Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Fiordland Spider Webs

Monday 5th August 2013

It was a vey foggy day today.



Amongst a small cluster of small trees, we could see a small patch of orange so we decided to investigate what it was.

We discovered that a tree had been cut down very recently. We could see many circles starting from the centre going out to the edge of the tree stump. I told the children that you could tell how old the tree is by counting the circles. We counted all the circles and decided that this tree must have been 16 years old.

Sam: “When you count the lines you can tell how long the tree has been around for.”


Stefan: “We saw the tree cut down. We count the circles because we want to
.”

Malachey: " “We found a tree cutting down and it was 16 years old because we counted the lines.”






The children started exploring amongst the other clusters of trees for anything that would be interesting. 


The most amazing things we discovered were that there were hundreds of spider webs in the trees and bushes.  They were really amazing and so big!!  Because of the damp fog they were all glistening in the light.  They looked truely beautiful.







Here is Dylan studying the spider web, trying to find where the spider is hiding.















Sam : “We just wanted to have a look at spiders webs and there were so many spider webs on the trees that I couldn’t belive it.”


Stefan: “The spider webs are on the tree cos the spiders made the spider webs.  We found a trampoline web cos it looks like a trampoline.”

Malachey: "We found spider webs, they were in the trees because they live in Nature Discovery. There were no spiders because they hide in the woods of the trees."




 I asked Sam how he thought the spiders made the webs and this is Sam’s theory:


Sam: “They were kinda like a circle and round like a trampoline. I think they have a little bit of thread inside them.  I think they just troll it out.  I think in their belly buttons.  Spider webs need to be sticky so spiders can catch and flies and eat the flies.”






We took many photos of the spider webs, don’t they look amazing?






"Sunday" came to film us at Nature Discovery

On the last Wednesday of term the documentary programme "Sunday" came to visit and film us at Nature  Discovery.  Here are some photos of the day and the link to the progrmme.   Their focus was on the lack of risk-taking by children of today and the adverse affects this may have on their development.
It was great to have nature discovery endorsed by such highly respected people.  We have been very humbled by the phone calls, emails and comments on facebook  congratulating us on our programme.

thank you Sunday team

http://tvnz.co.nz/sunday-news/raising-generation-cotton-wool-kids-video-5520779