Rock Jumping in Fiordland

Students from Fiordland College were at Ivon Wilson Park clearing and cleaning up the park as well as using the mountain bike track.  While we were at the Gnuff's house, Matiu and Jacob from Fiordland College stopped to give us something they had found in the park. They had found Charlie's photo and whistle that had come off his jacket the week before.  Charlie was so happy to get it back as he thought that it was lost forever. He kept blowing the whistle to make sure that it still worked.

 While at the Gnuff's house, Grace and Chloe thought that the branches were poking out and could poke our eyes.  Chloe said, " We used the clippers to cut the branches because they might poke me in the eye." Grace and Chloe assessed the risk to others and themselves and found a solution to minimize the risk or danger to others.

 After morning tea we decided to go to the "Roly- poly hill" where we have fun running up and down the hill and rolling down it. Greer said, "I am running down the hill. I liked I cos it was sunny. Grace, Chloe and me run down and Ella stayed up there."

 "We found the pinecones that were sharp and green.Then they were brown and they were at the top of the branch.  The green ones were at the bottom at the end of the branch." said Cody.  It is always amazing to find different things in nature and the children are very observant, noticing any little thing had is different or new.

 We decide to go to the large platform to feed any ducks but instead of ducks we found college kids learning to fish and not a duck in sight. Instead we tried jumping from one rock to another.  It was a bit scary to make that first leap but everyone took up the challenge, being encouraged by their friends. Charlie was very determined to make it to the other rock, he finally had success after the third try.
Charlie said, "We were trying to jump to the rocks. I jumped on the ground by the rock and then I jumped on to the big rock. It was fun cos it was so much fun. It's cool cos it's fun. My friends did the same as me."

Grace said, "We were jumping at the jumping rocks.  It was fun cos I liked it, it was easy, I've done it before. Charlie and Chloe landed on the floor when they did it the first time."

On our travels we collected pinecones, leaves and gum nuts for Children's Day on Sunday 3rd March. We put them in a pile under some trees to use on Sunday.  When we got back to the shed, the College students had dropped of 2 bags of pinecones for us.  Some we will keep for our fire and some for Children's Day.  Another great sunny day in Fiordland.

We found a hedgehog

John helped us reset our stoat trap.  He showed us how it worked and we learned why we don't put our fingers near a set trap when it chopped a piece of wood in half.  We hope that it will catch stoats and rats that kill our beautiful native birds, and eat their food.










As we were walking along the new track we call "pine cone track"  we found a tiny baby hedgehog that had died.

We looked at it very carefully, it's spines were still a little soft so we decided it wasn't very old.  It's tummy was furry like a cat.  It had a very long snuffly nose to find insects, and little claws for scraping insects out.  When we looked closely we could see some eggs, and some tiny maggots.  We moved it carefully off the middle of the track and made a place for it to rest.  Next week we will visit it again to see how it has decayed.

Leaf Angels in Fiordland

Tree climbing and making leaf angels were on the agenda at Nature Discovery today.  We had to lie very still so that the children and parents could put the leaves around our body.  Stefan said "We look like stars."  Then we had turns at covering each other with leaves.  John had something special in his pocket today to show us.  It was two peanut butter wax moulds that you nail to a tree and any animal that likes the smell will bite into it and an impression of there teeth marks will be left.  The children had turns at guessing what type of animal would bite into it, we had guesses of birds, rats and even dinosaurs and dragons!!  We can't wait to go back next Monday and see what marks are left in it.

A rainy day in Fiordland

Today was the first rain we have had in nearly two weeks.  It was VERY HEAVY rain and we all got very wet, but we still had lots of fun.  We found some old logs by the Gnuff house to saw.  

 We all warmed up with a nice warm drink of Milo.  We warmed our hands by the thermette and on our cups.

Sophie found a toadstool that looked just like a flower.

John and the children made a really long snake with fir cones. some of us wrote our names with cones.

Nearby the weta’s we discovered a foamy patch at the bottom of a fir tree, and the same thing on another fir tree nearby.  It was where the water was dripping down the tree.  We thought it might be the rain and the sap mixing together.

Then it was back to the shed to warm up by the fire and have lunch - then the sun came out!