Term 4

Term 4 is all about Hauora; our health and well being.  To begin the term we are looking at our Oral Hygiene- the importance of looking after and  taking care of our teeth.  We are using a great programme created by Colgate and designed with the different age groups in mind. 

‘Bright Smiles, Bright Futures’

Here is a couple of blurbs from the programme..

A Global Partnership Each year, Colgate-Palmolive Company’s award-winning Colgate Bright Smiles, Bright Futures® (BSBF) global oral health education program reaches over 50 million school children and their families … in 30 languages and 80 countries. It’s teachers like you who have made this self-esteem-based program an international success!

 BSBF: Empowerment for the Future Bright Smiles, Bright Futures gives teachers, children and families around the world the tools they need to make good oral health a permanent part of their lives. With the focus on prevention, the program builds self-esteem and teaches good oral health practices to create lifelong habits. And most importantly, BSBF inspires kids to take control of their own oral health. Its messages of empowerment enable children to not only understand “what” to do to take care of their teeth and gums, but the “why” behind the messages. In this way, BSBF equips them to become lifelong Tooth Defenders

   We have watched an entertaining dvd introducing Dr Rabbit and his band of Tooth Defender super heros.  They all have a message and an important job to do. Of course there has to be a baddy and in this case it is definitely Platicus the plaque monster who enjoys nothing more than digging holes in teeth. We look at ways of preventing this.  At the end of the programme the children are given a toothbrush and small tube of toothpaste which they are already excited about.

The simple message in the programme is..

 Bright Smiles Key Messages

• Brush with fluoride toothpaste twice a day, especially after eating breakfast and before bedtime

 • Floss daily (over 7 years old)

 • Limit the number of times you eat sweet and sticky snacks

• Visit the dentist regularly

• Oral health is an important part of overall health 

There is an added bonus with this programme that fits in well to our ‘Eliminating Waste’ focus from last term.  We can actually recycle all oral tooth products by bringing them to school and sending them away.  It is worth doing and last week Riley, Hagen and Teo introduced it to the whole school in the assembly.  If we can encourage our school community to come on board we can not only prevent a whole heap of ‘rubbish’ going into the landfill but we can also earn money for the school.  In this same initiative yoghurt pouches can also be recycled.  We will be sharing that bit of info as well. Here’s a bit about it from their site.

As a reminder, the school that collects the most oral care waste by the end of November 2015 in NZ will win NZD$1000. However, the programme runs all year and you will receive two cents per item of waste collected. We have also launched a new programme for schools with leaders of milk for schools programme Fonterra.  By joining the Fonterra Pouch Brigade, your school can make a big impact by diverting any yoghurt pouch from landfill.

The Colgate Oral Care Brigade allows your school to not only educate around good dental health but also about looking after the planet. Your school can then send the items in any other used box to TerraCycle via our partners Australia Post. It is completely free to participate and includes shipping. Once we have received the waste we will recycle it into new sustainable products! 

We think that is too good an offer to resist so Room 7 & 8 will once again transform into becoming the

‘Eco-warriors’

       of the school and work tirelessly to cut down our schools waste……  Pretty cool ah??

 

It's all about Super Heroes

Super Hero Day was ever so great.  A lot of Room 7 said their super hero job was to clean up the planet.  I wonder why???

 Riley wrote..

If I was a Super hero my name would be FLASH.  I would clean up Hastings streets and then I would clean up the world!

What a Super GREEN  Hero.

A classroom of Super Heroes

Keep New Zealand Beautiful Week

The last week of term was all about ….

We wrote about our thoughts on it and

we looked around our school and saw

the need to have a bit of a spruce up..

so we did...

Room 7 -Eco Warriors of the school!

Some thoughts…

If there was rubbish in all of the world then there should be a lot of people helping to pick it up.  If people do not like the rubbish they should pick the rubbish up with other people to clean up their country.  Tidy Kiwi should help too.            Jokarvin

The way turtles die is because people are not caring for our beaches.  Keep New Zealand Beautiful week is the way we care for our beaches by picking up the rubbish.  New Zealand is a good place and we want to keep it clean.  We want our world to be the best world in the world.  We love New Zealand.                          Lucy

Don’t put your rubbish in the sea because the sea creatures and birds will eat it.  Don’t put your rubbish in the sea, pick it up and put it in the bin! Don’t throw it around, just clean it up.  It is important not to litter around the sea or near the water.     Arki

Our term Habit of Mind focus was working interdependently so we worked in groups to create a special poster to show we care.  Then we put all 4 posters together and made 1 big one.  We were really proud of our GREEN Hat creativity.

An Exciting Drive Past

There was much excitement last week when we were suddenly taken 

outside to witness the unveiling of one of the new massive recycling depots destined for our very own Black Bridge transfer station or commonly known ‘dump’. 

 It had been designed by Angela to be a far more user-friendly, more attractive and definitely effective way of collecting everyones recycling. 

On its way to its new home at the dump Angela had kindly asked for a drive past so Room 7 and 8 and Mrs Lindsay, could see another cog in the recycling wheel, and one we hope all the children will be familiar with in their own homes.

Waste Audit

Now for our Waste Audit.  This has been quite an important event and one we shared the results of in Mondays assembly.  We had the help of Angela Aitkin, Max and Islas Mum who is also the Waste officer at the Regional Council.  She brought along all the necessary gear.  We had collected a weeks worth of school rubbish and tipped it out onto tarpaulins to be sorted into crates. A rather icky job, thanks Tamsin for your help.  Here are some interesting results.

• ·         We take 2 ½ big green wheelie bins to the dump every week which costs a lot in dump fees.
• ·         There was 10kgs of food scraps in the rubbish.  This was nearly half the total weight of all the weeks rubbish going to the landfill. This should be put into the food buckets in the lunch area- going to the pig, the worm farm or the compost.
• ·         There was 2 ½ kgs of paper and cardboard in the rubbish which should be in the paper recycling bins.
• ·         We filled 5 crates with soft plastics.  This is gladwrap, chippie and muesli bar packets and plastic bags.  There were a lot of snap-lock bags in there as well which can be reused.
• ·         We found a lot of yoghurt pots that can be washed and recycled.
• ·         There were even milk cartons which need to be folded and put into the blue bins.
• ·         Coffee cups can be recycled if they have the recycle triangle on the bottom.

          

We wrote about the experience....

On Wednesday Room 7 and 8 did a waste audit.  This was with Isla and Max's Mum Angela.  She is a Waste Warrior and works for the council.  
There was a lot of food that people hadn't eaten and there weas a lot of chippie packets in the rubbish as well.  There was manderin peels in the rubbish bin!
We sorted out the rubbish in the bags.
We can recycle and reuse the yoghurt pots so they don't need to go to the landfill.
                                                               Lily

Yesterday Angela told us about reducing our waste.  The important thing was that I didn't knowthat there was going to be so much food scraps that weren't suppose to go in the rubbish bin.  Don't put your yoghurt pots in the bin because you can reuse them.
                                                            Jokarvin

On Wednesday Room 7 and 8 did a Waste Audit.  I was surprised by how much plastic there was in the rubbish.
We did the Waste Audit so we could work out how much rubbish there is in the whole school for one week.  There is lots in the whole school.  There is more than 100 pieces of rubbish in the school.
A lady called Angela talked about the rubbish and the litter.
We found yoghurt pots that can be washed and reused.  You can put plants in them like poppies.                                                   Sophie

We are making posters to share our findings.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Reducing our schools waste has been our topic for the term.  

We have been working with room 8 on this programme.  

We began by looking at what sort of waste our school produces and where it goes.  We interviewed our caretaker Keith who told us about what he does with the schools rubbish and where it goes. We like helping Keith keep our school looking great by picking up any rubbish we see lying around the place. We are getting prepared for 'Keep New Zealand Beautiful' week which is at the end of term.