterpillar's 45th birthday!

 We wanted to bake a cake to celebrate The Very Hungry Caterpillar's Birthday. We found a cupcake recipe and all took turns to mix butter, vanilla, sugar, and eggs.


 We added flour, and baking powder and then mixed and mixed again!





 Zephaniah lined the baking tins with patty cases.
 We filled the cases with cupcake batter.... Mrs Taylor put the cupcakes into the oven to bake. We couldn't wait to eat them, but there was more to do first!
 We counted and coloured a Creepy Crawly Counting book while we waited for the cupcakes to cook.
 Yay! Here are the cooked cupcakes! We couldn't touch them though because they were still too hot....
 Look at Jordan's caterpillars! How many are there?

 We watched The Very Hungry Caterpillar and some other neat stories by Eric Carle (the author).
 We iced the cupcakes when they were cool to make them look just like The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

 Can you see how the cake is beginning to shape up?


 Jordan looks great as The Very Hungry Caterpillar!
 Look at our fantastic cake!
 We are all Very Hungry Caterpillars and we can't wait to sing happy birthday and then eat the cake!!!


"Happy Birthday" to The Very Hungry Caterpillar! We hope you liked your cake! It was delicious!