Kids’ book extract— Shell-ebrate Shells from The Beach Activity Book
Author:
Rachel Haydon
Illustrator
Pippa Keel
Publisher:
Te Papa Press
ISBN:
9781991165510
Date published:
11 January 2024
Pages:
176
Format:
Paperback
RRP:
$35
All books bought via this link help us to review more books from Aotearoa — thank you for supporting local books and authors
The Beach Activity Book: 99 Ideas for Activities by the Water around Aotearoa New Zealand is an engaging activity book for young New Zealanders and their families. The 99 activities in this immersive book for children aged 7 to 14 range from experiments and observation to conservation and mindfulness. Developed to inspire curious young minds to explore and appreciate our beaches, lakes, rivers and streams. It is also designed to be taken out into natural environments and to be drawn and written in.
The following extract is an activity designed for kids to help broaden their knowledge of tikanga while observing the shells of molluscs and bivalves on Aoteraroa coastlines.
An example of tikanga: When using harakeke (flax) in some activities in this book, make sure to take the outer leaves of the plant to use for your creations. This is important because the oldest leaves are at the outside of the plant and youngest, inner shoots are in the middle. If you cut from the middle, you risk harming the plant. For Māori, the fan-shaped harakeke plant represents a whānau (family), with the youngest leaves in the middle representing the children. The leaves surrounding the inner shoots are like the parents, and the older leavesare like the tūpuna or grandparents.
Tikanga
Tikanga means ‘the correct way of doing things’ and is the reasoning or thinking behind how things are done, customs and behaviours. For some activities in The Beach Activity Book, it is important to acknowledge the tikanga needed.
Respect for Nature
Here are some good guidelines and behaviours to keep in mind when interacting with wildlife.
• Move slowly and step carefully. Be mindful where you put your feet so you don’t squash anything.
• If you lift them, carefully put rocks back in the same position and take care of any animals that have movedwhile the rock was lifted. (You don’t want to squash them when you put the rock back!)
• Leave animals where you found them.
• Leave plants or seaweed that are still growing in place.
• Don’t take too many empty shells home with you because other animals can use them as homes.
• Give wildlife a lot of space. Keep your distance from seabirds, including penguins, and animals such as seals and sea lions. You can use the zoom on your camera or binoculars to get a really close look.
• If you must do so, handle animals with gentle care. If they live in the water, then hold them in the water. Hold other animals close to the ground in case they fall out of your hands.
• If animals such as sea lions approach you, back away slowly. They can move much faster on land than you might expect!
• Always keep dogs under control and on a lead in coastal areas. We love our pets, but their curiosity and excitement can disturb wildlife!
The Beach Activity Book features charming illustrations by Pippa Keel
Shell-ebrate Shells!
Looking for different kinds of shells is heaps of fun. In Aotearoa New Zealand we have a lot of creatures that live in shells at our beaches and estuaries. They are part of a very large group of animals called molluscs. Molluscs are a type of animal with a soft body. You’ll already be familiar with some of these, such as snails and slugs in the garden. You can soon appreciate the sheer variety of shells when you look closely. When you are out and about and can see living creatures, or the shells of dead molluscs washed up, start to look at the differences between them. One of the ways to see these differences is to look at shell shape. Try to find these different shapes of shells:
Shell questions:
1. Where were you looking?
2. How many different creatures or shell types do you think you found?
3. What shape did you find was the most common?
4. Were there any shapes you found that were not like the ones here?
5. Describe the shape:
6. What was this animal?
Shell investigation - Bivalves
The word ‘bivalve’ means ‘two valves’. These are animals that have a shell with two halves or ‘valves’. There are thousands of different kinds of bivalves. They include familiar shelled animals such as mussels, clams, oysters and scallops.
Your Challenge
1. Find some bivalve shells. Your best chance is near an estuary, river mouth or on a beach, but you might find bivalves such as freshwater mussels (kākahi, kāeo or torewai) in rivers too.
2. Have a close look and see what patterns you can spot on their shell – not the colour patterns, but more the way the shell is ‘built’. What do you notice?
3. Bivalve shells can have different patterns to their shell. Can you pick which one your shell has? Does your shell have one of these patterns (below)?
The Beach Activity Book: 99 Ideas for Activities by the Water around Aotearoa New Zealand by Rachel Haydon and illustrated by Pippa Keel is on sale now ($35, Te Papa Press).
About the authors:
Rachel Haydon is a qualified primary school teacher and scientist with a zoology Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s in marine science. She has more than 18 years’ experience of teaching science to children of all ages in schools, museums, zoos and aquariums around the world. She is the General Manager of the National Aquarium of New Zealand. Rachel is the author of the Nature Activity Book (Te Papa Press) and Kaewa the Kororā (Massey University Press). She is dedicated to motivating children of all ages to get outside and explore, connect with nature and have the best chance to protect the natural world and all that lives within it.
Pippa Keel is an award-winning illustration designer, with an honour’s degree in illustration and a huge love of the great outdoors! From her small studio in Te Whanganui-a- Tara Wellington, Pippa collaborates with a variety of clients. During the warmer months, she travels around Aotearoa to hand-paint murals. Getting outside into nature has been a part of Pippa’s life since before she could walk, and she recently dipped her toe into free diving (a real help for this book!). She hopes her drawings, alongside Rachel’s fab activities, go a good way towards inspiring others to venture into the wild.
