Diary of a Turtle 25 Reviews

4.6 Rating 224 Reviews

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Which kit components were the most impactful and why? Collecting rubbish and how it affects our environment. Finding out how much plastic there is, the children were surprised.

How many bags of rubbish did your class collect?

How has this kit impacted your class culture toward whenua ora (land wellness) and sustainability? Understanding that if we don’t look after our environment it affects everything.. meaning some parts of our environment will not survive if we don’t look after it.

How high was student engagement throughout this kit?

Very Low

Neutral

Very High

What’s a sentence you heard in your classroom that would help us understand the type of learning that was taking place? Why do people throw so much plastic away and not even in the bins sometimes?

What was the most unusual piece of rubbish found? A part of a pool noodle

Which of the following types of plastic waste did your class collect? Plastic Bag, Plastic Bottle, Plastic Bottle Top, Plastic Container, Plastic Wrapper, Plastic Cup

How well did this kit help your class build statistical thinking and numeracy skills?

Helped a little

Somewhat helpful

Very helpful

How well did this kit help your class build literacy skills?

Helped a little

Somewhat helpful

Very helpful

Diary of a Turtle helped my students better understand the impact plastic waste can have on marine life. Agree

“It was really great. Kids learnt lots about rubbish and how it affects animals. They did lots of statistics and really enjoyed the writing prompts.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 month ago

Which kit components were the most impactful and why? This inquiry has supported learning across literacy, art, science, and environmental education, while fostering a strong sense of care for our local environment. Most importantly, it has shown the children that their voices, ideas, and actions matter.

How many bags of rubbish did your class collect?

How has this kit impacted your class culture toward whenua ora (land wellness) and sustainability? Together, we organised a clean-up around the school footpaths, focusing on collecting rubbish before it could be washed into the drains and out to sea. This real-life action reinforced the idea that small changes can make a big difference and empowered the children to see themselves as capable contributors to their community.

How high was student engagement throughout this kit?

Very Low

Neutral

Very High

What’s a sentence you heard in your classroom that would help us understand the type of learning that was taking place? One child exclaimed, “Wow, I didn’t know that the drain led to the sea,” highlighting a powerful moment of discovery during our environmental learning.

What was the most unusual piece of rubbish found? 12 lolly pop sticks!

Which of the following types of plastic waste did your class collect? Plastic Bag, Plastic Bottle Top, Plastic Wrapper

How well did this kit help your class build statistical thinking and numeracy skills?

Helped a little

Somewhat helpful

Very helpful

How well did this kit help your class build literacy skills?

Helped a little

Somewhat helpful

Very helpful

Diary of a Turtle helped my students better understand the impact plastic waste can have on marine life. Agree

“The children have been deeply engaged in an inquiry based around caring for our turtle, which provided many rich learning opportunities across the curriculum. They particularly enjoyed tracking our turtle’s journey, observing its movements, and discussing what it needs to stay healthy and safe. This hands-on experience encouraged curiosity, responsibility, and meaningful conversations about living things and our environment. We connected this inquiry to our literacy programme by exploring the life cycle of a turtle. The children took part in shared discussions, research, and storytelling before writing their own explanations about the turtle’s life cycle. These writing experiences supported the development of vocabulary, sequencing, and early scientific understanding, while also strengthening confidence in expressing ideas through written language. Our learning extended into the arts, where the children collaborated on a large-scale turtle collage. This collective artwork encouraged teamwork, creativity, and problem-solving as the children selected materials, shared ideas, and worked together to create a meaningful piece. Through this process, they developed an appreciation for how art can be used to communicate messages and tell stories. As part of our environmental learning, we explored the drains around our school and discovered that they all lead directly to our local moana, Waikawa Bay. This sparked important discussions about pollution, waterways, and our role as kaitiaki (guardians) of the environment. The children showed a strong sense of responsibility and empathy for marine life, deciding that they wanted to take action to help protect the ocean. Together, we organised a clean-up around the school footpaths, focusing on collecting rubbish before it could be washed into the drains and out to sea. This real-life action reinforced the idea that small changes can make a big difference and empowered the children to see themselves as capable contributors to their community. This inquiry has supported learning across literacy, art, science, and environmental education, while fostering a strong sense of care for our local environment. Most importantly, it has shown the children that their voices, ideas, and actions matter.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 month ago

Which kit components were the most impactful and why? the turtle tracking and the gloves for the clean up in order to protect the turtles

How many bags of rubbish did your class collect?

How has this kit impacted your class culture toward whenua ora (land wellness) and sustainability? The students were able to reflect on what they had found and we able to catergorize this by sorting.

How high was student engagement throughout this kit?

Very Low

Neutral

Very High

What’s a sentence you heard in your classroom that would help us understand the type of learning that was taking place? "Are we able to recycle this?" or "The reason this was found on the beach would be......?"

What was the most unusual piece of rubbish found? rusty piece possibly of some sort of machinery or railway line track

Which of the following types of plastic waste did your class collect? Plastic Bag, Plastic Bottle, Plastic Bottle Top, Plastic Container, Plastic Wrapper, Plastic Cup

How well did this kit help your class build statistical thinking and numeracy skills?

Helped a little

Somewhat helpful

Very helpful

How well did this kit help your class build literacy skills?

Helped a little

Somewhat helpful

Very helpful

Diary of a Turtle helped my students better understand the impact plastic waste can have on marine life. Agree

“The students really enjoyed learning about the sea turtles and understanding the role we have in showing tautaiao to protect sea life. They were surprised by the amount of and variety of rubbish we collected.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 month ago

Which kit components were the most impactful and why? Tracking the turtle. The class loved it

How many bags of rubbish did your class collect?

How has this kit impacted your class culture toward whenua ora (land wellness) and sustainability? Yes

How high was student engagement throughout this kit?

Very Low

Neutral

Very High

What’s a sentence you heard in your classroom that would help us understand the type of learning that was taking place? I want to keep looking after our oceans next year.

What was the most unusual piece of rubbish found? All standard rubbish.... maybe a sock?

Which of the following types of plastic waste did your class collect? Plastic Bottle, Plastic Bottle Top, Plastic Container, Plastic Wrapper

How well did this kit help your class build statistical thinking and numeracy skills?

Helped a little

Somewhat helpful

Very helpful

How well did this kit help your class build literacy skills?

Helped a little

Somewhat helpful

Very helpful

Diary of a Turtle helped my students better understand the impact plastic waste can have on marine life. Agree

“This kit was fabulous and engaging!”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 month ago

Which kit components were the most impactful and why? We loved selecting and adopting a turtle to follow. The writing that came out of following our turtle was rich and purposeful, as well as creative.

How many bags of rubbish did your class collect?

How has this kit impacted your class culture toward whenua ora (land wellness) and sustainability? The children were shocked at how much rubbish was found in our area. They were all planning to talk to their families about reducing as well as reusing.

How high was student engagement throughout this kit?

Very Low

Neutral

Very High

What’s a sentence you heard in your classroom that would help us understand the type of learning that was taking place? "I hope Nugget the turtle doesn't get stuck in the plastic rubbish on his swim"

What was the most unusual piece of rubbish found? Plastic mesh (like that is found around chocolate coins).

Which of the following types of plastic waste did your class collect? Plastic Bag, Plastic Bottle, Plastic Bottle Top, Plastic Container, Plastic Wrapper, Plastic Cup

How well did this kit help your class build statistical thinking and numeracy skills?

Helped a little

Somewhat helpful

Very helpful

How well did this kit help your class build literacy skills?

Helped a little

Somewhat helpful

Very helpful

Diary of a Turtle helped my students better understand the impact plastic waste can have on marine life. Agree

“Our class absolutely loved the Diary of a Turtle. Our big theme was Moana, so the Diary of a Turtle kit beautifully complemented the other learning we had planned.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 month ago

Which kit components were the most impactful and why? Tracking Twinkle (after Moana disappeared 😬) and the Sea Cleaners messages

How many bags of rubbish did your class collect? Our 2 classes collected 6-8 medium sized bags- 1 and 1/2 big bags from Thomson’s Bush near the Waihopai River in Invercargill.

How has this kit impacted your class culture toward whenua ora (land wellness) and sustainability? Huge impact. Collecting rubbish was often top 5 of favourite activities from this year ( we have done lots of cool fun things)

How high was student engagement throughout this kit?

Very Low

Neutral

Very High

What’s a sentence you heard in your classroom that would help us understand the type of learning that was taking place? I picked up rubbish walking home yesterday

What was the most unusual piece of rubbish found? So many but kids were surprised by a belt.

Which of the following types of plastic waste did your class collect? Plastic Bag, Plastic Bottle, Plastic Bottle Top, Plastic Container, Plastic Wrapper, Plastic Cup

How well did this kit help your class build statistical thinking and numeracy skills?

Helped a little

Somewhat helpful

Very helpful

How well did this kit help your class build literacy skills?

Helped a little

Somewhat helpful

Very helpful

Diary of a Turtle helped my students better understand the impact plastic waste can have on marine life. Agree

“Our classes Rooms loved following Twinkle and getting messages from the Sea Cleaners crew ( so effective). The power of doing doing good by picking up rubbish and caring for our local environment and how that effects the marine wildlife was so important to our classes.”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 month ago

Which kit components were the most impactful and why? The gloves and the diary cards

How many bags of rubbish did your class collect? not sure as they collected outside of school but some are still collecting when they see rubbish in public places.

How has this kit impacted your class culture toward whenua ora (land wellness) and sustainability? It has helped my class really connect with the plight of sea turtles and what they can do to help.

How high was student engagement throughout this kit?

Very Low

Neutral

Very High

What’s a sentence you heard in your classroom that would help us understand the type of learning that was taking place? The 'jelly fish' was not really a jellyfish at all! It was a plastic bag.

What was the most unusual piece of rubbish found? A golf ball, bones.

Which of the following types of plastic waste did your class collect? Plastic Bag, Plastic Bottle, Plastic Bottle Top, Plastic Container, Plastic Straw, Plastic Wrapper, Plastic Cup

How well did this kit help your class build statistical thinking and numeracy skills?

Helped a little

Somewhat helpful

Very helpful

How well did this kit help your class build literacy skills?

Helped a little

Somewhat helpful

Very helpful

Diary of a Turtle helped my students better understand the impact plastic waste can have on marine life. Agree

“My class were instantly hooked into this resource. We were learning about being kaitiaki. They particularly loved the gloves and picked up rubbish in their local communities. They did lots of meaningful writing and pictures as well. Thank you !”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 month ago

Which kit components were the most impactful and why? The turtle tracker! Our students were so on board with tracking and 'adopting' a turtle. We chose a female hawksbill turtle named Sparkle. The students were so excited to see where she was at and where she had been. Some great learning opportunities in terms of geographical location and where in world we are compared with Sparkle. There was some disappointment however when some students realised that even though we were 'adopting' Sparkle, she wasn't coming to live at school with us.

How many bags of rubbish did your class collect? We did a rubbish clean up around our kura, logistically it didn't quite work for our class to go elsewhere and conduct this. We collected 1 bag of rubbish but we used this as a mathematics activity to tie in with our unit on collecting and displaying information. We grouped all the rubbish we found, counted the individual pieces and created a bar graph to display the information. The 'plastic' group was by far the biggest!

How has this kit impacted your class culture toward whenua ora (land wellness) and sustainability? This kit has definitely impacted how these students view rubbish. Before it was just something that went back in their lunchbox after eating and now they are thinking a bit harder about where it goes after that. One student even made comment about some rubbish in his lunchbox and he didn't want it to hurt the turtles.

How high was student engagement throughout this kit?

Very Low

Neutral

Very High

What’s a sentence you heard in your classroom that would help us understand the type of learning that was taking place? I can't recall a specific sentence, sorry.

What was the most unusual piece of rubbish found? A few odd socks!

Which of the following types of plastic waste did your class collect? Plastic Bottle Top, Plastic Wrapper

How well did this kit help your class build statistical thinking and numeracy skills?

Helped a little

Somewhat helpful

Very helpful

How well did this kit help your class build literacy skills?

Helped a little

Somewhat helpful

Very helpful

Diary of a Turtle helped my students better understand the impact plastic waste can have on marine life. Agree

“This school kit complemented our term idea of Marine reserves perfectly. The class consists of 16 5-8 year olds and in Week 8 we went on our 'Junior Camp'. We visited the Goat Island Marine Reserve Discovery centre and it was so cool to see the context our studetns had built over the term around ocean life and the importance of caring for the ocean being built upon in that setting. The kit contained lots of resources and useful links. The students particularly enjoyed the lifecycle of a plastic bottle video with one studetn in particular finding a plastic bottle at lunch time and bringing it in to show me so that we could recycle it together. I really like that there were variations in learning levels so that we could adapt this kit to suit our studetns as needed. Thank you!”

Helpful Report

Posted 1 month ago