Today Lily brought in a beautiful book about extinct birds of New Zealand to share with the class there was a large section on Moa at the beginning.
Miss B: Now what is extinct again?
Vida: You can’t see one ever again, they are all dead.
Eva: Where did they live?
Miss B: Well we could look at where they live.
Raul: Extinct means fossils, Dinosaurs had lots of bones and they turned into fossils. Fossils that means they are rock.
We opened the book and counted how many different species of moa there were, the book we were reading noted 12. I read some facts out of the book for the children. We learnt that moas could live up to 50 years.
We started talking about the fact that moas would lay one or two eggs each season.
Vida: A moas egg is big and white and bigger than a chickens egg.
Miss B: I’ve got an ostrich egg and it is about this big but I think a moa would have an egg even bigger than this.
Claire: Maybe a moa would have an egg about this big. (Indicating about half a metre in height)
We looked at a picture of a Giant South Island moa.
Miss B: Where is this moa living?
Vida: In the jungle.
Brody: Or a forest.
Miss B: The biggest moas lived in the South Island.
Claire: Where we live.
Miss B: The biggest leg bone ever found was 1m in length. (The Tibia)
We compared that to the length of my Tibia and then against the children. Tyra would have been looking just above the moas knee is she was standing next to it.
Miss B: They had a flat beak.
Brody: Just like us.
Thomas: we don’t have beaks Brody.
I read a small section of the book outlining what the moas ate, which included trees, shrubs and vines. This proved to be exciting because the children had developed a theory of what they ate based on their current understanding of the world and it was proved right.
Vida: There were stones in the moas tummy too, it showed it in a book
Miss B: You’re right
At this point we discussed what gizzards stones are for and how they help the moa munch and crunch the food.
Miss B:So why do you think the moa became extinct?
Hannah: Because they shot them.
Charlie: Volcanos
Vida: The Maori ate all of them.
Claire: Because a crocodile bite them.
Claire: I wonder how they ate the foot and the beaks.
Charlie: I thinks beaks are bones. They didn’t eat them.
Vida: they chopped them up with spears.
Claire: The dinosaurs ate them.
Caitlyn: The mothers would have eaten the brains.
Amelie: they would have chopped them into little squares.
Miss B: What would they have used?
Claire: knives
Miss B: Where would they have got their knives from.
Claire: Make them
Miss B: Out of what?
Vida: rock and wood
Eva: They could have used axes.
Tyra: they could make their axes out of greenstone
Hannah: they could chop them with their hands
Caitlyn: they had claws.
Charlie: they let their finger nails grow and then they scraped them.
Using the book, I introduced the Haast eagle another predator to the moa. They had a wing span of 2.6 metres and were a hazard to the Maori as well. We talked about how the Haast eagle was also extinct and that we have a job to make sure that other birds/animals don’t become extinct too.
Vida: Like kiwis they are almost extinct.
Claire: In the botanic gardens there are kiwi. They come out at night.
Vida: Kiwi only wake up at night time.
Miss B: This means they are nocturnal.
Claire: Like owls
Miss B: Now what is extinct again?
Vida: You can’t see one ever again, they are all dead.
Eva: Where did they live?
Miss B: Well we could look at where they live.
Raul: Extinct means fossils, Dinosaurs had lots of bones and they turned into fossils. Fossils that means they are rock.
We opened the book and counted how many different species of moa there were, the book we were reading noted 12. I read some facts out of the book for the children. We learnt that moas could live up to 50 years.
We started talking about the fact that moas would lay one or two eggs each season.
Vida: A moas egg is big and white and bigger than a chickens egg.
Miss B: I’ve got an ostrich egg and it is about this big but I think a moa would have an egg even bigger than this.
Claire: Maybe a moa would have an egg about this big. (Indicating about half a metre in height)
We looked at a picture of a Giant South Island moa.
Miss B: Where is this moa living?
Vida: In the jungle.
Brody: Or a forest.
Miss B: The biggest moas lived in the South Island.
Claire: Where we live.
Miss B: The biggest leg bone ever found was 1m in length. (The Tibia)
We compared that to the length of my Tibia and then against the children. Tyra would have been looking just above the moas knee is she was standing next to it.
Miss B: They had a flat beak.
Brody: Just like us.
Thomas: we don’t have beaks Brody.
I read a small section of the book outlining what the moas ate, which included trees, shrubs and vines. This proved to be exciting because the children had developed a theory of what they ate based on their current understanding of the world and it was proved right.
Vida: There were stones in the moas tummy too, it showed it in a book
Miss B: You’re right
At this point we discussed what gizzards stones are for and how they help the moa munch and crunch the food.
Miss B:So why do you think the moa became extinct?
Hannah: Because they shot them.
Charlie: Volcanos
Vida: The Maori ate all of them.
Claire: Because a crocodile bite them.
Claire: I wonder how they ate the foot and the beaks.
Charlie: I thinks beaks are bones. They didn’t eat them.
Vida: they chopped them up with spears.
Claire: The dinosaurs ate them.
Caitlyn: The mothers would have eaten the brains.
Amelie: they would have chopped them into little squares.
Miss B: What would they have used?
Claire: knives
Miss B: Where would they have got their knives from.
Claire: Make them
Miss B: Out of what?
Vida: rock and wood
Eva: They could have used axes.
Tyra: they could make their axes out of greenstone
Hannah: they could chop them with their hands
Caitlyn: they had claws.
Charlie: they let their finger nails grow and then they scraped them.
Using the book, I introduced the Haast eagle another predator to the moa. They had a wing span of 2.6 metres and were a hazard to the Maori as well. We talked about how the Haast eagle was also extinct and that we have a job to make sure that other birds/animals don’t become extinct too.
Vida: Like kiwis they are almost extinct.
Claire: In the botanic gardens there are kiwi. They come out at night.
Vida: Kiwi only wake up at night time.
Miss B: This means they are nocturnal.
Claire: Like owls
At the end of the session, one of the children asked what flax was so we went for a walk to to find some flax to look at.
No comments:
Post a Comment