Forest Scientists!

At the moment Pikopiko have been lent a special piece of equipment that helps us examine things closely. It is a magnifying camera attached to a screen and allows us to do lots of scientific investigation. Today the Forest team had a go at trying it out. Ocean and Volcano you will get a turn later in the week!
The children looked carefully at some different objects, some from outside and some from within the class. They looked at flowers, pinecones and leaves, and then a teddy and a marble! It was also fascinating to look at fingers and hands under the camera.
Everyone then had a go at doing a detailed scientific drawing of what they could see. Awesome effort! A big thank you too to Henry's mum Nicola who stayed to help us out with this today.

Feeling Worries in our Bodies!

We had some more wonderful discussion around Wishes and Worries in Pikopiko today. Following on from last week where we identified areas of the body where we felt our worries, we had a go at acting out some of these feelings! Everyone put a lot of thought and effort into this. We had shaky hands, sore heads, butterflies in tummies and beating hearts! The other children had to try and guess the body part that was feeling the worry. Great work everybody! Then we had more of a chat around ideas for dealing with these feelings. Again, some superb ideas and really deep thinking by our Pikopiko friends. We decided the number one idea was to BREATHE! We also had lots of kind and caring friends who suggested ways of looking after others who might be worried. What a fabulous bunch of children we have in this team :)

Crafty Discovery

What a fun and busy first week back we have had! Lots of tired Pikopiko friends (including the teachers!) this afternoon. We finished the day with a super Discovery session with lots of fun activities going on. Outside there was a great game of soccer - thanks so much to Ella's dad Richard for coming along to help with that! - and we had our sandpit open again. Inside we were very crafty - we made special listening beads, wonderful stained glass windows and fluffy pom poms. Mrs Fowler also had her amazing pirate lego from home!

Everybody should have received their special book 'Maia and the Worry Bug' by now so please make sure you read this with your child. There was also an important notice with all our key dates for the term so check you've got your copy.
Have a fabulous weekend!

Learning to relax - Yoga Fun

As part of our learning about how to manage our worries we are going to be enjoying some yoga sessions this term. We got started today with a mindfulness time - you may like to check out the video below to see how it works. We all felt calm and peaceful after we spent 5 minutes in the Zen Den with Jamie. We will also be using some of her yoga resources as we learn the poses.

Your child will have a picture book in their reading folder today called "Maia and the Worry Bug" This book is for you to share and keep at home. Please find time to read and discuss the story at home as this will support the learning we are doing at school around managing anxiety. Thanks so much for your support.

Shake Out!

This week all across New Zealand, schools are making sure their students are aware of what to do in an earthquake. This is called "Shake Out" practice. At 9.15am this morning we pretended that an earthquake had hit and we went over all the steps we need to take to keep ourselves safe inside buildings and out in the playground. All the teachers were truly impressed with team Pikopiko - you guys are experts in this area. We only had to mention the word "turtle" and we had 50 little bodies curled up in their safe positions. Great work and hopefully we won't have to put this knowledge into practice again.

We also continued looking at our Wishes and Worries book this afternoon and had some further discussion around our own worries. Each member of Pikopiko had a think and went away and wrote or drew a worry on a sticky note which we collected on the whiteboard. It was interesting to see some common themes as well as some more unique ideas! We talked about how we are all worried about different things, though it is great to talk about it with others as you never know who might have been in the same situation as you!

Wishes and Worries

We are starting off the term with a little unit around a lovely book called Wishes and Worries. This is part of a resource created for schools and families to assist with anxiety management. Today we introduced the story and had a wee discussion about things that worry us and techniques we use to deal with these worries. Some of our favourite strategies were:

• Imagine throwing the worry into the rubbish
• Magic the worry into a happy thought for someone else
• Having a conversation with ourselves about the worry
• Picture a giant jar of jellybeans!

The programme involves a take home book as well so keep an eye out for some information coming home.

A Warm Welcome!

It was a super sunny and warm day to start Term 4. We began the morning with a powhiri to welcome the new students to our school. There were quite a number of Pikopiko children in the group to be welcomed. It was wonderful to see how confident you all were to join in and participate in this very special occasion. Thank you to the parents and grandparents who were able to join us for this special time. Beginning the term with a powhiri is something we have introduced this year and we think it is proving to be a good way to acknowledge the children and families who join our school community.

Back in Pikopiko we got busy with our morning programme and Miss Lennon told us about something new we are going to be using to help us develop our tall learner skills called Dojo.
It was very exciting and there were lots of motivated people working hard to get points. Our weekly team goal is "be kind and encouraging towards others" and we will be on the look out for these behaviours in Pikopiko. We plan to share some information about Dojo with you in the near future.

It was an extra special day for Arlo, Aiden and Ethan who turned 5 over the holidays and joined us for their first day in Pikopiko. We are so pleased to have you as part of the team and we hope you all had a very happy time with us today. There are a few photos below of some of the Volcano children working on their stations at reading time.

It was great to see you all again today and we are looking forward to another action packed term with lots of exciting happenings.