Room 23 & 3's Assembly on Friday 6 June and the Disco

Room 23 is performing the Happy song at Whole School Assembly on Friday 6 June. We are wearing blue jeans or other trousers and a yellow top if possible (any other colour is fine if you have no yellow top). Please do not buy anything new for our item. We are pretending to be minions from the Despicable 2 movie! See video below to find out what a minion is:

There is also a disco on in the evening for the juniors. It starts at 6pm and finishes at 7.30pm. The theme is 'green' for sustainability. Children have to wear something they already have. Entry is $10 adults and $4 children. The teachers are there so feel free to leave your children to have a safe and supervised time.

Trip to the Waitakere Refuse and Recycling Centre

With all the learning we have been doing about reducing waste, composting and worm farming, a trip to the Refuse Centre was very timely. Thank you to all our parent helpers for their fantastic supervision.

Going on the bus:

Going on the walk around the facility: 

We had to wear cool vests and hard hats. There was a massive earthworm on one of the hard hats which was nice. We saw the wood pile, the green waste and the hazardous chemicals area. Free wood and paint is available from the Refuse Centre that has been taken from the general refuse or sorted. Old paint can also be taken there instead of being thrown into the general waste.

Learning about worms and seeing the worm farm:

While one group had a story about Herman the Worm and another group saw the tiger worms.

Morning Tea:

Learning Centre:

We had a session with Anna the educator about 1) reducing our waste and looking at what is in our waste that can go elsewhere 2) where our tins/plastics go to be recycled. It is not always NZ. 3) the waste that cannot be recycled and how it goes to landfill. 4) What can be recycled? We had a go at sorting - polystyrene cannot be recycled even if it has a triangle on it. 5) Parts of a tiger worm and Finn modelled the tiger worm suit beautifully for us.

What a great trip that consolidated what we are learning about with real life examples.

Tissues

We dug our tissues into the garden and went back a week later to see if they had broken down. They hadn't but we could see that they had partly disappeared.

Suki's got a cold game for Sneezesafe

We are learning to be sneezesafe when we have coughs and colds.

Click on this icon to the Suki's got a cold game:

Malo Lelei - Watch our Tongan Moves!

Taking our lunch waste to the Compost and Worm farm

Cross Country on Monday

Waste audit

The Waste Audit took place in the school hall. All the school's waste was collected for a day and was weighed and sorted into 7 groups e.g. tins, plastics, paper for compost, food etc.. Waste that could be reused or recycled was taken out and the remainder sent to the general rubbish. It was a fraction of what was collected.

Sorting our rubbish

Last week we looked at how we could stop rubbish going to landfill by sorting our lunch waste into compostable and non-compostable waste.

Waste Survey

Please complete our waste survey about how you deal with your waste at home:

Notices

Dig Deep or Donate is coming up on 19 June this year. Arahoe School is recognising Arbor Day by planting trees around the school grounds. Feel free to join us between 9 and 10.30 to help plant a tree. You may also choose to support the school by donating a tree - see the link for details. We also have TV celebrities attending. WOW!

These are the details for the schoolwide artwork that is planned to commemorate the centenary of WWI:

Dear parents & whanau,

As you may be aware, August 2014 marks 100 years since World War 1 was declared.  As a school we are coming together to create a thought-provoking piece of outdoor art to commemorate this event, specifically remembering the sacrifice of the 91 servicemen who left from the New Lynn area.  Through our project your child will learn, not only about art techniques, but also some facts about the Great War, the meaning of the red poppy and other symbols of war. 

To make this project meaningful and relevant to our students we would like to compile a list of your family members that served during World War 1 and possibly include their names in our art project too.  Please upload the name, photo and any details of your family member to the Padlet Wall

http://padlet.com/kirstenb/room21wewillremember  (When uploading your information please also include your child’s name and class.)

The unveiling of our artwork will be in early Term 3.  It will be a time to commemorate the significance of World War 1 with our school community and the community at large. You will receive more information about our commemorative event towards the end of the term.  If you have any questions or suggestions you may email me at kirstenb@arahoe.school.nz

Regards,

Kirsten Bland

Arahoe App for Smartphones

If you have missed the newsletter about our new app for smart phones, you will find the details on the front page of the school webpage. The app is for iphones and Android phones. Download it from the app store and receive notices and alerts direct to your phone.

Photos on Thursday

Class photos are coming up due to take place on Thursday.

We are learning about where our rubbish goes

This week we worked out where our rubbish goes from our classroom. We have 2 bins. One is for recycled paper and the other is for waste. It is a little bin because we should not have much waste from our class. Waste from our lunches goes home.

Our rubbish

The rubbish is taken to our big bins:

A big truck like this picks it up:

It goes to the Hampton Downs landfill. This is the largest landfill in NZ. The rubbish is ploughed into the ground to break down. Some of it will never break down. Is it a good idea to throw away things that can be reused or recycled?

Subway Notice

 

    is coming to Arahoe!

The PSG is pleased to announce that every 2 weeks starting from 16^th May your child will be able to order Subway for lunch. The dates will be 16 May, 30 May, 13 June and 27 June.

The order envelope will come home on the Friday before and orders are due back by the next Wednesday – NO LATER THAN 3.15pm!

If you happen to lose the envelope simply go to the PSG page on the Ultranet, go to Subway and scroll down to resources and it will take you to a printable pdf version.

It would be greatly appreciated if you could have the correct change – thanks.

If you have any questions or feedback please email PSG@arahoe.school.nz

Thank you for your continued support of the PSG and fundraising for our children.

Important Update about our Trip to the Transfer Station

Two classes returned from their trip today to the refuse station with this updated information:

• The bus cannot accommodate all parent helpers. Only the first 5 are able to travel on the bus. Other parent helpers must take their cars (car pooling is probably a good idea. If you are interested, I can arrange).
• Everyone must wear closed in shoes.
• A small morning tea must be packed in a named plastic bag with a drink bottle.

Thank you for returning your consents. 

Regards

Tania Makani

Spelling

Hi Parents,
Not everyone has brought their notebooks this week. I will try to glue spelling words into notebooks tomorrow and that will give the children 2 days to practice their words. If I don't manage it, I will start spelling tests next week instead. Some of the children have changed spelling groups because of spelling testing at the end of last term so you won't know which list to use on the blog until the words come home. Thank you for helping your child with their spelling homework. It's really paying off.

Luca brought some worms to school

Welcome back to Term 2 - Another busy term!

This term our Topic is called Wriggly, Squiggly Worms. The school is to receive a worm farm this term which will enable us to reduce the food waste that the school produces.

We are also going to have a tree planting day this term called Dig deep or Donate. Details about this will follow later.

You may be aware of our trip to the Transfer Station at Henderson on Thursday 29 May from 9am-1pm. The cost is $10/$12 (no loyalty card). Please complete the consent and return payment if you haven't already. I have some spare forms if you need one.

For Art this term we are learning about sketching and shading. We are having tuition from a professional artist called Graham Dodd. A special project the school is taking part in is an artwork to commemorate that it has been 100 years (starting August 2014) since the outbreak of WWI. Centenary commemorations will take place over 4 years. I will send out a separate newsletter about the artwork that is planned.

This is the Transfer Station newsletter:

10 April, 2014

Kia ora whanau, parents and caregivers

There are two events planned for Ara Teina’s Term 2 theme studies:

Art Workshop

As part of our Visual Arts curriculum we have organized Graham Dodd (Artist) to provide an art workshop on Friday 16 May.   Graham Dodd will be covering aspects of sketching and shading. 

Trip to the Transfer Station, Henderson

As part of our Science and Technology curriculum we will be learning about sustainability and investigating what happens to rubbish after it leaves our homes. 

We require parent helpers on our trip as the safety ratio of adult to children is 1:3.  Safety regulations and effective supervision ask that if you bring a preschooler, then we are unable to include you as an assistant.  For this trip, parents will accompany us on the bus to the Transfer Station.  We will be leaving school at 9am and will return by approximately 1pm.

Safety regulations also ask that all participants wear covered shoes.

Morning tea and a small drink in a named plastic bag will need to be provided.  We will return to school for lunch.

Your child’s class will visit the Transfer Station on Thursday 29 May.

Thank you for your support.

Ara Teina teachers

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please return the lower portion of this information sheet to your child’s classroom teacher by Wednesday 28 May, along with payment.

Child’s name: _________________________________    Room: _______

o The cost of a Graham Dodd Art Workshop and bus fare to the Henderson Transfer Station is $12

(Non-loyalty card holders).

o The cost of a Graham Dodd Art workshop and bus fare to the Henderson Transfer Station is $10

(Loyalty card holders).

Loyalty card number:  ___________

oI give permission for my child ______________________ to go on the trip to the Transfer Station on the above date. 

oI am able to be a parent helper on the trip to the Transfer Station. 

Name and contact details:  ________________________________