i te aha - what's been happening?

Wed 27 Jan

It was the last day of Nature Discovery for Sam. Because it was his last day he was allowed to choose what areas he wanted to revisit and say goodbye to.

Sam decided that he wanted to go on an exploring adventure.  He lead the way. It wasn't long until the tamariki came upon  their first challenge. Some fallen logs.

Despite some of our children being out of their comfort zone, they showed great determination and courage and we all made it over. 

Next Sam decided to lead us up the hill following the bike trails. We haven't walked this path much recently and after a long time walking we were starting to feel a bit lost.

I asked a couple of the children near me if they knew where we were. Most were unsure but   Fletcher said that we were near the jumping rocks.  He was adamant of this!  He pointed to the fence and said we should go over to see them.  Sure enough there they were.  Fletcher knows the park very well and his sense of direction is amazing! Well done Fletcher for finding the way back!

Afterwards back at Pinecone World, we set up a rope bridge between the trees to challenge our balancing skills.

Monday 1^st Feb

Today was another brilliant sunny day. We decided to revisit the huge fallen tree that we had discovered at the next of last term.  We took the long way around Lake Henry to get there and discovered a large rabbit hole on the way.

It had 2 entrances and we put a long stick inside to see how far it went. The rabbit burrow was so long that we couldn’t the stick when we looked in the other end.

When we got to our planned destination we discovered to our disappointment that  the tree had been cut up and taken away. Only the large stump at the base of the tree remained. 

Despite our tree being cut up, it still provided a challenge to climb over and we discovered a cave on the other side to explore.

We noticed that while most of our tree was gone, there was heaps of sawdust left on the ground.  We made it useful by gathering up a bagful to take back to the shed for kindling for the fire.

We found some  great  trees  to climb of which the tamariki had fun climbing and challenging out their physical capabilities on.

Back at the shed at lunch time, Billy had brought a large bag of huge marshmallows to cook over the fire.  They were so big that most of the children had to put them in their lunch boxes to take home to finish!!

Post written by Tash