Are your children finishing their lunches?

They might not be because of  Fonterra Milk in Schools. At morning tea,we are delivered cold milk in cartons and we have to remove the straw in a certain way, drink it all, then fold the cartoon as small as it can go.

Assemblage Art Mountain

Thank you to our helpers today. All the children now have a box. The construction is almost complete - it's just papering and painting for children who didn't quite finish. We are having another go on Wednesday at 2pm if you would like to help out.  Feel free to drop by.

Maths Learning

We are learning about measurement and the language we use to compare such as bigger, smaller, shorter, taller etc. These are some videos we took:

Look what we achieved today

Thank you parents and friends of parents and grandparents who stopped by today. We got over half the class fitted out with shelves or backgrounds for their boxes and they look amazing. We are going to keep going next week, basically afternoons at 2pm except Tuesday (dance practice with Room 17 for our big performance 16 April) and Swimming Friday. So for children who missed out today -we will definitely get to theirs early next week. If you can drop by - that would be great. We have all the materials so if you want to help out before or after school for a few minutes, feel free.

No swimming - Assemblage Art - What are you doing at 2pm tomorrow - Friday 27 March?

Our Swimming is cancelled so the middle syndicate can continue with swimming programme. We are going to do Assemblage Art instead. Our goal is to get some shelves or partitions in the boxes but it is labour intensive and not for little hands - we found that out today!

The children have drawn plans and they can take part in painting or cutting paper to glue inside their box. If you are around at 2pm tomorrow we would love some help!  These are pictures of the children going through the planning stages of thinking what could hold their treasures and what might look good.

Assemblage Art

Kia Ora guys
If you have any coloured bits of paper (can be left over wrapping paper) or scraps of material that could be useful you can send them in. It will help us with our ideas to display our treasures and we can start covering walls.

 Thanks kindly Mrs Makani


 These are small boxes that we have painted and might use to go inside the larger ones.

Assemblage Art

Thank you for sending in boxes and items to school with your child. We are hoping to make a start on our boxes this week and we will add to them over the following weeks. Some children have made their own at home already. Well done Fiona, Finn, Neeti and Kamya. We will still make boxes in class and maybe we can reuse what you already have or make another one.

If you have bits and pieces at home that could be handy such as colourful bits of paper, fabric, buttons, ribbons, bead, small amounts of paint, feel free to send them in.

If we have enough boxes, we will start on Thursday by partitioning our boxes so there are compartments for our favourite things. If we have time we may be able to paper or even do some painting. Keep an eye on the blog to see how our collection builds as we would love some help (and some extra glue guns if possible).

Check this out:

Powhiri

On Wednesday we had a powhiri at school to welcome the new staff and students and their whanau to the school. A powhiri is a Maori welcome. We believe that until welcomed, all new people have a special status and that when there is a powhiri we all become one. We have lots of children in the Kapa Haka and they were a part of the powhiri. Tino pai o koutou mahi! You did a great job!

Keeping Ourselves Safe

On Monday, Constable Carl came to talk to us about the Keeping Ourselves Safe programme. Keeping Ourselves Safe teaches us that we are special and unique. It also tells us that we can be confident to say if a touch makes us feel happy or sad or confusing. Also that we can say NO to touch that makes us feel sad or confused.

We care about our environment

Room 23 children have been picking up rubbish and helping to make our school grounds a cleaner and more pleasant place to be. We have collected bags of waste. Take a look at some of it.

Last weekend, Mrs Tuck, Miss Bland and myself went to the Ecofest Waka Walk. Ecofest is a month long festival of events to involve people in creative and fun sustainable activities. The Waka walk followed a path that Maori took to cross from the Waitemata Harbour at New Lynn to the Manukau Harbour at Green Bay. The walk started at Olympic Park near the stream. This stream comes from the Whau and is called Waitahurangi. It runs behind the commercial buildings and residential houses that line Portage Road. We walked all the way to Green Bay along Portage Road and we stopped to pick up rubbish along the way. It was fun and inspiring to hear plans for cleaning and planting the stream. The places where this has been started are quite beautiful.

Maori could only paddle part way up the stream before it became too narrow and then had to carry the waka overland. When we arrived at Green Bay, there was a real live waka waiting. But this waka was made from plastic bottles. AJ and his crew had paddled it down the Wanganui river to make a point about reusing waste. Incredible to think that these bottles can take hundreds of years to breakdown and that hundreds are discarded every second!

http://www.ecomatters.org.nz/what-s-on/ecowest-festival-2014/

Green Day on Friday

Don't forget to bring a gold coin for mufti. Wear green. Celebrate Irish culture!!!

Visual Arts - We are learning about Assemblage Art!

March  2014

Dear parents,

This year the topic Ara Teina will be focusing on is Sustainability.  We hope to explore different facets of this very important concept each term during the year. 

During Term 1 the children will be learning that they are unique and talented individuals, each having a part to play in the classroom and within our school.  The concept of being unique will be explored through Visual Art with the children creating a piece of ‘assemblage art’ that reflects their likes and passions.  (Assemblage art is when an artist collects used objects and assembles them into a 2 or 3 dimensional work of art.)  We are excited to promote the idea of reusing and recycling items to generate good quality art.  Here are two examples of the kind of artwork we will be making this term. 

How you can help…

v Firstly, please help your child to complete the ‘My Favourite Things worksheet.  This will help your child identify the things they really love and what they could use in their assemblage artwork.  Please return the worksheet to your classroom teacher as soon as possible.

v Next, we need your help to collect the following items ...

·     small boxes (shoe boxes or slightly larger boxes are perfect), & little boxes that can fit inside it

·     ribbons, scrap fabric (such as flat fats/fat quarters), beads, old jewellery, acrylic paint... in fact, any craft materials would be useful!

·     5 or 6 little items that could be displayed inside the box that reflect your child’s interests, for example, a toy car, a wrapper from a favourite lolly, a piece of lego, a Barbie doll, an outgrown item of clothing, an old headband, a loved toy, a photo of your family...

Thank you for your help!  We look forward to seeing some amazing artwork later this term!

Please be in touch if you have any questions.

Regards,

Ara Teina teachers

Assemblage art ideas to inspire you...

    

   

Beach Photos

We had an AWESOME time. The weather was perfect, the helpers fantastic and the children amazing. See for yourself..

Green Day Notice

Last orders taken Monday morning if you would like anything. Send a note if the newsletter went astray this week. Kia Ora.

Help us to Keep Cornwallis Clean

On Thursday we will have a beach clean up - just as we have been having at school.

True Colours Dance

We pretty much have the first verse and now we need to learn actions for the chorus. I am posting this video as a reminder of the actions and the words below:

Lyrics:

            

You with the sad eyes Don't be discouraged Oh I realize It's hard to take courage In a world full of people You can lose sight of it all And the darkness, inside you Can make you feel so small chorus: But I see your true colours                                               Shining through I see your true colours And that's why I love you So don't be afraid to let them show Your true colours True colours are beautiful Like a rainbow Show me a smile then Don't be unhappy, Can't remember when I last saw you laughing If this world makes you crazy And you've taken all you can bear You call me up Because you know I'll be there

And I'll see your true colours Shining through I see your true colours And that's why I love you So don't be afraid to let them show Your true colours True colours are beautiful Like a rainbow             Such Sad eyes             Take courage now Realize When this world makes you crazy And you've taken all you can bear You call me up Because you know I'll be there And I'll see your true colours Shining through I see your true colours And that's why I love you So don't be afraid to let them show Your true colours True colours, true colours Cos there's a shining through I see your true colours And that's why I love you So don't be afraid to let them show Your true colours, true colours True colours are beautiful             Beautiful, like a rainbow

We Are Learning To Share Information About Ourselves With Others

Last week the children practiced learning their address and phone number as part of the Keeping Ourselves Safe Unit. We also talked about what made us special and unique. To share this information with each other I have set up a page where children can write about themselves and upload photos if they would like to. The page is password protected so that we can share the information with people we trust and also keep ourselves cybersafe. I am emailing you the password so contact me if you did not receive it as my addresses may not all be current.

Please help your child with this. They took home a practice sheet tonight with ideas about what they could include. I have included a profile about myself for ideas, and we read it today in class. After you enter the page with the password you double click on the wall to start and then type. I'm looking forward to everyone's contributions.

This is the link. Happy typing:
http://padlet.com/wall/Arahoe23