Newsletter – Week 4, Term 2 2024 – Botany Downs Primary School

Week 4, Term 2, 2024

Kia ora koutou Parents and BDS Whānau,

We are all very excited about our Bricks Show on Sunday. Come along and see the amazing Lego Display in our school hall, buy a raffle ticket, purchase a cake at the Bake Sale, and add to your home library by buying books from our book stall. Keep working on building your best LEGO® brick creation and bring this along. All information can be found below. A huge thank you to our amazing PTA who are organising this event.

Thank you to Mr D’Ambrosio and Mr Stuart for making our new soccer goals. They are an awesome addition to our field are are already proving very popular with our tamariki.

Our latest building developments are at the front of our school as the Ministry of Education is building four new staff car parks. This is expected to take between two and three weeks.

This week we welcome back Mrs Rita Lala and warmly thank Miss Tineke Oed, who taught in Room 3 while Mrs Lala was away.

Ngā mihi nui,
Vicki Parkins, Principal – Tumuaki (vickip@botanydowns.school.nz)

Coming up @ BDS…

Wed 22 May – PhotoLife Class & Individual Photos
Thurs 23 May – PhotoLife Sibling Photos
Fri 24 May – HPPA Rugby Day 1
Sun 26 May – PTA Bricks, Books and Bake Sale
Tues 28 May – HPPA Netball Day 2
Wed 29 May – No Uniform Day / HPPA Girls Soccer Day 1
Fri 31 May – Teacher Only Day
Mon 3 June – King’s Birthday (public holiday)
Tues 4 June – PTA meeting
Wed 5 June – PTA Jester’s Pie Day
Thurs 6 June – HPPA Soccer Field Day
Fri 7 June – HPPA Rugby Day 2

** click here to view more of the school calendar **

SCHOOL NEWS

PhotoLife Class/Individual & Sibling Photos

On Wednesday 22 May our class and individual photos will be taken. On Thursday 23 May sibling photos will be taken. Please ensure that your child is wearing the correct winter uniform for both days.

Term 2 Sports

Please see Mr D’Ambrosio (joed@botanydowns.school.nz, Rm 24) if you would like to know more about playing any of the following sports at school:

Netball
Rugby
Soccer
Cross Country
Hockey

Basketball

This term we have one team playing in the Underdog Basketball League. The Botany Bears were showing off their brand new uniform. Thank you to the parent helpers for coaching and organising training sessions. If you are interested in helping to coach and train other basketball teams – please contact Mr Yoon (sojungy@botanydowns.school.nz).

Specialist Music with Mrs Jacobs

We have had a wonderful start to this year’s Music programme. Our first Term’s focus was the untuned percussion instruments and allowing the students to explore the variety of sounds and beats they could make with different instruments. The Seniors worked well to create their own graphic scores, the Middle school worked with a poem “Whakarongo”, adding sound effects, and the Juniors worked to create a body percussion sequence.

This term the Senior and Middle school are learning to play the ukulele, and the Juniors are learning to play the tuned percussion instruments. We are looking forward to some lovely musical melodies coming from the music room.

Specialist PE with Mrs Marck

During PE lessons we have had a focus on small ball skills, so we have been doing lots of throwing and catching! We have focused on our technique and applied this in a variety of games. We did a lot of fun throwing activities like tower target throw, tic tac toe and ten-pin bowling while we were practising our techniques. We had so much fun and also had a focus on how we could be good team-mates, so we did team challenges using different sports equipment. This term we are focusing on large ball skills through team games like soccer and basketball.

STEAM with Mrs Jacobs and Mrs Marck

In STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) we had a focus on engineering. Some things that we made during these sessions were: boats using recycled materials, towers using spaghetti/popsicle sticks and playdough, and bridges using blocks and paper. We did lots of testing to see which boats would float, which towers were stable and which bridges could hold the most weight. We did lots of hands-on learning and learnt about the science behind these large vehicles and structures in our world. We had fun working together with others in a group.

Celebrating Our Students

Gabriel Divinagracia created a dragon head for Book Week character dress-up day 2023. He very kindly gifted it to the library and it is now in pride of place on the wall as part of this fabulous display. Thank you Gabriel!

Botany Best & Values

We invite you to attend our school assembly on Friday at 9.10 am. This week our item will be from Room 25.

Values

Congratulations to the following tamariki who have displayed our value of Responsibility, Kaitiakitanga : Lauren Hayes, Rosie Roberts, Lexi Jones, Starzia Erskine, Yeray Limones Navarro, Rowena Luo, Ethan Luo, Caelin Ramiah, Miane’ Cronje’, Nora Khong, Dylan Davies, Jasmine Wu, Khrish Ranchhod, Ayla Richards, Rishaan Kumar, Paige Monsanto, Ruoxi Wang, Eric Li & Jaiden Wang.

Botany Best

Congratulations to our following tamariki who have shown their Botany Best by displaying our Capabilities: Elliot Cheng, VJ Mose, Mira Ong, Lincoln Takaiti, Matilda Malez, Adam Shawani, Helaina Jamalidogaheh, Alofa Vaolele, Emma Kamakorewa, Reuben Tate, Novan Leno Alex, Ryu Strydom, Eshaal Fazal, Tanush Tailor, Gemma Brealey, Leon Lo, Taika Murray, Vito Feng & Ella Blake.

PTA Notices…

BRICK SHOW THIS SUNDAY 26th May 10am – 3pm

The Brick Show is a cash only event.

Baking – Thank you to those who have offered to bake, boxes have now been sent home. Baking can be dropped off at the staffroom between 12pm – 6pm on Saturday 25th May. If you did not receive a box and would like to bake, please use any disposable plate or box.

Competition Entries – Must be delivered to the hall between 10am – 12noon during the Brick Show, original designs only. Be in to win one of three LEGO® sets. Let’s see what incredible masterpieces you can create!

Tickets – all pre-sale tickets will be sent home with students on Thursday.

Raffles – We have over $3,500 worth of goods and vouchers to give away. Come to the Brick Show and enter one of our raffles for just $2. Thank you to all our sponsors.

Fun & Learning @ BDS

Year 2, Room 4:
In Room 4 we celebrated “Pink Shirt Day” by discussing all the things that help us be happy and how to help others be happy as well. We designed our own tee shirts.

Year 3, Room 30:
Room 30 was very busy last term, learning all about the ANZACs. We read some awesome stories and learnt about who went to war and why. We are very proud of the soldiers who went and fought for us. We made some clay poppies to remember them. Here’s how we made them: first, we moulded the clay and waited for it to dry. Next, we painted our poppies red and then we added a black dot in the middle. The last step was spraying them with a lacquer so they looked shiny and beautiful. We will mount them onto a canvas so we can display them proudly in our homes.

We read the stories Anzac Ted and The ANZAC Puppy and created some awesome artwork that we are all very proud of. We have also had a visit from Harold in the Life Education Caravan and enjoyed Book Character Dress Up Day. Wow, we have been busy!

Children Turning Five – Enrolment

If your child is turning five in the next six (6) months please ensure you enrol them as soon as possible. Our roll is steadily growing and we need to plan for classes and teachers during the year.

Please collect your enrolment pack from the office, or email office@botanydowns.school.nz

Joanne Hughson DP/SENCo – Year 0-3 (joanneh@botanydowns.school.nz)

LIBRARY NEWS

National Simultaneous Storytime –
Wed 22 May @ Lunchtime

Last year, BDS was part of the over 2.3 million folk who took participated in the Australian National Simultaneous Storytime (NSS). On Wednesday 22 May (tomorrow), we will be doing it again by gathering in the library to read ‘Bowerbird Blues’, by Aura Parker.

Students are welcome to come to the library at lunchtime to hear this story which will be read at the same time in thousands of different places across Australia and Aotearoa.

Organised by the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) and supported by the Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa (LIANZA), the NSS has been celebrated for 24 years. You can find out more about this fun initiative here: National Simultaneous Storytime