Friday 21 September 2018

Pōhutukawa Market Day on today!

Good morning! Today is the day, Pōhutukawa Market Day!

We will be selling tickets outside each hub from 8:30 am this morning. Tickets are 50c each, and all items will be selling for between 50c and $5.00 per item. These tickets are used to buy items for sale during market day. We suggest the children write their name on the back of their tickets, in case the tickets become dropped or lost. Bringing the exact change to school would be very helpful, as we will not have a lot of change for large notes.

Market day will run from about 11:45 am to 12:40 pm. We will invite the New Entrants over first, and then the rest of the school.

This learning has been a small business inquiry and fundraising venture. The profits made will be going towards the Pōhutukawa camp in Term 4 to Living Springs.

Thank you to all of our school community for your support.


Thursday 13 September 2018

Market Day and Living Springs Camp in Term 4

Market Day

On Friday, 21 September, the students in Team Pōhutukawa will be running a market in the school hall to conclude our small businesses unit. The market will be open to all students and families from 11:45 AM to 12:40 PM. At the market, the Pōhutukawa students will be selling lots of interesting (and delicious) items such as baking, confectionery, drinks, games, challenges and more. Students should still bring their lunch as normal on this day. Market day vouchers will be sold near the hall entrance before school on Friday morning. Each voucher is worth 50 cents and will be used as currency to purchase goods at the market. Most items at the market will cost between 50 cents and five dollars.

The money raised will be used to reduce the cost of Team Pōhutukawa’s camp in Term 4 and to offset the market day’s expenses. Thank you for your support of your child/ren with this venture. They have been working hard with the process of making the product/activity, and are very much looking forward to the big day. If you have any questions about the market day please feel free to contact one of us.

Term 4 Camp at Living Springs

Planning is well underway for Team Pōhutukawa's Term 4 camp at Living Springs (13 - 15 November, week 5). Living Springs is a self-contained complex where the children stay in comfortable and clean bunk rooms with attached ablution blocks. Parent helpers stay in the Harbour View Conference Centre or, if on bunk room supervision duty, in an adult bunk room (sharing) adjoining the children's bunkrooms.

If you are able to be a parent helper at the camp, please complete the online form (https://goo.gl/forms/xI7pk5nKsKo9KyMb2) by Friday, 21 September. We require the help of approximately 16 parents if the camp is to go ahead. If you are able to help, your role will involve direct supervision of groups of children; inside/outside activities, evening bunk room duty, setting tables, serving meals, operating the dishwasher, helping with the cleaning of all areas used at the end of the stay. You will need to be able to stay the entire camp. As the cost of parent helpers is covered in the camp fee, we will only take the necessary number of parent helpers in order to minimise costs. If we have more volunteers than we need, we will select first based on the skills needed and then names will be drawn from a ballot.
  
A consent form and medical questionnaire will be sent home in Term 4 to students and parent helpers.

The camp costs us $155 per child to run and this includes food, accommodation, the cost of the programmes run by the Living Springs staff and transport. Your next statement (due out at the end of Term 3) will have a request for contribution for $155. You are welcome to make payments either in full or by instalment at any time. Please don't hesitate to contact your child's teacher or Vicki Renwick (Financial Officer) in the office, if payment will be difficult for you. Any funds raised prior to camp, including our Term 3 Market Day, will be shared evenly across the team and will appear as a credit on the Term 4 statement.

We are looking forward to a great camp.


Sunday 2 September 2018

Week 6/7 in Pōhutukawa

Winter Sports

Winter sports finished last week, and we would like to say an enormous thank you to the parents who have helped us out by coaching teams. Thank you to Brett, Anna, Belinda and Kerryn for giving up your time to help us with our tamariki. Without your help we wouldn't have been able to enter the maximum number of teams in the Hagley Park competition. If your child played in a winter sports team, could you please send the washed uniform back to school, to be returned to the green bin in the Kauri hub.


Named clothing and lunch boxes

We constantly have a stream of left behind sweat shirts, polar fleeces and lunch containers. The teachers are getting very good at matching lost items with bewildered children! To help the children identify their belongings it would be very helpful if they were clearly labelled with their names.
Image result for lunch boxes

Readathon

This week has been book week and we have had a number of special events going on. The book fair has been running in the Green Room before and after school every day this week, and we have seen a number of children excitedly bringing in new books to share. The teachers have gone to a different class after morning tea and read a picture book. The children and teachers have enjoyed a change of scenery! Hopefully the children have been hitting their target of reading for 30 minutes a night. Research tells us that regular reading improves comprehension, increases vocabulary and is good for the imagination! It's also fun! Thank you for your support of your children with their reading at home. Readathon cards and money are due back to school on Friday 7 September. Book week  culminated in a dress up day! How exciting. Some children were unrecognizable in their book character costumes. There must have been some early risers on Friday! What a fabulous effort was made by so many children!






Cultural Festival

Te Whānau Mahi Tahi is off on Monday afternoon to Horncastle Arena for a rehearsal. Their performance at the Christchurch Primary Schools Cultural Festival is on Monday night and we know that they will wow the audience with their passion and beautiful singing. Kia kaha!

Writing

The teachers are in the process of printing off the fabulous poetry anthologies which the majority of the students finished last week. The students are very proud of what they have achieved and are surprised at how many different poetry types there are. We are making each student their own book by printing off their slideshow in colour, inserting a protective cover and binding it with a spine. This will mean the children will be able to take their anthology home to keep. To help us cover this cost we are asking for a donation of $3, which will be listed on your school account. If you are particularly impressed with your child's anthology (and we're sure you will be!), you may want to consider using an online publisher like Snapfish to publish the anthology in a professional way. What a great Christmas present for relatives!

We are beginning speech writing on Monday. The students have three choices of speech to write. They can entertain (tell a story), inform (teach us about something) or persuade (get us to agree with their point of view). It would be great if there was some discussion about topics at the dinner table to ignite your child.

Pitch Perfect Choir

The Pohutukawa Pitch Perfect choir will be attending the Christchurch Schools’ Music Festival massed rehearsal on the morning of Monday 10 September. We will be back at school by lunchtime. The choir has worked very hard to learn a repertoire of songs, and we are very much looking forward to performing at The Horncastle Arena on the evening of  Friday 26 October. Tickets can be purchased through Ticketek.