From The Principal's Desk

Dear Parents

What a great term we have had. It is hard to believe that we are now nearly half way through the year.

Lots of learning has been happening.  I have enjoyed watching our sports teams participate and show their sportsmanship on and off the field.  We have had The Life Education van and their facilitator commented to me about how great our children were,  how well behaved they are, what great questions they asked as well as our teachers being on time and well prepared, and that makes Mellons Bay School in her words "up there" as a school.

All of the opportunities that we have at our school enhance and impact upon the academic learning of our children. Here is a piece of writing from 6 year old Jehan in Room 8 about Life Ed.

Dear Mum and Dad,
Have you ever been to Life Ed? We started to line up and go to the caravan. I was very excited. When we went there I saw Pamela. She looked crazy with crazy hair!
When I went inside I was very surpirsed  when I saw so many decorations on the walls. Pamela said so much funny stuff. She also said cool stuff about our body. Did you know that our brain does cool stuff? It helps people learn, think and persevere and do the four C's.
One of the funny stuff we did was the banana dance! The banana dance was my favourite part. I saw Harold and we said "Bonjour Harold". We are holding some tickets to go on the body tour. The first place we went was the muscle. Nutrients come through the muscle so you can get strong. The second place we went to was the brain It's the place where it controls your body and helps you think. We finished the body tour.
We had one last thing to do. Pamela gave us some stickers for good people. I loved everything about Life Ed because we had so much fun stuff to do this morning.

Kenneth aged 5  has drawn a life size picture of his body including heart, lungs and brain.

By the way if you don't know what the banana dance is you may like to ask your child.

We really enjoyed seeing so many of our parents, caregivers and grandparents at the Science afternoon. There was a fantastic turnout and it was great to see parents actively involved with magnets and forces and the activities. We heard lots of questions being asked and wonderings as people engaged and explored together. Your participation in this learning is very important and we value you sharing in these learning opportunities.

Our library is nearly there and it is exciting to see our new space and we look forward to opening it next term. There will be a book fair to celebrate in the first week  and a notice will follow soon.

Over the holidays work will begin on our hall and SKIDs will be held in the old ICT room, which we are now referring to as The Hub. This will be a great space to utilise as a multi learning space and as far as e learning or ICT, this can happen anywhere at anytime and is not dedicated to a room.

Thanks to all the parents that came on Sunday morning to help with our working bee  - the stage and bleachers were dismantled and the kitchen cleaned out ready for our work to begin in the hall.

Some of  you may be wondering about the latest news about co-hort entry for 5 year old's. Before we begin this process we will be consulting with you and the Early Childhood Centres and therefore this won't begin until term 2 of 2018 at the earliest.

We look forward to seeing you at our Student Led Conference this week. This is where your child will be able to talk about their learning and the  progress they have made to date.

I wish you all a happy and safe holiday break and look forward to a great term of learning next term.

Ngā mihi nui

Colleen Margison

Principal

News Bites

The Village Cookbook is here and available for sale at the school office, the uniform shop, Readaway Book, Spillers Hammer Hardware, The Village Grocer and The Howick Butcher.

The Entertainment Book can be purchased for $65, please visit their website by clicking here.