The wonderful crew at Greening the Rubble decided to run a competition to giveaway the POD OASIS outdoor spaces to a community group in Christchurch. The PTA at Rawhiti decided to enter the competition to try and win these amazing pod gardens and seating for our school children as an outdoor classroom and reading space, and to also be used by our local community on weekends.
Last week we found out that we were shortlisted in the top 3 for this competition and last night at ReStart Mall we were thrilled to learn that Rawhiti School was the winner!!! POD OASIS will be making their way to our school sometime in Term 2 and we look forward to making a beautiful garden around this space. We are so lucky to have won these. Thank you Greening the Rubble!!

Our busy little PTA 'fairies' made up 30 prize packages to give away as raffle prizes.
​All the prizes came from food items donated to the school for last week's Mufti Day and extra items were purchased with coins that were donated. 

The PTA recently learnt there were only a handful of sandpit toys left at school to share between the junior and senior sandpit areas and lots & lots of children who wished to play in the sandpits. This was a dilemma we could solve! Here's how we did it...

Research
Trish and Steph hung out and chatted to the children in the large sandpit to see how they played and what toys they might like. Shovels to dig with and some buckets with sandcastle shapes were the most common requests. One thing we did notice was how nicely everyone was playing together in the sandpit, how much collaboration & sharing was going on and how much imagination they had to use due to the lack of equipment. We thought this was actually a good thing!

Quality & Choice
We checked the quality of the tools they already had and found they were good quality, heavy duty plastic. After looking in the school supplies catalogue and visiting the Playcentre Shop in Sydenham we found that the Playcentre Shop stocked the exact same good quality items as in the schools catalogue, except they were half the price. They also had a really good range of sandcastle making moulds which we thought were even better than buckets, and would encourage a lot more creativity & options. We thought a good selection of basic items plus some more interesting items would be useful to continue to inspire the children to use their wonderful imaginations.

Numbers
We thought it would be a good idea to limit the number of new items purchased, so the children could continue working collaboratively. We also felt less items might encourage children to show a greater appreciation, and be more inclined to look after them.

Storage
We needed to consider where the new items would be stored. Rongomatane have a large wheelie bin. The children are in charge of packing it up at the end of the day, and the teachers store the bin in the classroom foyer at night and at the weekends. Trish investigated wheelie bin options and actually discovered an abandoned wheelie bin at the old Freeville site. It was in excellent condition apart from missing a lid, so she located a replacement lid from a local supplier in Chch, and planned to “pimp” the bin with orange paint to make it look cool.

Looking After the Toys
The children from Tane Mahuta and Tawhirimatea use the senior sandpit the most, so we have asked the teachers from those classrooms to see if they can arrange for monitors to pack away the new toys at the end of each day and store them in their foyer in the new bin.

Dilemma Solved!
So now the Rawhiti School children have a great range of sandpit toys to keep them busy at breaktimes. And that means happy kids. Like we said, it's the little things that matter!

Helen and Steph were invited as guest speakers to the Seaview Lions Club luncheon meeting down the road from the school in the Diamonz Tap Studio on Leaver Terrace, with our host Jan Ruardy. We enjoyed great conversation, a delicious lunch and we were able to talk about what's going on at the school and what issues there are in the general neighbourhood that we could try and address. 
After discussing the plans for the Bikes in School bike track around the back field of our school the Seaview Lions Club very generously agreed to fund 3 bicycles for us, handing us a cheque there and then. And then they fed us! What lovely neighbours the school has, we're so very lucky!

Jan Ruardy, the director of Diamonz Tap Studio and Chairperson of the Seaview Lions Club would love to invite parents at the school to come along on a Friday morning and enjoy a free hot cuppa and biscuit. If it's a cold day, why not pop down the road and have somewhere nice and warm to sit and chat. She generously opens her studio every Friday morning from 9am - 11am for our community to enjoy. As long as the Coffee sign is there, she will be there. Don't be shy!