Dates for your diary:
Museum – Monday 24th February 12-3pm Gina and Mel’s HB at Museum Fill Out Form Here for Museum Trip
Athletics – Thursday 27th February
Swimming – 23rd March – 3rd April (excluding 27th)
Floor 4 Camp – 6th – 8th April
It’s been great getting to know the children in our Homebases and connecting with families over the past week. We spent week 3 focussing on our Special Character and developing shared understandings around this.
Week 4 sees the start of our ‘normal’ program. On Monday we have workshops around the arts and sciences run by HB LAs and our exciting projects start on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The students are all signed up to these and ready to go. See the timetable Timetable Week 4 Term 1
New HB Names
This week our Homebases took some time to give themselves a new name via a voting process. The new names are as follows:
Kate/Debs – Homebase Pouakai
Beth/Melva – Homebase Ruru
Gina/Mel – Homebase Pukeko
Nadine/Suze – Homebase Piwakawaka
Reminders
Lunches
We understand that kids are fussy, but food is their fuel for a busy day at school. If you can, please try to include healthy lunch options in their lunch boxes, a bento style box with lots of small snacks like fruit and veg, cheese cubes, nuts, crackers, salami, sandwiches etc is often great as children love to graze. We are also finding that quite a few children are coming to with less lunch than their body needs. We are currently having 3 eating breaks a day due to the nature of the new timetable. Please ensure your child has enough lunch.
If your child forgets their lunch we have some snacks available but they may not cater to dietary requirements. In the past this has been managed by a group of parents who have also made more substantial meals for those who forget their lunch or whose family maybe needing support in providing lunches for a while. If you are able to help with re-stocking this please contact Niki. niki.stephenson@aotawhiti.school.nz
Sun hats
Please ensure your child has a named sunhat in their bag or tote tray each day. Hats are required in Terms 1 and 4. We not only go outside for lunch each day but plan to use the city as much as possible.
Parent Help for Duties
We love to get the children in the gym for a run around in the mornings and outside for lunch. We need extra adults to help make this an option. If you are able to help regularly please fill this doc out. You are of course welcome to just surprise us on the day too. Parent Help for Duties
Lost Property
Eek – it’s already beginning to pile up. Please check your child has returned home with all their belongings and if not, check the lost property just opposite the cafe on level four. It is immensely helpful for you to name your child’s items too so we can assist them getting back to the owners. At the end of term any unnamed lost property is donated to Charity.
Illness and Headlice
Last week several children and myself came down with a vomiting bug. I don’t know about the children but it has taken me a full three days to recover enough to consider coming back to school. Please remember that it is school policy that children must remain home for 48hours after their last episode of vomiting or diarrhoea.
We have not seen any head lice around but now seems a good time to mention that if we do see live lice in a student’s hair we will need to send them home, they can return to school once the live lice have been removed and the hair treated.
Athletics Day Drop off/Pick up Next week
This year Athletics Day will again be held at Te Puna Wai in Halswell.
Drop off and pick up is at Te Puna Wai, we will not be transporting from school as the whole school is attending.
Yr 1-6 staff will be onsite at Te Puna Wai from 8.30am until 3.30pm for drop offs and pick ups.
Summer Futsal and Touch – First week
We had our first summer sports this Friday but sadly I forgot to take any pictures. If you take any pictures in the future, please forward them onto me as soon as the game is finished so I can have them ready for our newsletter.
Our top ranked futsal team won their games scoring 6 points in both games. Well done! The second team was able to come away with a draw in their second game. I bet there was some great improvement overall.
The Touch team started out very shaky in their first game, but by the second game they were able to score 3 tries. Improvement was made throughout both games and it was amazing to see the quick growth.
With a little training for all the teams, there will be improvements for both sports.
If you would like to come and support you are very much welcome. We are looking for more players and would love more girls to be involved as we only have Rose taking part. My goal for the future is to have more girls participate and with encouragement from the parents, having girls only teams would be a wonderful outcome.
Code Club
Code Club has some spaces available for years 3-4s. Please email nadine.walmisley@aotawhiti.school.nz if you are interested.
A Handy Tool
One of our senior students parents has suggested using Visualping to send you a notification via email every time a webpage you have nominated changes. This could be handy to remind you to check for these newsletters.
News for Melva and Beth’s HB (HB Ruru) – follow link below
Important Week 4 information for Beth and Melva’s HB : HB Ruru
Looking forward to seeing you in this week!
Nadine, Mel, Beth, Dean and Bonnie.