Cross Country and More Sneeze Safe

Next Thursday May 14th we are holding the Junior Cross Country. We have started training to prepare ourselves! We went for a morning run today to practise our route. We go all the way around the field and have some obstacles along the way. Lots of people managed to go the whole way without stopping!

This afternoon we followed up our learning on Sneeze Safe with a couple of activities to show how easily germs can spread. On the Forest mat we used glitter to show how far bugs can travel - make sure you wash your hands! On the Ocean mat they used a spray bottle to show where a sneeze can end up if you don't trap it with your hands or a tissue. Yuck!

Island Theme and Ronald McDonald

Today we had a special day at HVS. We all came to school in mufti and dressed in an Island theme :) Amalia in Pikopiko with her big buddy Sophia planned this day to raise money to help some kindergartens in Vanuatu. They need money and resources after the big cyclone that happened there recently. The girls did a fabulous job and the school raised more than $400! Three big tubs of resources were donated as well.

We also had a surprise visitor to the Junior School today! Ronald McDonald came along to see us and teach us about road safety. He told us a funny story about his lost sock! We now know to Stop, Look and Listen before we cross the road. We also know to Make it Click when we hop in a car - you can see us singing below :)

Finally we had our Tall Learner assembly today so a huge congratulations to our three Pikopiko Tall Learners this week. Well done to Rune for your award for your awesome motivated learning. Great work William for your amazing communication skills, and also to Yasmin who is becoming such a confident speaker.

Have a great weekend!

PMP

PMP is in full swing now and we are loving doing it every Tuesday and Thursday morning. We learn all sorts of skills like balance, spatial awareness, gross motor development, eye tracking, ball skills and lots more. It is also awesome for improving our confidence.

It is quite an intense programme to run though and we desperately need parent help in order for it to be successful! We have been lucky so far with lots of helpers and we really appreciate your time. However we have had a couple of days without enough adults and it really does make it hard to run the session. Any Tuesday or Thursday that you are able to help, until about 9.40, would be amazing! Thanks again to all those who have already been coming along :)

Also just a reminder that children do remove their shoes and socks for the programme. As we come into winter it does make it tricky for girls if they are wearing tights and culottes. If you could be mindful of children wearing socks and shoes that are easy for them to get on and off by themselves that would also be a great help :)

Here we are having fun this morning!

Preschool, Pumpkin and Amazing Art

Today Mrs Wilson and I were not actually teaching so we didn't get to join in on all the fun you had today! But we were working close by and had a sneaky peek at some of the things you got up to. This morning the preschool came along for their first visit of Term 2. It is always so lovely to have you along preschoolers, thank you for coming! Today you got to see the GIANT pumpkin in our carpark! Sophie and her dad brought it along to show us after it won the festival in Little River. It is a massive 341 kg which we worked out was more than 3 Mr Ks!

Unfortunately we didn't have photos from this morning but here are a couple we took to show you how big it is!

This afternoon you did some fabulous art. Mrs Fowler and Mrs S showed you the work of Piet Mondrian. He does artworks made up of squares and rectangles, so you all did a great job of using your knowledge of shapes to help you create your own Mondrian pictures. These are looking fantastic so far - you'll have time to finish them tomorrow :)

Cupcakes + Sneeze Safe

What a lovely long weekend we all had! It was great hearing about what you all got up to. This morning we also welcomed Eliana who started in Pikopiko today :) It is great to have you in the team Eliana! Hope you enjoyed your first day! We also had Seth for his first visit, nice to have you this morning Seth :)

The Juniors had a bit of a special treat today. The Kahikatea team are fundraising for their school camp so they held a bake sale for Pikopiko and Kowhai. They did a fantastic job of baking some amazing goodies! Some of Pikopiko went to the hall at lunch time to buy a cupcake or cookie. Yum!

This afternoon we all got together to have a chat about Sneeze Safe. We watched a little video about bugs and how to keep them from spreading! If you sneeze we know now to:

• Trap it! In a tissue, or your hands, or your elbow.
• Bin it! Always put the tissue straight in the bin!
• Wash it! Always wash your hands after sneezing. Bugs hate soapy water!

Here is the wee video you can watch at home :)

Anzac Activities

Yesterday afternoon the senior students put up a special memorial outside the library for Anzac Day. We talked a bit about the white crosses today and what they were for. We read a special book called The Dawn Parade which was about a young boy going to his first Anzac parade. We then made our own poppy each which we are going to make into a special wreath. Tomorrow the whole school will be having a small Anzac service and each team will get to lay their wreath at our memorial.

Awesome Reading Rotations and Robot Shapes

The Pikopiko Team have had such a lovely start back at school for Term 2. We have had a great couple of days and have been stuck into some great learning! Today we welcomed another new friend - Holly it was awesome to have you join our team today we hope you had a fantastic day!

Our reading rotations are going really well in the Ocean and the Forest. We have a variety of activities every day and enjoy practising our letters, words and sounds and doing lots of exciting literacy activities on our iPads. 

This afternoon we continued our great geometry work by creating a robot made up of all the shapes we've learnt about!  He had a rectangle body, circle arms, triangle legs and a square head :)