Te Aroha Primary School

Kia ora Parents and Whānau of TAPS

What a week - again. So much happening and so much going on at school!! We’ve had Mexican-style bandidos carting the DP off to the Badlands in a gangster Cadillac, junior children in House colours - sooo exciting!

We’ve had record numbers away and we are still coming to grips with the record-keeping in a very changing world. I guess the key for us is that if your child has symptoms - we need to know asap, and should they be positive for COVID we need to work with you to establish a timeline for their return to school - let us know, please.

I am so proud of our young leaders in all domains and this week my three Techies Brodie, Bella and Jasmine worked with Warren from SITECH Systems and David King to upgrade some of our audio-visual gear. Well done Techies!

Our staff stay focused and alert during these times of rough seas and I am indebted to their professional attitude and demeanour, they are staunch and working very hard for your children.

The Public Health Nurse is ready to collect the permission slips. If you choose not to have it done at school you will need to organise it yourself with a GP or not, as is the case.

Just return the slip to Lucy in the office. Should you need another slip, please get in contact.

Hot news…. FIREWOOD available - $100 cubic metre - delivered.

Well I’ll go to blazes - this is a flaming good bargain.

Drying for over a year, this wood will work well for you this winter. Beat the cold - bring on the warmth…

Please contact the office 07 884 8803 for details - delivery address, payment option etc

A big THANK YOU to our Senior School Reporters for their photos and interviews.

Tessa, Taylin, Perryn, Morgan and Jahnaia (or those that were here) did a great job helping source photos and interviews for this edition of our school newsletter.

TERM ONE DATES 2022

• 14/4/2022 Last day of Term 1

• 15/4/2022 Good Friday / Easter Break / School Holidays start

TERM TWO DATES 2022

• 2/5/2022 First day of Term 2 / Our new principal, Mr Justin Bertrand, starts with us.

Other term dates to be advised.

Netball: Expressions of interest will be going out soon. Keep your eyes peeled for more info!

Reduced to single figures, this body of parents is vital to the school in many ways. They effectively help the school’s efforts in providing the best for your child - computers, play equipment, subsidised trips and much, much more.

We need you…If you think you may be able to help out occasionally or have great ideas, please contact:

• Kate on 0211877459
• PTA email taps.pta@gmail.com

Hats are a required part of our school uniform in Term 1 and in Term 4. Hats need to be our official uniform ones with the school logo on the front. Children not wearing hats will be required to play in shady areas rather than out in the sun. If your child does not have a school hat, please contact Lucy in the office to arrange one.

Due to staffing at the College, there is NO Technology at Te Aroha College again this week. Our students are to come to school as per usual. We appreciate your support and understanding with this.

This week our Techies were very excited to work with Warren from SciTech. They learnt some new skills and were able to help with the upgrade of our pre- existing resources.

Holy smoke! Rm 10 had a great laugh when Mrs B was kidnapped by a Cadillac driving Mexican bandit and his sidekicks. Luckily Mrs B was swiftly and safely returned to Rm 10 - we hope her parents didn’t have to pay a big ransom!

The OOs also known as The Office Organisers have made 12 kiwis of each colour and have hidden them in all three hubs - Waihou, Tikapa Moana and Te Moananui A Kiwa. It is really cool to see students across the school hunting to find the kiwis. It just adds a little fun during the school break times.

At our school I maintain everything. I do the little repairs, the mowing, gardens and keeping our school clean. I like spending time with all the students here at TAPS. Guess how many years I have been here…. Just over 30 years and I still love it here!

Photo: Mr Rasmussen has been working on the flag pole so that the flag can be raised once again.

I'm like the school's mum. I've been here for about 2½ years. I do first aid and I help to get your school supplies ready - the only thing I don't do is teaching.

What an awesome end to the week we had on Friday! A great way to celebrate the halfway mark through the term. Everyone had so much fun dressed up in their house colours….lots of laughs too! In Maths we are working on counting both forwards and backwards and joining sets as part of basic addition. Our goal is accurate touch counting. Our Letterland work is h and l and we are learning to say the individual sounds in a 3 letter word and then run them together to make the word such as /m/-/a/-/n/ = (man). Added to this, we have a new sight word that we need to know by heart by the end of the each week - referred to as a heart word ❤. Room 1 you can be very proud of the way you are all becoming learners. Kia mau ki te mahi pai!

Room 2 had a fantastic day on Friday. We made crowns in our house colours before participating in some fun races. All the children had smiles on their faces which was awesome to see. This week we continue with number knowledge and adding and subtracting groupings to 10. In writing we continue to complete sentences beginning with I am and I can. The children are doing a fantastic job of sounding out their words in reading. Please keep practicing saying the sounds at home. Enjoy your week.

Kia ora koutou,

Room 3 had such a great time on Friday when the Waihou Hub had their Fun day. It was very exciting to dress in our house colours and have a go at all the neat activities. Some favourites were the egg and spoon race (really a potato!) and the sack race. I was super proud of how well behaved Room 3 was on the day!
Writing: We are learning to write sentences with 2 ideas using joining words (and, but, because).

Reading: Our reading groups are revisiting letter sounds this week and homework will be practising these sounds at home. It is really important that we master these sounds before moving our next books. I really appreciate your support with this!

Maths: We are looking more closely at counting on from the biggest number and consolidating our learning from the last few weeks.

Reminders for the week:

• We have now finished swimming so no longer require togs at school.

• Please remember your school sunhat and drink bottle everyday

• Homework books and book bags are to be at school everyday too please.

You can contact me via Seesaw or email mswan@tearohaprimary.school.nz

Have a fantastic Week 7! 😊

We look forward to returning to school this week.

We may have been small in number over the last week, but we made up for it in spirit. Being put into two classes meant plenty of time to interact with each other (in a safe way of course) and share things we are doing!! On Friday we all sat in the sun and ate ice blocks. We love our team!

We were lucky enough to have some Room 6 students join us last week. It was great getting to hang out a few times as a (slightly reduced) hub too. We enjoyed getting hands on in our Maths by using a range of materials to help us with our graphing. We are getting very good at making statements about the information shown. We are enjoying developing our ICT skills as we use the Chromebooks to do a retell of The Fisherman and His Wife. Despite having uncertain numbers each day, we are all giving it our best in Room 5!

Reminders: We are hoping to keep swimming till the end of the season. Our class is fortunate to swim at the end of the day when it is still quite warm, so keep sending those togs along to school.

Online Learning

Our Spelling words and weekly poem are available on Seesaw for all Room 5 students who are keen to work on them at home. There will be online activities posted on Seesaw for those students who are currently isolating. These will be sent as student posts on their journal pages each day so that families can access them more easily. We will also be doing aspects of this online learning in class so that the students at school are completing similar work to those at home.

If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact Miss Entwisle via the school office: 078848803; email: mentwisle@tearohaprimary.school.nz or through the Seesaw message function.

I am proud of the way Room 6 adapted to changes last week due to becoming a household contact myself. This week we will be starting our structured spelling programme, this is a programme created by Learning Matters in Hamilton who specialise in a range of learning needs especially dyslexia. Your child will be bringing home spelling to practise over the week.

If your child is away and needing learning at home, this can be found in Google Classroom or Seesaw.

We will be exploring our topic ‘The Circle of life’, we will be beginning our topic looking at the life of plants and how plants are important to the great ‘Circle of life’ for all living things.

We will be moving into fractions and also on Fridays topic maths - Direction and location.

Last week we welcomed our friends from Room 6 into our learning environment. I am so proud of the way your children helped them settle in. Room 7 is truly a great place to be!

The pool is getting chillier but the children are always keen to get in - even if it is just for a few minutes.In maths this week we swap to fractions for some people and location and direction giving for others. Knowing left and right is going to be the biggest challenge!! In Topic we will be looking at Life Cycles so our writing will be the explanations of these. In reading this week we will be looking at literal comprehension as well as inference.

Online Learning

We are swapping to online learning for the next week. We ended up doing it last week as numbers started dropping. All our things are shared in the drive and links should lead you to what you need to find.

Last week as part of their Life Cycle unit (it is a plant!!) Room 6/7 did these wonderful chalk pastel sunflowers. We had so much fun doing them. They did burst into spontaneous song but it was just a few seconds - promise!

Kia ora whānau

A massive shout out to you all for the support and positivity you inject into your students each day. It is so nice to see smiling faces everyday. This week, students at home can again work online, their learning slides are sent every Monday morning to their drive (Home learning), link also through email sent. It is the same learning we are completing in class. They can send their work to me for checking/marking.

Students of Room 8 have been very busy with their topic learning – Cycle of Life. This week they will be investigating their own local plant life and creating a brochure to present their new information. These will be shared with you once complete. In reading, we are continuing on with our class novel which the students are thoroughly enjoying. Retelling/summarising will be the focus this week with the novel. We are also targeting report writing, linking this to our topic inquiry. Maths is a continuation of learning different strategies for subtraction and addition. Swimming will continue every day so please ensure students are bringing their togs. Have a great week everyone! Ngā mihi. Mrs M.

Kia Ora Koutou!

Wow. We are super proud of the effort you have all put into your online learning. We thank you for remaining positive and showing resilience as we navigate learning online and in class. Our numbers in the classroom still remain low but the output in learning is high.

This week we will once again be working online.

Maths - subtraction strategies are a big focus this week. Each day we will be looking at a slightly different mental strategy so keep an eye out online.

Reading - this week we begin to target reading groups through journals. Each group will have a follow up activity that looks closely into the reading comprehension strategies.

Writing - report writing is a key focus this week as we dive in to our learning ‘Life Cycles’

Topic - SHARKS! This week we have put together yet another online learning task board which focuses on sharks. In this task board students will get the opportunity to learn all about sharks, their life cycle and of course get to create art and play games.

Kia Kaha, Kia Maia, Kia Manawanui - Be strong, be brave, be steadfast!

Ngā Mihi,

Whaea Armstrong and Mrs H

Kia ora koutou - He aroha whakatō, he aroha puta mai If kindness is sown, then kindness you shall receive.I am so proud of Rm 10 and their resilience and positive attitude towards the different approach to teaching and learning over the last week. We begin the week like last week, as RM 19 (Rm 9 and 10 combined in the hall.) It has been really cool to see students both at school and at home engage with Online Learning and even carrying out their own investigations based on the tasks. Well done Dayshaun. Lockie and Taariq - who knew that 1.65m was so short and that you are all taller than me but not as tall as a colossal penguin and Le Bron James! And for all of you who were wondering - I have recovered from my kidnapping! Fun times in Rm 10! We will be continuing with online teaching and learning this week and we look forward to welcoming back some of our classmates who have been away.

Maths - we will be investigating efficient strategies to solve large whole and decimal number addition and subtraction problems. Today, we also celebrated PI DAY, the annual celebration of the mathematical constant π (pi). Pi Day is observed on March 14 (3/14 in the month/day format) since 3, 1, and 4 are the first three significant figures of π.

Topic Inquiry - our work on the Cycle Of Life will take an integrated approach this week, with a taskboard and links to reading and writing. Students will also be assigned a research task to complete.

Swimming - we will be continuing to swim until the pool closes this term. Our class is enjoying the cool water with nearly everyone still swimming.

Here is to another awesome week. Kia tu, kia toa, kia mau - accept the challenge.

Arohanui - Mrs B dp@tearohaprimary.school.nz

School Lunches

We need these firms to keep our school cashflow and community relations going strong. They are generous to us which enables us to benefit your children so I would ask you look at the team of sponsors and where possible, use them as we all gain….

Each week we will highlight 3 sponsors and provide a bit more detail …

The Property Brokers story is an amazing one. The Property Brokers real estate company started with 5 people in 1986 and has grown, not by strategically planning every step but by recognising opportunities, by backing our own people and by having fun and enjoying it along the way.

Property Brokers has been proudly looking after the property needs of provincial New Zealanders since 1986. We’ve built our family business into a company that stretches the length of New Zealand, from the top of the North to the deep South. It’s a business built on hard work, discipline, friendships, and a powerful sense of family.

Right from the start, provincial New Zealand has been the place we feel most at home. Here, relationships and trust count for everything. A deal is done on a handshake, and locals judge you on how long they’ve known you.

Our Property Brokers family started with five people in 1986 and is now over 700 strong, with over 70 branches throughout New Zealand. We are as successful as we are because of our attitude and strong values. We recognise that in provincial New Zealand, we have a high profile and doing business with a long-term focus is essential to our culture and our future. Our belief, passion, teamwork and drive have helped us develop into a company that’s famous for leading positive change in the property industry.

Residential & Rural Bobcat Services / Specialist earthworks and excavation services in Te Aroha and the wider Waikato region.

Ultimate Bobcat Services Ltd specialise in excavation services. We consider ourselves to be friendly, highly motivated and hard-working perfectionists. Great pride is taken in doing the best job possible for each and every client. We are based in Te Aroha and also service the wider Waikato region. We look forward to working with you and giving advice where needed on your next project.

Phone: 027 633 0103

Email admin@ultimatebobcats.co.nz

Our Ultimate Bobcat Services are available Waikato wide

Mon - Fri 7.30am - 6.00pm

WILCON CONTRACTING LIMITED is located in Te Aroha and is part of the Other Specialty Trade Contractors Industry.

They do: General Excavation, Site Work & Demolition, Drain Cleaning & V Drains, Fencing, Race & Oxidation Pond Construction & Maintenance, Sub Divisions, Plus More.

Phone: 027 503 1472

Email: wilconcontractingltd@gmail.com

Please use these tools we provide - we use them to alert, inform and effectively communicate with parents.

Check it out - there is plenty for you to find out.

If in doubt please ask your child’s teacher as we will be using these platforms on a regular basis to keep our parent community informed and up to date.

Email: admin@tearohaprimary.school.nz
Website: https://tearohaprimary.school.nz/
Location: Jubilee Avenue, Te Aroha, New Zealand
Phone: 07-884 8803
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Te-Aroha-Primary-School-193399510687026/