PINs is back!
PINs this term will be held on Friday 2 July, this date coincides with the date we have chosen for our whole school matariki celebration, so the day looks like this:
9 – 11am Homebase
11:30 – 3pm PINs
3pm – 7pm Matariki Night Soup, Parent/ LA/ Student- led workshops, performances, lantern walk and shared kai.
We are asking for offers of PINs workshops to be based around matariki if possible – but we won’t turn you away if you want to do something non-matariki-related!
Please complete the forms below if you are keen to support our fabulous matariki day on Friday 2 July.
To whet your appetites and help you make the choice to run a workshop this term, here are some soundbites from a few parents who ran a PINs workshop in term 1:
- I LOVE how PINs produces groups of kids with a massive range of ages but all passionate about the same thing. Because it’s their interest, tamariki stay focussed and enthusiastic the whole time. It’s brilliant. Ao Tawhiti kids are a dream to take ‘out and about’ as they know how to ‘behave’ in public spaces and as it’s such a normal part of school life they don’t get over-excited and loud/silly like more mainstream groups of children (parent and primary school teacher)
- If you want me to run the same workshop for next PINS, you can lock it in… seems like it was popular and now I’ve got all the recipes and plan for the day so it’ll be easier to run it again (parent of students in Y 2 & 4 who ran a bread making workshop across Y 1-13)
- Just wanted to take a moment to show my appreciation of the fantastic PINs day I had today. The kids were so welcoming and engaged, it was such a joy to spend the day with them all! All the kids were outstanding, appreciative and just cool to hang with, so the mentions above [of particular students] were just the highlights of a really outstanding day. Today made L and I feel really privileged to be part of the Ao Tawhiti community (parent of a child in Y9, new to school this year)
Below are some responses from the students about what they’d like to see offered for our term 2 PINs.
| laser tag | 2nd edition Dungeons and Dragons. |
| I really liked the doll’s house making pins so maybe like a building woodwork or laser cut stuff maybe | Learning random stuff about stars, planets and space over all would be cool |
| cooking/baking | making rockets |
| Mountain biking/Adventure park | Scholarship physics, NCEA courses |
| star making | Flax weaving, jewelry making |
| Paper lanterns, art and crafts | Matariki Origami |
| Build matariki in MC/ minecraft redstone circuits and builds | Games – video, cards, board |
| Bike ride to Port Hills to watch stars come up/ mountain biking/ adventure park | Board games with Richard Pitts (Secret Hitler is quite fun) |
| Stop Motion animation | Crocheting/ needle felting |
As well as baking star cookies (for decorating them on Matariki), making wind chimes, lantern making, making a star play for the little ones, making māori jewellery, making things with flax, māori artwork, star origami, making eels out of old socks.
Other matariki-themed ideas that have succeeded in the past include stargazing, soap carving, creating with clay, kites, candle-making, matariki yarn stars, storytelling, hikoi.
This year we will have a hangi. We are thrilled to be able to use the Christchurch City Council’s hangi pits at the Commons, and would love some support with organising the hangi and kai. More information will come out soon, but if you are interested in supporting a hangi, please complete the form below.