Primary School Celebrates Book Week: A Literary Extravaganza

In a display of literary enthusiasm, Pinehurst Primary School celebrated Book Week, a vibrant event that brought the magic of a treasured New Zealand author to life. From captivating library sessions to creative dress-ups, the week-long festivities fostered an appreciation for the stories of Lynley Dodd.

Book Week at Pinehurst Primary aimed to encourage students to embrace the joy of reading. The event was planned by the school's Year 5 and 6 syndicate alongside our wonderful library team. The week was packed with a wide array of engaging activities, ensuring there was something for every student to enjoy.

The celebration kicked off with a dress up parade and assembly. The assembly featured a performance by our Year 6 librarians, character riddles from our Year 6 Arts and Culture team and fascinating author facts from our Head Councillors.

Throughout the week, students were immersed in various reading-related activities. Guest authors, lunchtime reading buddies, a story treasure hunt, book swap and a teacher tumble.

In the end, Book Week was not merely a celebration of books but a celebration of the limitless possibilities that lie within the pages waiting to be explored.

Big Write Adventures to Antarctica in P23

For our Big Write adventure this term P23 has been journeying with Alan to Antarctica.

At the beginning Alan asked the Big Writing agents to help him decide what clothing he needed to take with him to Antarctica. We then had to find out where Antarctica was and had to look at a map and in non-fiction books for some answers. We worked with a buddy to record and then report back our findings. After that, we used adjectives and connectives to tell Alan what he needed to take.

Jeremy wrote, ‘Please don’t forget to take your woolly jumper so your body does not get cold.

Clara wrote, ‘Please don’t forget to take waterproof boots so your feet don’t get freezing. Remember to take a warm woolly hat so your head doesn’t get cold.

Next, we had to help Alan by writing directions on ‘How to get to Antarctica.’ We acted out Alan’s travel route and learnt he had to travel by two aeroplanes and one large ship. We practised writing United Kingdom, Ascension Island, Falkland Islands and Antarctica starting with capital letters because they are place names.

Then, Alan asked us to write down his observations as he arrived in Antarctica. He wrote some notes in his travel journal and the Big Writing agents needed to help by writing good sentences. We remembered to use adjectives and connectives to make our writing better.

Ben wrote, ‘Alan saw a pure white and jet-black killer whale peering out of the water. He noticed a pod of orcas behind the ship because it makes them go faster.’

Owen wrote, ’He spotted a pod of pure white and jet-black killer whales swimming at the back of the wake because it helps them swim faster! Killer whales eat tuna, salmon, and squid.’

This week Alan has arrived in Antarctica, and he has invited the Big Writing agents to write a postcard home telling his friends and family all about his trip and what he has observed. Also, we have been learning about questions and statements. The Big Writing agents are excited to find out more about Alan and his adventures.

Year 2’s have been discussing and learning about weaving.

P8 made Under the Sea Placemats, they used colours and ideas for a sea- themed placemat.

Inspiration from ‘The Rainbow Fish’ that included lots of colourful sea illustrations.

Children looked at the famous textiles artist . Gunta St ̈olzl

Weaving around the World: We looked at examples of weaving from all over the world, talked about the materials, patterns, colours and equipment used for weaving.

The children’s aim was to:

• use a range of materials creatively to design and make products, in the context of weaving a paper placemat
• use materials creatively to make a product
• learn about the work of a range of artists and craft makers
• make links to their own work, in the context of learning about weaving

Primary Mandarin 

In the junior primary Mandarin, we have been working with Chinese characters and pinyin while we are learning the different topics. We have done a lot of investigating and pair work to help each other learn.

In Year 1 and 2, we have been learning to count forward and backward in Chinese, so we are ready to talk about dates and birthdays. We have also been discovering how we can use our English phonics knowledge to help us learn Chinese pinyin, and we have found Fred fingers are very helpful to sound out pinyin.

In Year 3, we continued to deconstruct characters to help us learn more vocabulary. Breaking them up into different parts makes it easier for us to memorise them.

Year 4 have been learning the different country names around the word and we have discovered some of them sound like their English names.

Team of the Week – Pinehurst Makos Flippaball

The Pinehurst Makos are a Year 5-6 team that compete in the North Harbour Waterpolo Flippaball competition on a Sunday afternoon. The team has gone from strength to strength this year. With most of the team returning from last year and a few new additions, the team has won all of their games this Term. Throughout the first 4 weeks of the Term 2 competition, the team has beaten Ponsonby, St Joes, Sunnynook and Upper Harbour, all by a very convincing score line. The team has beaten all of their teams in their pool, finishing at the top of their pool. The Makos now go into playoffs for the Term, and are hoping to win their grade this Term. The team is coached by Ella Martin and Pinehurst Senior Student, Deonna Qu. Both coaches are doing a great job and have been a key component in the Mako’s success. We wish the team all the best in their playoff games!

EAL This Week! 

This week in EAL some groups have been looking at using ‘would,’ ‘could’ and ‘should’ correctly. They made their own special restaurant menus and used these to ask their friends what they would like to eat. The new entrant group have been talking and writing about feelings and linking this to body parts. The children used their monster puppets to speak in sentences about how they were feeling. Another group have been changing tense to show when the action took place. One other group have been using prefixes, base words and suffixes to work out unknown words in texts. Another group have been looking at the past continuous tense and using this correctly when writing. Some of the other groups have been reading for information, finding the keywords in the question, and carefully checking back through the text to find the correct information. Then the year three group made some cute Hairy Maclary inspired poetry where they played around with and used different parts of speech. Here is Joseph Zeng’s:

Hairy Maclary

Fluffy, scruffy,

Running, sniffing, snooping,

Hairy Maclary cheeky, naughty…

Dog!

Toi o te wiki

Toi o te wiki this week goes to two exceptionally dedicated young Year 7 artists, Bonnie and Vanessa.

Bonnie’s drawing of a Kingfisher is dynamic, creative and skillfully completed.

Vanessa has captured a cheeky Piwakawaka in her exceptional drawing.

AS History 

This Thursday, over 130 students from schools throughout Auckland attended the Australasia ‘More Able and Ambitious’ Conference, hosted by none other than Pinehurst School in the new Theatre building. A dozen of our Scholars had the privilege of listening to an eclectic variety of lectures from Oxford academics, on topics ranging from Big Data to epistemology. Our students received coaching on what to expect from an Oxford or Cambridge interview, and at the very end participated in a debate on whether love is a commodity to be traded. The conference was chaired by Julie Arliss and Dr. Christopher O’Neil, who kindled a new appreciation for not only bleeding-edge areas of research, but also for the pursuit of knowledge itself.

The day began with an epistemological inquiry into how we can know we know anything. We were introduced to philosophical arguments such as empiricism, rationalism, and fallible foundationalism, later immersing ourselves in a fast-paced talk about the science of happiness. On a more lighthearted yet still insightful note, our scholars attempted to answer some Oxbridge interview questions, such as “How many animals did Noah take onto the Ark?” and “Does a snail have consciousness?”. The day concluded with a brief talk on social physics and the far-reaching implications of big data in this day and age. The day ended with a bang, as students from every school took the floor, debating against and alongside our guest speakers. We left the conference with pages of scrawled notes, and minds brightly alight with passion and curiosity.

Girls Football 

Girls’ football got off to a good start last week with their first game at home to Takapuna. Dressed in pink for Pink Shirt Day, it wasn’t long before Pinehurst took the lead with an early goal from Ava who was making her first appearance for the team. There were plenty more goals to come throughout the game and Pinehurst switched their focus to playing some good football and trying to link passes together more consistently. The final score was 8-0.

The team travelled away this week to play Northcote who put up much more of a challenge. Going down 2-0 in the first half after some quick breakaway goals the girls regrouped at half time and dominated the chances on goal. A beautiful strike from Bella took the score to 2-1 with 15 minutes to go. After dominating the possession, we managed a number of shots at goal but all were kept out by the keeper. It was a really tight game with just the one goal the difference between the two teams in the end.

Next week the team plays Kingsway at home on Wednesday, 4pm kick off.

Xavier Wasek-Webb – Auckland College Climbing Series

Xavier has continued his climbing success, competing at the Auckland College Climbing over the weekend at Northern Rocks. Xavier competed in the bouldering comp and took out 3^rd place in the group category Y9-10 which had 43 competitors. This is an outstanding accomplishment considering Xavier is only Year 7! This was a great stepping stone for Xavier and will continue to build his confidence leading into AIMS Games in September in which he will be competing against the best Year 7-8 students.

North Harbour Girls Football Zone Day

On Tuesday, our Year 8 Girls Football team attend the North Harbour Football Zone Day at Ashley Reserve in Long Bay. The team was placed in a pool with Northcross, Glenfield and Birkdale. It was a tough first up encounter for the Girls against a strong Northcross team who eventually went on to secure 2^nd place overall, losing 3-0. The team’s second match was against Glenfield in which the team played exceptionally well and won 2-1. The girls continued this winning success in the last pool game, beating Birkdale 2-0. This meant that the team had finished 2^nd in their pool which saw them go through to the top 8. The Pinehurst girls had a tough cross over in their quarter final, playing a well drilled Murray’s Bay Intermediate side. The team unfortunately lost 4-2 however they were the first team to put away goals against the crisp Murrays Bay team who went on to win the whole tournament. After losing the quarter final, the team played off for 4^th – 8^th spot, in which the team finished 8^th overall. This is the best result for any of the Pinehurst Zone Day teams at a Football Zone Day. A huge congratulations to the Girls team, who progressed throughout the day and had a lot of fun along the way. If you would like to get involved with Football at School, Miss Murray is running a lunchtime competition with Mr Taylor for all Year 5-8 students, both girls and boys.