Ngā mihi e te whānau, warm greetings to you all.
House Points
Our focus for this fortnight is our kete value of 'We Make a Difference". The whakatauki, proverb, that accompanies this value is 'Nā mātou he rerekē te ao'. This translates as 'The world is different because of us'. Kaiako, teachers are on the lookout for students showing co-operation , initiative and making a positive difference for one another in the playground, in the classroom, and around the Hub.
Once more, we encourage you to talk about this value at home over the next week or so, reflecting on how we can all show that 'We Make a Difference' in our daily lives.
Wonder Project - The Rocket Challenge
Nau mai te wero! As part of our continuing inquiry into 'Change', we have been working alongside some wonderful ambassadors from Engineering NZ (including Pōhutukawa whānau's own John Aramowicz) in undertaking the 'Rocket Challenge'. So far in our STEM journey, students have discussed with our Ambassadors why Health and Safety is a fundamental part of the engineering world, undertaken test flights of bottle rockets, reflected on variables, discussed Newton's first law of motion, and designed and created prototypes of their very own bottle rockets.
It has been great to see the children developing their skills of collaboration, problem solving, and innovation while creating their bottle rockets. We have suggested that they speak with you at home about their project, and students are welcome (but not expected) to bring in anything that may support the creation of their rockets. Suggestions include glue guns, lightweight plastic, or cereal boxes (for fins), washi tape, etc. Here are some photos of our journey so far, and a video of a first "test flight".
Shoes, Ngā Hū
Mud, glorious mud! We certainly have our fair share of it these days. The mud that is making its way into our learning spaces is always a challenge at this time of the year. Because of this, and for the time being, we are asking tamariki to remove their shoes, hū, before entering the Hub and to leave them outside the door, under the eaves. As mentioned before, we have wonderful underfloor heating to keep feet warm, and we will be having an explicit teaching lesson next week on how to pair our shoes neatly outside the door to stop them wandering off by themselves! If you'd like to supply your tamariki with slippers or warm indoor socks, you are most welcome
On the topic of shoes we would like to ask you, if possible, to ensure that your tamariki are wearing running shoes or sneakers on both Wednesday and Thursday. Although we do some form of fitness every day, Wednesday and Thursday is when we run our winter sports programme and suitable footwear is a must. This ensures that students are able to safely carry out the skills that the kaiako, teachers, and the winter sport coaches are teaching them. As always your support with this is greatly appreciated and please let us know if we can support you in any way with this.
BYOD
We are so lucky to have such a huge uptake of whānau signing up their children to bring their own devices to school. We'd like to ask these whānau to please remind your children to bring their devices to school, and fully charged. This enables the school Chromebooks to be used by those students who do not bring their own devices to school.