Tuesday, August 14, 2012

More lovely pukekos

It was another busy afternoon creating our lovely pukeko pictures for our calendars. Here are six more of our creations for you to enjoy!

 Brandon's Pukeko

 Zoe's Pukeko

 Ronak's Pukeko

Amy's Pukeko 

 Joel's Pukeko

Sithika's Pukeko

Monday, August 13, 2012

Stunning Pukekos

We have been working hard on our calendars and our first ones are finished. We have used a mixture of pastels, paint and collage to create our masterpieces. We are very pleased with the way they have turned out, let us know what you think.

 Ashley's Pukeko

 Ella's Pukeko

 Gwen's Pukeko

 Izzy's Pukeko

 Mosese's Pukeko

Zach's Pukeko

Friday, August 3, 2012

Surgery or Not?


We hope you are enjoying our series of persuasive writing about the kiwi, do let us know what you think about the subject.Today Aspen tells us why she thinks it was worthwhile operating on K2 the kiwi.

Surgery or Not?

K2 is a kiwi who had an accident when he  hatched. His leg had twisted around the wrong way. The people who were looking after him decided to fix him with surgery. These are some reasons why it was worth saving K2 the kiwi.

Kiwi are endangered.They are very rare, there are only 1600 little spotted kiwi left!
80 years ago there were 5,000,000 kiwi in New Zealand but in 2008 there were 72,600. In the wild only 5% of kiwi chicks will live to adulthood when chicks in captivity have a 65% chance of surviving.

Kiwi are only found in New Zealand, they don’t live anywhere else because they love the food here. The great spotted
Kiwi only live on Stewart island so spend some money to help our kiwi!

Finally kiwi are a symbol to New Zealand  and we are called kiwis .When people come to New Zealand they go to kiwi houses so we can’t lose our native bird if were called kiwis and if they go extinct we can’t be called kiwis anymore!

That’s why I think it is worth saving K2. Kiwi are very special to New Zealand and are close to extinction so donate now, please save our kiwi. 

A kiwi being looked after by an Operation Nest Egg helper.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Kiwi Crisis

It's Izzy's turn to share her writing about the kiwi today, let us know what you think about her arguments. 

Kiwi Crisis

In New Zealand we are losing more and more kiwi each year, if we don’t do something now we are going to lose our national symbol. But is it worth saving them? Wouldn’t you save yourself if you were suffering what kiwis are?

Kiwis are an endangered species. Only 25,000 brown kiwis remain in NZ. 80 years ago about 5 million kiwi and in 2008 there were only 72,600, this number is estimated to decline to 63,500 by 2018 because of us. We need to do spend some money on something the whole of newzealand cares about.

Kiwis are only found in New Zealand of our most threatened kiwi the rowi and the haast tokoeka, only 350 of these kiwis remain to survive. They are found in the two separate regions of the west coast of the south island. So why can’t we save the kiwi there’s no excuse for us not to. At the moment these areas  are not safe and we need to do something about it.

Kiwis are a symbol to New Zealand and we don’t want our name to be taken away for something we did. Tourist come to NZ to look at the kiwi because of cause they don’t have them in their country. Tourists go to gift shops with kiwi items and we get money from those gift shops. But if kiwi go extinct, NO MORE MONEY, NO MORE TOURISTS!!! Tourists are a big part of New Zealands economy.

So do help save the kiwi as they are close to extinction, are only found in NZ , and are our national symbol. DONATE NOW!!


Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Saving the Kiwi

Today Ella is going to share her piece of writing on why we should work hard to save the kiwi, as you can see it's an issue Room 8 feel strongly about.


Saving the Kiwi



K2 is a brown kiwi who had an accident after he was born which made his leg twist round the opposite way round, which is why I believe we should help all Kiwis.

Kiwis are endangered, the most endangered species of kiwi is the Haast Tokoeka and the Rowi with a small amount of about 350 remaining. The brown kiwi has the most with approximately 25, 0000. So if we don’t protect our precious kiwi they will all be as dead as a Dodo.

As I said before, kiwis are endangered! If we don’t help the kiwi they will be extinct, which is terrible because they only live in New Zealand.  If they die there will be no more kiwi left in the world. If they all get wiped out we will have no symbol. The Australians get the Kangaroos, why can’t we have something special that lives in our country.


Our national emblem is the kiwi because no other country has any. Your probably thinking, so what? Why do you need a national emblem?  Well the truth is, we don’t, but they're endangered and native. No one looked after them so we did, and since then we are called kiwis.

Kiwi are endangered their native and their New Zealand’s national emblem. We need to take care of them. Imagine being a kiwi and all your friends and family are dying you wouldn’t be happy at all would you?



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