Reuse! Reuse! Reuse!

This term we have been trying to reduce, reuse and recycle. We wanted to reuse an old glass jar to make something new and useful. 

We decided to make a Christmas lantern as a gift to our families. 

We are caring for the environment and reusing a glass jar to make something that is beautiful!

Here is how we did it: 

Take one old glass jar.

Decorate it with tissue paper in Christmas colours.

Tie a ribbon around the rim.

Place a tealight candle inside.

Decorate with small shiny gems and you have ...... one beautiful Christmas lantern!

Reuse! Reuse! Reuse! - slideshows

Our Promises to care for the Environment

This term we have been learning about how we can care for the environment. To finish our unit we have thought about a personal action we can take to help reduce waste going to landfill, to reuse items and to recycle all the materials we can.

Our hope is that our families, friends and school community will support us and work with us to carry out our promises.

This term we have learnt that small actions can make a BIG difference to our environment.

Hint - you can press pause on the slideshow to read each promise.

Our Promises for the Environment on PhotoPeach

What is your promise to the environment? 

Our Wonderful World!

As part of our inquiry this term we have made a video with messages about how all of us can care for the environment. 

We worked together in groups to think of our message, worked out the words we would say and collected the props we needed. 

Here is our video!



Our Wonderful World from Learning Together on Vimeo.

If you could send a message out to the world about caring for the environment, what would it be?

Reuse and create Art!

We are working very hard to look after the environment and reduce the amount of rubbish going into landfill. Over the term the Preps have collected small items that would normally be thrown away - buttons, bottle tops, bits of ribbon, material pieces, coloured paper, beads and so much more!
We are going to create a colourful rainbow with all our reusable items and give a gift to the environment - reducing rubbish in landfill.

Thank you to all our families who sent along bits and pieces for our creation. 

Stayed tuned for the finished piece!

Our Rainbow on PhotoPeach

God's Creation

In Religion we have been thinking about our wonderful world and how grateful we are. We also realise that God asks us all to look after and care for the world He has given us.

When we were thinking about our thank you prayers, we were trying very hard to think of interesting words to describe our paintings and the special parts of God's creation. 

Thank you God - slideshows

Tell us what you are thankful for!  

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

The Preps had a fabulous excursion to The Gould League in Moorabbin (thanks Mrs Coffa!) to learn about how we can reduce the amount of rubbish going into landfill by reusing and recycling. 

The Gould League was an amazing place - it even had its very own shrinking machine allowing the Preps to explore the inside of a compost bin. So many hands on activities - the Preps were totally engaged all day. 

A big thank you to Mrs. Reszka, Mrs. David, Sonya, Suzi and Emma for helping to make this day fantastic and for taking such great photos to share. 

Also thank you to Kirsten from the Gould League who ran the day and was amazing! 

We learnt:

- if you drop rubbish on the road it will go down the holes on the side of the road and into the ocean. Gracie

- if you put your recycling in a bag they (the Recycling team) can't open the bag. Alexa

- you need to put the rubbish in the right bin. Joshua

- if you put the wrong rubbish in the wrong bin they can't recycle anything. Chantelle 

- that rubbish need to go in the right bin because it will hurt the environment. Stephanie

- that butchie boys come in all different sizes. Niamh

- that worms can be so helpful because they help the environment. Campbell

- that bottles go in the blue bin and plastic bags go in the red bin. James

- that you can't put oranges and lemons in the worm farm. Eva

- that you can put newspaper into the worm farm. Caitlin

The Gould League on PhotoPeach



- that orange peels don't go in the worm farm. Hamish

- that oranges go in the rubbish bin. Patrick

- that you have to put the right rubbish in the right bin. Elva

- that you put the right rubbish in the right bin. Sophie

- when you put rubbish in a bag and tie it up the truck comes and takes it to the MRF and the people at the MRF are not allowed to open it. Simon

- about the sad compost bin. Declan

- we can't recycle diapers. Joel

- if you put the wrong rubbish into the wrong bin it can't be recycled. Riley

- if you put your rubbish in a plastic bag they can't open the bag. Rosie

- if you put oranges in the worm farm the worms will die. Frances

The Gould League on PhotoPeach

Our mission is to share all that we have learnt with our school and wider community. We are all responsible for looking after our environment.

What can you do to reduce the amount of rubbish going into landfill?

National Tree Day

Last Friday the whole school was a part of National Tree Day. We planted thirty new trees and added mulch to our garden beds. Every class was allocated a special job. The Preps and Seniors were in charge of planting 15 of the thirty trees. We are very excited to watch them grow. They will help make our school look beautiful!
Thanks Mrs E for helping us plant the trees. Thanks to Ms Scott and Mrs David who did a lot of organising and to the Environment Team for coordinating the day and always reminding us to look after our environment. A BIG thank you to Niamh's dad Scott who dug all of the holes so we could plant our trees.
Here are some photos of the Preps and seniors working hard - taken by Nick from the Environment Team. Thanks Nick!

How does your school care for the environment?

Neighbourhood Walk

Last Wednesday we went for a walk around our neighbourhood to see lots of plants in our local area. We have been learning about what living things need to grow and survive. We ended our walk at the park and noticed big mounds of mulch under the trees. Mulch helps trees to grow and be healthy. 

On the way we looked for treasure - lots of leaves, sticks, gum nuts, bark, seed pods, flowers, snail shells and more to make a collage. We were careful not to pick anything off a plant or tree. We looked for things that had already fallen off. 

Thanks to all our mums who came on our walk!  We loved having a play in the park and we got home just before the rain! A perfect afternoon.

Here are some of the things we discovered:

I noticed that plants grow with rain. Chantelle

Plants need soil to grow. Simon

Plants always like water to grow. James

I learnt that leaves change colour when it's Autumn. Caitlin

I know that plants need water and sun to grow. Olivia

I learnt that flowers do not have to be the same colour. Frances

James taught me that trees that lose their leaves are called deciduous. Gracie

I learnt that leaves change their colour before they fall off. Niamh

Trees that don't lose their leaves are called evergreen. Alexa

 

Litter Detectives strike again!

Prep Litter Detectives were out and about again this week!
On Monday we decided to check to see if there was any rubbish in our playground - Monday is our only Tuckshop day and we wanted to see what the playground looked like after lunch.
So we collected our maps and rubber gloves and set out on our rubbish audit.

We were very disappointed to see quite a lot of rubbish in our school! So we marked the areas on our maps and picked up all the rubbish we could see.

We think we need to talk to the whole school about the amount of litter we saw!

The Preps are very keen to make posters reminding everyone not to drop their rubbish.

We want to have more paper chases.

One Prep said we should be a wrapper free school everyday!

What do you think we should do about the rubbish around our school? 
How can we encourage other students to pick up their rubbish?

Our Lemon Tree

The Environment Team have asked each class to take responsibility for one of our fruit trees and Prep K are looking after the lemon tree. We are also trying to be environmentally friendly - so Ms Scott gave us some drip feed watering tubes to help save water. Hamish brought a bottle from home (reusing) to attach to the tube and we used water from the drinking taps that had been collected in tubs (water saving) to fill our watering tubes. Now our lemon tree will have water all the time! We love looking after our lemon tree.

Reusing soft drink and water bottles for a watering system!

Water from the drinking taps.

How are you environmentally friendly?

Litter Detectives!

For our Inquiry this term we are looking at how we can make a difference to the environment by reducing landfill through reusing and recycling. 

Today we were Litter Detectives and went for a walk around our neighbourhood  to see if we would find any rubbish. Luke, Hannah and Aly had a map of our streets and when we saw some rubbish they marked it on the map. We took photos of the kinds of rubbish that we saw.

This is what we discovered:

There was no rubbish around the shops at the end of our street. We think that might be because there were two rubbish bins for people to put their rubbish in.

The other streets around our school looked very clean and rubbish free.

In the street that our school is on, we saw quite a bit of rubbish and we were surprised. We think the rubbish was there because

• there are no rubbish bins in the street
• people have dropped their wrappers and containers
• the wind may have blown it out of rubbish bins
• the rubbish has fallen out of bins when the garbage collector has picked up the bins

We looked at the rubbish and we thought that some of the rubbish had been on the street for a long time. Some of the bottles and plastic containers should have been put in the recycling bin. 

We have a problem!

What can we do to help clean up our street?

Please let us know your ideas!

Preps, talk to your families and friends and see if you can find an answer to our problem.

Here are some photos of our discoveries:



Litter Detectives! on PhotoPeach

Our Action!

 Last term we were very lucky to have Mary from the RED (Recycling + Education = the Difference) group come to talk to us about how we can reuse plastic to make something new and useful. 

Our action for our Inquiry this term is to collect flexible plastic to be reused and made into something useful for our school.

We want to collect 250kg of flexible plastic - we will need the help of all our families and friends to reach our goal!

Here is the presentation Mary showed us with so many interesting facts:

RED from marieck

We want to make a difference and take action that matters.

What do you do to recycle and reuse?

What can we do to care for our school environment?

We made posters to spread our messages to everyone in the school so that we can all be responsible for caring for the environment! At playtime and lunchtime the Preps make annoucements over the PA to remind everyone of our important messages.

Recycling, Reusing, Reducing

What do you do at home to recycle and reuse? Let us know!

We want to make a difference and look after our environment.

NO WRAP DAY!

Yesterday was 'No Wrap' Day. We brought our lunches to school without wrappers. What a great way to reduce the amount of rubbish in our school! Well done to the Environment Team!

Wallwisher - Reflections of our learning.

This is what we discovered from our excursion to CERES.