Term 4

Term 4 Week 8

This looks like a lot of fun. Hope to see many of you there to celebrate our year - oh what an amazing learning curve it has been this year. Come along and share some stories.

Water slide for Year 4's tomorrow - bring togs, towel and a huge sense of fun.

Year 3's it is your turn for the waterslide on Wednesday. This is the funnest place to be Whangaparaoa School!

Term 4-Week 6

Please check home page of this blog for our Athletics Day schedule.

Athletics Day is Wednesday 22 November - this week!!

Check out the fun we had last week when The Bike Chap came rolling in:

Check out how we are going building our green Roof Bird Houses during Passion VLC Time:

Term 4-Week 5

Another incredibly fun time at Auckland Botanic Gardens last week. What a great place to visit to see many different habitats and ways planting has been used to create exciting habitats to explore. Many of our tamariki were able to identify NZ Native birds and some plants. We saw many amazing sculptures so I now think we have many aspiring sculptors, especially when we looked at the price tags. 

Thank you so very much to the parents who gave up their time to come exploring with us.

Upcoming events:
Community Meeting: a good opportunity to see what is planned for 2018 - Wednesday 15 November
The Bike Chap is coming to visit - Wednesday 15 November
Athletics - Wednesday 22 November
Natalie - unfortunately it is our last week with Natalie this week. We wish her a wonderful Christmas and holiday and want to say a huge thanks for her enthusiasm, energy, positivity, thoughtfulness, understanding, flexibility, amazingness - yes we will miss her.

Term 4-Week 4

What an amazing trip we had to the zoo last week. Our whole VLC showed fantastic ORCA values and the team at the zoo were impressed. 

We were bird watchers, learned about native and endemic animals and their predators. We made lizard habitats and saw so much more.

Auckland Botanic Gardens VLC Trip:

Wednesday 8 November

This week we are heading south to Manukau to the Botanic Gardens. We will be looking at animal and plant habitats and how they support each other.

Everyone will need: lunch, drink bottle, full school uniform, shoes, hat and possibly a raincoat depending on the weather.

Please make sure you are at school before the bell as we will be leaving straight away. 

Seesaw: In O1 we have been trialling a program called Seesaw. It is a place where we can record our learning journeys through video, photos, drawing and notes. Get your tamariki to show you what they have already done. They are all very excited about it.

Term 4-Week 2

We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo:

A reminder that next week we are going on a trip to the Auckland Zoo with our VLC . If you haven't returned your permission slip please do so in the next few days. It is attached to an email sent to you last week.

What do you need?: Morning tea, lunch and drink. All tamariki to wear full school uniform, hat and shoes are a must because we are not allowed on the bus or into the zoo without them. With the unpredictable weather, a raincoat would be a good thing to pack as well, please. 

This week in O1:

Library: Every Tuesday we go to the library to change books and find new ones so please bring your books back in your book bag.

Inquiry: Last week we were learning about our native birds. Learning how to identify them and what role they play in our ecosystem. Many tamariki were very excited about this and have started finding out facts about a bird that interests them so please ask your tamariki to share their learning with you.We also planted out Little Gardens seeds from New World. We will be watching them grow over the next few weeks.

This weeks inquiry is more about SUSTAINABILITY - how we can protect our birds in our green space?  RECYCLING - what things can we recycle and how we can help? 

Writing: We started looking at 'persuasive writing last week and we had the challenge of writing persuasive text to Mrs O with all the reasons we could think of for her to take us to a tennis lesson. This week we will be publishing these so make sure you ask your tamariki to share. Some are very enlightening and have a sense of humour as well.

VLC Passion Friday time: From next week we will be running a Passion Friday rotation within our VLC. Tamariki have had the chance to choose from a variety of exciting options - books and art, French and German, making jet boats, gymnastics, photography, building bird houses and bikes and bike maintenance. This will run for an hour every Friday (11.20am - 12.20pm) for weeks 3 - 7. If you are able to help in any way please let us know. Mrs O definitely needs some help with building. 

Athletics: Over the next few weeks we will be having an athletics rotation with all year 3 and 4's on Wednesday afternoons. This is in preparation for our fun athletics day on Wednesday November 22.

Team Osborne Assembly: On Friday 3 November @ 2.20pm our VLC will be running the school assembly. Come along and see what we are up to. 

2017 Halloween Disco
Friday 27th October: 6-8pm
WGP School Hall

Start preparing your costumes, its Halloween Disco time again!
Come enjoy the Scary Tunnel, Spot Prizes, Glow Products, Lots of Food nd Drink, Luck Dip and Spooky Dancing!

All kindy and school age children welcome, however this is not for college kids (unless they're helping on a stall of course :)

$5 per child (includes free sausage) Parents Free

Pre-order your tickets and Disco Dollars today and pay online here.
Or see us outside the office the mornings of Friday 20th, Tuesday 24th, Wednesday 25th, Thursday 26th and Friday door sales from 6pm. Entry by cash or ticket only.

The School Office is NOT SELLING TICKETS. 

For sale on the night are:

Sausage / Pizza /Sushi...................$2 each
Ice creams/ Soda pops...................$2 each
Drinks or Popcorn ..........................$2 each
Slushies .........................................$1 each
Lucky dip.......................................$2 each
Glow products................................$1 / $2 / $3
Photo booth....................................$2 each
Scary Tunnel..................................$1 each
Lollie Bags.....................................$1 each

Can you help set up or run a stall?

Term 4-Week 1

Wow,it is term 4 already. So much to do and so little time - yes term 4 is the shortest term and there will be lots of adventures to pack in.

Haere mai, kia ora and welcome back te whanau.

Our Inquiry focus for this term is Sustainability. 

This week is Conservation week so we kick start our inquiries with 'birds in our green spaces at school'. We will be learning about what native and endemic birds are in our community.

Check out the DOC website for ideas, competitions and kids activities to help do our bit to change our world for the better.

Department of Conservation website

We're going to the zoo. zoo. zoo ...

Yes that's right our whole Vertical Learning Community is off to the zoo to check out the NZ Native birds, animals and habitats.

Check your emails in the next few days as there will be more information and permission slips to fill in and send back. We will need about 25 parents to help make this trip successful so let us know if you can help.

AUCKLAND ZOO TRIP - Monday 30 October

But wait there is more...

We are also looking at healthy and sustainable environments so our whole VLC will be off on another road trip to Auckland Botanic Gardens to look at sustainable gardens, spaces and great places to help our animals survive. 

AUCKLAND BOTANIC GARDENS - Wednesday 8 November

Please put both dates in your calendar and if you can come along and help out please let us know.

As the term progresses we will look at how we can be more sustainable in our daily lives.