Pounamu Newsletter
7.4.22 - Week 10
Kia ora e te whānau,
We have had an interesting few weeks at school with teachers and students away due to illness or isolation requirements. Thank you for all your support and understanding during this time. Thank you also to the teachers and teacher aides who have worked hard to keep our syndicate going.
The weather has turned and while we are having a few beautiful days it is definitely colder. Please check that your child has a warm top to wear at school. Our classrooms are heated but we have the windows open for ventilation, as per requirements related to covid, so it is not as warm as it usually is inside.
Everyone is looking forward to the end of term. Wednesday next week is the last day of school for the term. We hope everyone enjoys a great break.
Team Pounamu
Enviro Day
School pick up
Parents are now able to come onto the school grounds for pick up and drop off. We ask that you do not come into the classrooms or cloak bays without checking with a teacher first.
It has been lovely to see you all back! It has been a bit strange not getting a chance to meet people after school but we are looking forward to having some Meet the Teacher opportunities next term and will give you more information later.
Pounamu Enviro Group update
We have been really busy on Fridays. During Enviro time Mrs Diggins and Room 3 have looked at our garden and planned allsorts of trees and plants we want to grow and eat. Mrs Arthurs is going to order us a LOT of topsoil so we can refill our vegetable gardens and tyres ready for us to plant lots of yummy vegetables and smelly herbs. Amanda and her gang of Garden Gurus have weeded and dug and pulled and tidied up the garden ready for this new soil. It looks amazing!!! Room 2 has planned what creatures we want and don’t want at our school and have designed some bug hotels. We are looking forward to making these at some stage. Room 5 has set up the worm farm and the Worm Warriors are ready to collect food scraps on a Friday to feed these hard working worms. Room 4 has started cleaning up the compost bin area and we will be setting up Compost collectors to empty all of our food scraps from our lunch boxes into the compost bins. Last week we started to pull out all of the nasty Wandering Willie plant and put it in big bags to go to the dump! It was hard work, we still have lots to get rid of! We will then make our compost bins healthy and full of worms and creatures to create some delicious food for our gardens. We have some flower seedlings to plant in the pots around Pounamu. These will brighten up our area Thanks to Stefan and Bob our caretakers, the shadehouse is all weeded ready to put the new weed mat floor down in. Then we can set it up to grow some seeds and cuttings. Mrs Diggins has made a lot of mushrooms, stepping stones and small creatures out of concrete that we will be starting to paint soon and put out in our tree area. We would love you to help us, if you have any plants, pots, tools, seeds, stakes or labels that are just cluttering up your garage or garden. We would love to give them a good home! Finally a huge thank you to those parents who looked after the gardens over the holidays you rock!
Our worm farm
Composting poster for our buckets
Our current compost heap
Lunches
We always have food at school we can give children who don't have enough lunch for whatever reason. We will let you know if we think your child needs a bit more.
If you are worried that your child is not eating enough let us know. We supervise them at eating time and encourage them to have their sandwich, or similar items first and leave packets till last as they can always bring them back another day.
Library times
This week is week 10 so Rooms 2 & 4 will be going.
Team Pounamu are:
R3 - Sam Diggins sam@paparangi.school.nz
R4 - Wendy Blue wendy@paparangi.school.nz
R5 - Amanda Newbery amanda@paparangi.school.nz (Assistant Principal)
R5 - Carolyn Collis (Part time teacher)
We are also supported by our hardworking teacher aides. They are Meerza, Tanya, Angela, Caroline, and Selu.
Email: office@paparangi.school.nz
Website: paparangi.school.nz
Location: 57 Beazley Ave, Paparangi, Wellington, New Zealand
Phone: (04) 478 6617