Kia ora koutou katoa. As we start into the Easter long weekend, I do wish you all a very happy holiday. School is closed these next five days (Friday – Tuesday) as are all schools in NZ. It has been a busy nine weeks of term and I know the teachers will use these days to catch a breath before the last two weeks of the term.

In 2021, astronauts aboard the International Space Station are undertaking a plant-growth experiment with basil seeds. Thanks to the Seeds in Space programme, the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) has sent our school some seeds from the exact same batch as those being flown into space to give us a chance to perform our own experiments here on Earth!!

Xinnian kuaile. To celebrate Chinese New Year on several occasions over the past weeks families of our Room 10 students have visited the classroom and shared aspects of Chinese culture with us. We learnt about the Chinese Zodiac, the art of paper cutting and folding, the custom of red pocket gifting, and heard the legend of Nian around which many of the Chinese New Year celebrations are centred. We also had a chance to draw a Chinese character using special calligraphy ink pens. We really enjoyed sharing some beautiful Chinese food and even made our own spring rolls! Thank you to the Lyu, Sun, Zhu, Zhao and Wu families for coming into Room 10 and generously sharing your culture with us.

The Year 1 students have been learning about what humans need to survive. In our Learning through Play, some children took up the challenge to make a shelter. What a great job they did too

As part of Room 20's unit of inquiry Who We Are - we have participated in a Student Volunteer Army project. The underlying concept of the SVA is 'taking actions that benefit others'. We have collected animal food for the SPCA and created cards to give to children at Starship Children's Hospital.

This week our Year 3 students took part in a day of provocations for our upcoming unit of inquiry on How The World Works. Our central idea for this unit is that Scientific understanding is gained through curiosity, observation and experimentation.

We are after 5 Year 5/6 Hockey players to make up numbers in our school teams. If your child would like to play (no experience required), please email Danielle Nicholson (danielle.nicholson@milford.school.nz) ASAP. Without these extra players, we will not be able to enter all players who have registered. Please see information below:

Thank you to all those who have registered their children with Netball North Harbour for the 2021 netball season. I am now in the process of allocating players to teams and will be sending out this information soon, along with payment details and requests for team coaches and managers. Netball uniforms will be handed out after payments have been received.

We are after 4-5 Year 3/4 Hockey players to make up numbers in our school teams. If your child would like to play, please email Danielle Nicholson (danielle.nicholson@milford.school.nz) ASAP. Without these extra players, we will not be able to enter all players who have registered. Please see information below:

We will be holding a ballot for out of zone students in October this year, for entry to school in 2022. This ballot includes out of zone siblings of students already attending Milford School. The final day to get a ballot application into school is Tuesday 21 September. The ballot will be drawn by our Police Education Officer on Wednesday 20 October.

For end of Term 1/Term 2 we are collecting the following for STEM. You can drop these off to Miss Brown in the Pouaka Room (next to music and R7) anytime - old CDs (just the discs themselves please) - cardboard tubes (toilet paper, kitchen towel etc) - clean, empty 1.5L plastic bottles (fizzy drink only) Thank you in advance!

Some of our students will be taking part in the Wonder Project Rocket Challenge in Term 2. It’s an amazing programme designed to get young Kiwis excited about STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. The programme pairs STEM professionals with teachers to deliver the learning and we need more volunteers to help our children design, build and launch water rockets!

Need a safe and fun holiday programme for the kids over the summer school holidays? Our before and after school care team, SKIDS, are running their holiday programme filled with fun activities and trips.

AFTER SCHOOL CLASSES 2021and Holiday Workshop

Get your children excited about Technology with these 13 awesome holiday programmes, or after school lessons (either classroom sessions or virtual sessions).

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