Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Considering the kiwi

Today Brandon shares his piece of persuasive writing about saving the kiwi, let us know if you agree with him.


Save the kiwi.

Is it worth it? Imagine if you and your species were in trouble and no one wanted to help you how would you feel? It’s extraordinary how fast the kiwis are dying. Do you know that only 5% of the kiwis make it to adult hood.
  
Kiwis are going extinct and are you helping to save them? Do you know that 80 years ago there was around 5 million kiwi now there’s only 72 600 so that’s a 4 927 400 population drop. So need to spend some money or they will go extinct.
  
Do you know that the kiwi are only found in New Zealand and the and the only nature they can live in is New Zealand’s so they need your help. The kiwi can’t fly which makes them vulnerable to animals like rats and stocks. So we need to help them because it’s a race against time. 
  
As you might know the kiwi are famous outside and inside New Zealand they mean lots to all New Zealanders we sell millions of gifts that have kiwi on them. They are our national symbol. We must stop taking them for granted. They are what brings New Zealand together so please do help.

The North Island Brown Kiwi

Monday, July 30, 2012

Should we save the Kiwi?

We have been looking at persuasive writing in Room 8, writing which tried to convince the reader to agree with our point of view. To start we learnt about a kiwi called K2 who had to have an operation to fix his twisted leg, we then discussed whether it was worth spending the money on him and whether it is worth trying to save the kiwi altogether. Here is Zach's piece on whether it is worth trying to save the kiwi...do you agree with him?



Kiwis

If there were only roughly 42,600 of us humans left, you had a broken leg and you were suffering, you would pay $Millions to fix it, right? I think kiwis should be saved from extinction because they are endangered. They are also endemic to New Zealand.

Kiwis are flightless birds. They used to be able to fly but they lost their wings. There was no danger 20 million years ago so they lost their wings and now they regret it. Now there is stoats and rats and weasels and plenty more nasty little critters out there ready to make a meal out of the poor little flightless kiwi. If we don’t do something the population will decline tragically and they will fall into the black hole of extinction

Kiwis should be saved from extinction because, if we don’t, the customers at New Zealand gift shops at museums and stores will dramatically decline. Do you know why? Because of you! You decided to let the beautiful, flightless kiwi die! You made the little kiwi toys disappear because there are no more kiwis to study on!

In conclusion, I think kiwis should be saved from extinction because they are nearly extinct.     

K2 the Kiwi after his operation

Thursday, July 19, 2012

More Marvelous Pukekos

Some more of Room 8 finished their pukeko sketches today and here they are for your enjoyment. I think you'll agree they look quite stunning.

 Sithika's Pukeko

 Finn's Pukeko

Marija's pukeko

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Pukeko Pictures

We are starting to work on our calendars for this year. Mrs Davies decided we were going to use Pukekos as our topic and so we have been busy sketching from photographs. We've been making sure we get all the detail into our sketch and then adding tone to show the light and dark parts of the picture. Here are the first few sketches that are finished, let us know what you think. 

 Zach's pukeko

 Daniel's pukeko

 Izzy's pukeko

 Ashley's pukeko

 Aspen's pukeko

 Joel's pukeko

 Viola's pukeko

 Jye Yin's pukeko