Hockey Tournament

A cool morning greeted all of the brave students who were participating in the annual hockey tournament on 5 July. It was held on the second last day of term two. Teams from St Mary’s, Tokoiti, Waihola, the Catlins and Clutha Valley came over to challenge Milton Primary School. M.P.S had six teams entered but none of them made the finals. Some children got hurt in the games but they kept playing and we all had to work together to get goals and try to stop the other team from scoring. In the end the teams from the Catlins and Clutha Valley were in the final for first and second place and the team from the Catlins won. We loved having the students from the high school reffing us. It was a long and hard day but we all thought it was definitely a lot of fun!

Life Education

The Life Education bus came to Milton Primary school recently. In the senior classes, Pip and Harold, the puppet giraffe, were teaching us about cyber safety. We learnt about the importance of keeping our personal information safe and private and remembering that once we post something on the internet we have lost ownership of it. We discussed the importance of friends and that, not only is it important to have good friends, it is important for us to be a good friend to others and protect their privacy online as well as our own. We were reminded of what we learnt last year about keeping our behaviour “above the line” because the things that we say and do have a large impact on our personal reputation.

We all had fun in the Life Education bus and we look forward to it returning again next year!!! J

Sports Activator

This year we have a new sports activator named Shea. He has been teaching us the skills that we need to play hockey. First we played games to help us warm up. Some of the activities we have done help us to practise keeping our eyes on the ball and ball control. We learnt how to do short dribbling and long dribbling. Next we worked in pairs and practised passing the ball to each other and counting how many times we could do that successfully. We learnt how to hold a hockey stick properly and some of the rules of hockey. All of us enjoyed the sessions and are looking forward to the sports activator’s next visit.

Whanau Day

On Friday 1 June we had a whole day in our whanau groups doing fun activities. Miss Keene organised six different activities and each group got to do all of them. We spent nearly an hour at each activity. Some of the activities were learning some tech coding, baking maori bread, making poi, and several different art/craft activities.

There was a sausage sizzle for lunch and we were all entertained by a performance by the school’s kapa haka group at lunchtime. We all had a wonderful time and are very grateful to all those who contributed to making this special day such a huge success.

Live Chat

Throughout the year the children in Room 8 have maintained a penpal relationship with children from a class at Excelsior Elementary near Sacramento in California, U.S.A.

Today we had a “live chat” with them called “Reflecting on our Learning”. The children learnt about what topics they had been learning in their respective classes in each area of the curriculum. It was very interesting to be doing this in real time even though it was 9.00am on Thursday here and 2pm Wednesday afternoon there! This will be our last interaction with them for a while as their school year is about to end and they won’t start again until they return from their summer break in mid August. We will look forward to catching up with them again then. In the photo montage below you can see photos of Room 8 children on top participating in the live chat with their penpals whose photos are on the bottom.

Book Week

From Monday 14 May till Friday 18 May, it was Book Week at Milton Primary. On Monday the teachers swapped classes and visited another room to read the children a story. Each day at a certain time a whistle would sound at a different time and we had to stop what we were doing and “Stop, Drop, and Read. On Thursday, to celebrate book week, we were allowed to dress up as our favorite book character. Everyone enjoyed seeing the other students costumes and their amazing ideas. Some of the costumes on display were Hermione Granger and Harry Potter, Snow White, Spiderman and various witches and princesses. We also had a book fair running throughout the week in the school library. There were chapter books and picture books for sale to help raise money for the school library. The books are amazing and very interesting to read. We love reading at Milton Primary School.

Play is the Way

Play is the Way is a unique programme of physically interactive games that develop self regulation within children and fosters independent, self-motivated, and empathetic behaviours. Play is the Way develops emotional intelligence and social competency skills so children can create close personal connections and a sense of self worth and belonging. We are very excited to be implementing this programme at Milton Primary this year. On Monday 7 May we had its founder, Wilson McCaskill, come to school and work with the teachers and the children. The children learn through playing a wide variety of fun games which challenge them to think about their behaviour and develop positive attitudes towards facing challenges, developing perseverance and achieving success. We are looking forwarding to embedding this programme into our school culture as a reflection of our school values of respect, responsibility, confidence and teamwork.