Happy School Holidays

Our Term 1 School Holidays have been brought forward to Monday the 30th of March. 

We will be back online ready for distance learning on Wednesday the 15th of April.  During this ‘holiday time’ teachers will be spending quality time with the people in their bubbles.  We will also be focused on preparing for the coming term (Plan A and Plan B). You are welcome to email if you have any real concerns but please understand that you may not receive a speedy reply.

Over the next two weeks:

Treat the next 2 weeks like a real school holiday.  Don’t worry about reading,

writing, maths, spelling and ‘all that stuff’.  The most important thing right now

is making sure that your precious little people are feeling happy, safe and secure. 

Their poor little brains can’t deal with so much change and concern AND still be

able to learn at their best. Play with them, have popcorn and movie nights, do

some art, baking or lego building, make a blanket fort and have a ‘camp out’ in the

lounge. Just enjoy having uninterrupted family time.  And make sure that you take

care of yourselves. Your children are watching you - they need to see you relax,

smile, eat well and have fun. Put your own oxygen mask on first - it’s pretty good

advice.

It's getting pretty close to Holy Week. Holy Week is a very important time in our Church calendar. We always try to do a few special and out of the box activities in the lead up to Easter. Of course everything is out of the box at the moment but here are a few activities to get you started.

Pray	Bible Stories	Helping Hand	Art Activities	Treats	Games
Our Father	Palm Sunday	On Palm Sunday, the people waved palm branches and called “Hosanna”.  Today, you could go outside and help weed/sort out the garden.		Ice Cream Easter Eggs	Exploding Easter Eggs
Hail Mary	Washing of the Feet	On Holy Thursday, Jesus washed the feet of His disciples. Today, you could do a bit of extra cleaning at home to help prepare your home for Jesus.	Make a mosaic cross with coloured paper.	Easter Bunny Biscuit	Minute to win it games -
Glory Be	Good Friday	On Good Friday, Jesus was condemned to death. He died for our sins. Today you could do some random acts of kindness for your family.	Make/Buy hot cross buns to share. Chelsea Winter Recipe	Easter Biscuit decorating
The Jelly Bean Prayer	Easter	Easter Sunday is a day of celebration. Jesus rose from the dead. Today, your mission is to tell the people in your family how special they are. Say thank you for all the love they show you.	We made pancakes at the beginning of Lent - maybe you could make Easter Pancakes, too.	I think there will probably be enough treats today - apples and oranges?	Use recycled materials to make an Easter golf game.

And for something completely different...

Here are some weird holiday experiences for a weird holiday

• Virtual Disney Rides

Turn your dining chairs into a roller coaster, fire these videos up on the screen, crank

up the volume and enjoy the ride. Don’t forget to lean, shake the chairs and yell to

really give your kids the full experience.

• Virtual Play date

Contact your child’s friends. Jump on Skype, Zoom or WhatsApp and have a virtual

playdate. They can have afternoon tea together, play with their own toys and share

what they are doing/making with their mates.

• Have a dance party

Kidzbop is great - loads of new and new-ish music that is remade by kids for kids

(so no swearing or dicey lyrics that you don’t want to explain). You could even combine

the above - invite your friends for a virtual dance party. Take turns picking the tunes. 

If you want to really make it weird - everyone can wear headphones and dance to their

own beat.

• Authors and art

Mo Willems (Don’t let the pigeon drive the bus…) is running lunch doodles. Learn how

to draw the pigeon from his stories as well as other characters.  There are heaps of

how to draw videos online. You could even draw through the alphabet (they’re all capitals

but that’s fine).

Thank you all for your incredible support and for jumping in with so much enthusiasm. 

What a lucky bunch of kids to have such amazing Mums and Dads.

If you have other ideas for Easter/holiday celebrations feel free to share in the comments

so that other Mums and Dads can share your knowledge

(Collaborative teaching - it’s the new buzz).

Happy school holidays, everyone!

Love from, Mrs T