Parerā

It was so much fun being back at school today, catching up with our friends and teachers and getting to know our new friends. We were formally welcomed at a Mihi Whakatau this morning and then we carried on with our classroom programme, enjoying phonics, reading, maths and handwriting. At the end of the day we shared what we did in the holidays at news time and our newest friends completed their self-portraits. What a wonderful first day!

Today we welcomed Gurnoor, Oscar, Shay and their families to Parerā 5, taking our number of children to ten. It's great to have you join our team children!

Well done Parerā 5 tamariki for completing an amazing first term school at school. You are all super stars and I am very proud of everything you have achieved at school in such a short time. What great role models you will be for our new children starting in term 2. Have a safe and relaxing holiday break and take good care of your families, just like you take good care of me. I'll miss you! Ka kite ano.

On the last day of term one, the whole school took part in our annual Easter hunt. We worked with our big buddies from Pouakai. They were amazing at helping us find the clues and solve the puzzle. We ran all over the school looking for the clues! Finally, when we had found all the clues and coloured our pictures, we were allowed to find our own Easter baskets back in our classroom. The Easter bunny had left two eggs in them for each of us! Delicious!!! What a great way to round off an amazing first term. Happy Easter everyone!

On Wednesday afternoon the Pīwakawaka and Parerā hubs went on a class trip to the Canterbury Museum. We had a wonderful time exploring all the amazing things in the Discovery Centre, then we went on a guided tour with our museum educator Marissa. She told us fascinating stories about some of the special museum exhibits. We particularly enjoyed learning about our native New Zealand birds.

On Wednesday we decorated easter biscuits which we then wrote about at writing time. It was great to have our new friend Kapish join us for his first visit to Parerā 5.

Today we learned about the letter/sound 'g'. Cara put vinegar in a bottle and then attached a balloon filled with baking soda over the neck of the bottle. When the vinegar and baking soda mixed it caused a chemical reaction and carbon dioxide gas was produced. This caused the balloon to inflate. The balloon looked like a scary ghost! After our experiment, we drew diagrams and wrote about the balloon ghost in our writing books. Before completing the experiment, lots of the children predicted that the balloon would explode and Shanaya thought we would have to spend the rest of the day cleaning up the classroom! Although the reaction was exciting, luckily it wasn't quite that dramatic! What fun we have at writing time.

This week we learned about the letter 'm'. We made marvellous milkshakes and enjoyed drinking them together. We also made a bit of a mmm-mess!

Yahara was the latest person to add her self-portrait to our display today. Have you had a look at our Whānau wall lately? It's looking amazing.

Today we explored making shapes with the geoboards. We were able to make triangles, squares, rectangles and diamonds. Arthur worked really hard to make an octagon and Monty made a perfect pentagon. I wonder what other shapes we could make?