Despite the challenges our community faced this week, we started learning new skills in PE, exploring kowhaiwhai patterns, and our usual commitment to our amazing Literacy and Math programmes!

Beautiful weather throughout the week made way for a bit of dabbling in Cricket, Hockey, Tee Ball, Dance, and Yoga as we explored different ways we can be active and foster Taha tinana/Physical well-being for PE. We were quickly impressed by the tamariki ability with a stick in hand ready to attack the ball with accuracy across all codes! Whaea Sally is teaching hockey, Whaea Penny is teaching Cricket, Mrs Wynyard is teaching good old-fashioned Tee ball, Whaea Juanita is teaching Yoga and Miss Paterson is teaching Dance. All tamariki will be given the opportunity to explore these 5 aspects of our PE programme for the rest of the year. 

For inquiry, "Be the change-Move it" we have been developing an understanding of the importance of holistic health. After introducing the concept of Hauora last week the tamariki had to build a physical wharenui that represented their own body and the 4 pillars of overall Health and Wellness. The tamariki had to then take a wall down to see what would happen... They quickly understood that in order to be the best we can be, we must ensure we are strong in all areas:  Taha Wairua/Spiritual, Taha tinana/Physical, Taha Whānau/ Social, Taha Hinengaro/ Mental/Emotional. We then started our wall display by learning how to do Kowhaiwhai patterns to create our own wharenui. For the next 5 weeks kaiako are going to be delivering 2 lessons focusing on each aspect following the Hauora philosophy in order to understand how to be the best they can be. 

Structured Literacy/Writing: Over the next week we are going to be collecting unedited Writing Samples in order to represent your child's progress over their first year at school. For some, this will mean an independent writing sample, for others it may be a dictated sentence or words. For our new tamariki it will be evidence of their ability to form letters. This is always exciting for us as it really shows the steady progress each individual child makes over the year. On Thursday we wrote thank you cards to our courageous firefighters who fought the fire that raged on our beautiful coastline. Dana Hendtlass delivered some of these to the Woodend Fire brigade, and they responded with a lovely email and some photos of these lined on their bench at the station. This afternoon we are making some muffins with our buddies, to drop off to the firefighters as they continue to dampen the hot spots. 

MNP and Testing: For Maths the Year 1s are developing their ability to be able to double numbers 1–5. We will be able to recognise doubles and non-doubles. Mrs Wynyards group is focusing on 2D shapes in order to understand the shape properties, and language in which to describe and differentiate these. 

Important notices:

• A big congratulations to Miss Paterson and her work with Digital Technology in our Term 2 Inquiry: Matariki-learning about our place and māhinga kai. She has been nominated for an award at the Waitaha Digi Awards which are held next Wednesday night. Please congratulate her on her achievement! We are so lucky to have so many amazing kaiako in our space and wider PBS team, as we are up for an amazing 7 awards. Details will be send to parents whose tamariki were involved in this experience. 
• Bake Sale: We will be holding a Bake Sale Next Week on Wednesday the 9th of November in order to fundraise for our Beach Education day and try and get the cost down for our whānau. Please mark this day on your calendar so you don't forget to do some baking for your child to bring to school for Wednesday to sell to the rest of the school. 
• Beach Education days: These are going to be held in Week 9 on the Tuesday 13th and Thursday the 15th of December. We are still looking for a couple of parent helpers in order to meet our child: Adult water ratio. You must be willing to get into the water and not have any preschoolers with you. A google form will come out early next week to seek your permission for your child to attend one of these days. 

Have an amazing weekend, and we look forward to seeing you next week! 

Arohanui, 

Penny, Juanita, Sophia, Sandy, Heather, Triana, Alison, and Sally