Our chick is a big baby!

Just a quick note to say that our baby chick is truly that...a big baby! She peep peep peeps until someone picks her up and cuddles her. She loves watching TV with us in the evening if you can imagine. The kids enjoy taking her outside looking for bugs and she loves going for walks around the neighbourhood. I think this chick thinks she's a dog or a cat the way she demands attention.

Temperature Graph From Our Incubator! By BJ

We collected data related to the high and low temperature of our incubator. Once we got the incubator up and running, the temperatures were very stable. Our average temperature is 38 degrees celcius. We are now at day 10, and only have 11 more to wait until we see if we were successful or not. We have all chosen names for our chicks when they hatch. Some of the names selected are Cruise and Lil' Chick and I can't remember the rest. Stay tuned and don't forget to complete Tiaki's "Chicken Test" and win a great prize.

How much do you know about chickens? Answer correctly and you may WIN a PRIZE!!!

Name__________________ Date______________


The Chicken Test - By Tiaki


1. When did Captain Cook introduce chickens to New Zealand? Was it in 1779 or was it in 1773?

2. Place these creatures in order of speed from fastest to slowest.
A. Humans B. Hens C. Ostriches

3. Cockerel: a young male bird aged between 8 and 18 months. Is this true or false?

4. Pullet: a female chicken aged between 8 and 18months. Is this true or false?

5. The world’s biggest chicken weighed 10 kilograms and chased _________?

6. Egg yolks are one of the few foods to naturally contain this vitamin.
A. vitamin A B. vitamin D C. vitamin C

email all answers to tedba@waimokoia.school.nz (the first 20 correct responses will win a PRIZE)

Terrific Teamwork, amazing photography!

We have just begun a new learning center. The focus is simple...teamwork and photography. We take turns directing the shots and see what we can create. Check back often as we'll keep all of work on this slide show. Hope you enjoy the pics!

The Ten Tenets of Life!

We have been doing some work with Ron Phillips, author of "Gem Of The First Water"! The Ten Tenets of Life from this life adventure story have challenged us to think about how we deal with our anger and disappointments in life. These tenets are a terrific place to start. Have a look at them and let us know what you think.

So... you were wondering how we made our incubator? Read on!

Our topic for this term is healthy communities, and the project we decided to make is a homemade incubator. The steps to making a homemade incubator are to first of all get a polystyrene box or a plastic chilli bin. Then you cut a hole in the top so you can see the eggs and monitor what’s happening inside. I think you should make the hole quite small because we found that we were losing too much heat though our glass. Next you need to wire up the light and screw it through the box into the wood that is a backing for the screws to go into. After that we connected a dimmer to it so if it gets too hot we can turn it down and if it gets too cold we can turn it up. Remember, that you must put a bowl of water in to help maintain the humidity. The next step is to plug it in and watch it throughout the day, adjusting temperatures as required. Finally you need to put in the eggs and watch them.
We had the eggs in the incubating over the labour weekend and we found that it was getting too cold in the nights and during the day it was getting too hot. Our teacher was almost positive the eggs were dead because of the temperature fluctuations, so we decided to make some improvements. We installed a thermostat so if it gets too hot the light will turn off and if it gets too cold it turns back on. We also got more polystyrene and put it all around the box to keep it warmer and we wrapped it in an insulations bat. We think we have solved the problem, however we are just waiting to get the new eggs. Of course we will continue to monitor our project to insure we get baby chicks. I can't wait to see if we’ve done a good job!!!!


BY MIKEY

Diwalli Festival

On Tuesday, October 13 I went to the Diwalli festival to watch some dancing people from India. They did a lot of dancing. The guys danced, the Indian girls did some dancing and they did a puppet show for us too. Some volunteers got to go up on the stage. Adam, Kera and Mohi went up and danced and tried out their puppets. They might not have been the best but they tried hard. When this was finished, this person came out with a sword and he was swinging it around. He started slow and gradually went faster and faster. He showed us how he could balance the sword on his palm. It was tricky! That was the end of the show so we went back to school. It was an interesting show and I’m glad we went.

John