Kia ora e te whānau,

Term 2 of 2026 has come to an end and we have celebrated this busy term with some wonderful events and activities! Thanks to all who attended learning conferences; what a wonderful opportunity for the kaiako (teachers) to connect with our parents and whānau and to highlight the success of our pupils. We have had PTA breakfast and PJ day, book character day and of course, funky hair day to celebrate the last day of term! We have enjoyed multiple sporting events, and we hope the tamariki enjoy a safe and well-earned break with an opportunity to recharge and relax.

Here are a few snapshots of what Kahikatea have been up to this week.

Hillview Cross Country Challenge!

A huge highlight of this week for some of our tamariki was to represent their school at the Hillview Year 1-4 Cross Country Challenge. It was a wonderful event, and the children showed fantastic sportsmanship and a "can do" attitude! Embracing the school value of "We Love Challenge"!

Numicon - Numicon continues to be a very popular mode of learning for our tamariki and we are enjoying the opportunity to use a wide range of resources and classroom collaboration to extend the children's mathematical knowledge. This week we looked into comparing and ordering numbers to 100, and it created some wonderful problem-solving opportunities for the tamariki.

Funky Hair Day- Friday was FUNKY HAIR DAY!! As always, the tamariki shone bright and showed us their fantastic and creative hairstyles! They absolutely loved comparing their styles with each other, and there were lots of beautiful smiles all around. This was a fantastic way to raise money for the Starship Hospital, who do such incredible and vital work in Aotearoa.

Importance notice for Term 3:

Scooter-athlon- Next term, our Kahikatea Team will take part in an exciting Scooter-athlon on Wednesday 5th August from 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm. Parents are invited to come along and cheer on the tamariki.

The Scooter-athlon will follow a run → scooter → run format, giving students the chance to experience a fun, active, multi-stage race. Students are encouraged to wear their House T-Shirts, bring their own scooter and helmet, wear closed-toe shoes, and follow safety rules. Year 7/8 students will act as marshals to help run the event safely. Please note: If it is raining, the Scooter-athlon will be postponed. Any changes will be shared with parents via Hero.

Please let your classroom teacher know if your child does not have a scooter or if you have a spare one you are happy to lend. Your child will need to provide their own helmet. We can’t wait to see the tamariki scoot, run, and have fun – nau mai te wero! We love challenge!

The Kahikatea teaching team wish you a safe and restful break, and we are looking forward to seeing you in Term 3.

Ngā mihi nui

Sarah J, Amber, Talia and Sarah S

 Kia ora te whānau, 

It is hard to believe that we are almost at the end of another term. 

Kahikatea performed in our whole school assembly last week. The parent turnout was amazing, the kids were so thrilled, and they did so well.

The Kahikatea staff have been delighted by the progress our students have made so far this year. It has been wonderful to see their learning and development flourish, with this growth clearly reflected in their reports.

Here are some of our recent learning celebrations:

Literacy:

The children continue to work hard and remain focused during our whole-class and small-group reading and writing sessions. The writing they are producing is outstanding! Below are some images of students' writing and of  Amber running a whole-class reading session, which the children enjoyed immensely.

Kia ora e te whānau,

It has been a very busy and exciting couple of weeks in our classroom! We have enjoyed lots of awesome learning experiences and finished the week on a high with our trip to Hansons Park.

Reading Success

Following the Readathon, we have noticed some fantastic progress with our readers. It has been wonderful to see growing confidence, a love of reading, and improving fluency across the class. Events like these remind us just how important daily reading is, even just 5-10 minutes each day makes a huge difference!

Thank you for all your support and encouragement with your tamariki and their reading at home. We are incredibly impressed with the progress everyone is making.

Across all literacy groups, students take part in a mixture of explicit small-group teaching, whole-class learning, and independent activities. We have loved seeing the engagement and enthusiasm during our small-group sessions. We even used some “silly fingers” to help with tracking while reading!

Book Character Day

Book Character Day was a lot of fun! It was great to see the effort students put into their costumes and the wide range of book characters that came to life around the school. Thank you to all our whanau for helping make the day such a success.

Hansen Park Trip

Our trip to Hansen Park was an absolute blast! The walk there was lovely and much quicker than we expected. Although the weather was a little windy and cold, it certainly did not stop our tamariki from having an awesome time.

We spent most of the day enjoying the playground and playing games with the sports equipment from school. Paul organised some fantastic activities, including tennis, football, and races. It was wonderful to see students playing, collaborating, and making connections with different friends throughout the day.

A huge thank you to all of our parent helpers. We could not have done it without your help.

Calling All Lego and Small Boxes!

As the weather gets colder, we are planning more crafts and creative learning activities for Learning Through Play and wet lunchtime sessions.

If you have any small boxes at home that you no longer need, we would love to take them off your hands! A collection box will be available in the makerspace over the next week.

Lego Donations

A big thank you to Sarah S, who kindly donated a large box of Lego for our students. It has been an absolute hit! The creativity and imagination our tamariki show during play is amazing to see.

If you have any spare Lego or loose pieces at home that are no longer being used, we would greatly appreciate adding them to our collection.

Thank you in advance!

Kapahaka performance!

Exciting news! Our tamariki will be performing Kapa Haka at Assembly in Week 8 on Friday, 12th June. The assembly will run from 10:00–10:30am, and whānau are warmly welcome to come along and watch.

We will send out another reminder closer to the time. We are looking forward to sharing all of the hard work and practice our students have been putting in!

Here is a sneak peek of us practicing!

We hope everyone had a safe and relaxing weekend. We look forward to another fun week of learning ahead😊

Ngā mihi nui

Sarah S, Amber, Sarah J and Talia

Ngā mihi e te whānau, 

Here in the Kahikatea hub we have enjoyed another wonderful week of learning. 

The tamariki are very much settled back into our daily routines and activities and have all reconnected with their friends after the half term break. 

Literacy - The tamariki continue to make steady progress through our structured literacy program
and have been enjoying practicing word recognition and creating their own sentences. Our shared group activities often create wonderful conversation full of rich language which the tamariki enjoy sharing with one another. As always our book swap day for Literacy is Thursday when the tamariki get the bring a new book home to share at home. 

Maths- Our Numicon program continues to gain traction with the tamariki as they get to explore new Math concepts and different Numicon resources. This week our focus has been on counting from 1 to 100 and the different ways this can be represented through estimating, grouping and patterns. The tamariki have enjoyed working as a class and in small groups to problem solve those tricky questions sharing their knowledge and growing together. 

Book Character Day!! Friday 15th May 2026 - Book character day is a wonderful opportunity for the tamariki to celebrate and share their favourite stories through visual representation, bringing fictional personalities to life for a specific occasion. It is such a fun day!

Cyber Safety - The HDCA for Parents and Whānau

The Harmful Digital Communications Act (or HDCA for short) is an act passed by the Government back in 2015 to help people dealing with serious or repeated harmful digital communications. It covers anything digital like text, emails or social media content. The most useful thing for parents to understand about the HDCA is the way the 10 communication principles define what is good or bad behaviour online.

If you’re ever concerned about your young person (or you just want to brush up on your knowledge!) visit Netsafe’s Guide to the HDCA. 

Have a beautiful weekend everybody.

Nga mihi nui

Sarah J, Amber, Talia and Sarah S

 Kia ora te Whānau, 

A big welcome back to Term 2! We have heard many amazing holiday stories and hope you all have had some lovely, quality family time together. Our tamariki have been so excited to be back, and there has been much chat and reconnecting with friends and teachers this week.

We have started off the term by delving into some new and exciting learning:

Maths in Term 2

This term, our Y0-2 ākonga (learners) are using Numicon equipment to support their maths learning. Numicon uses equipment which helps make numbers visible (see) and tactile (touch/use), allowing learners to see how numbers are composed (made up of), how they fit together and how they relate to each other.

The ākonga (learners)  have been wonderfully engaged in these Numicon sessions. They have been highly motivated to complete the daily activities, explain their thinking mathematically and use their maths vocabulary.

Literacy:

Our literacy learning is back in full swing, and the tamariki have come back from a break refreshed and ready to learn. It has not taken them long to get back into our literacy routines. 

A reminder to bring reading folders to school on Thursdays.

Inquiry Learning:

Kapa Haka:

We are lucky enough to have Kapa Haka sessions this term and in Term 4 with Whaia Cath, learning new waiata and tikanga. 

Talia and Sarah J homegroups had a session today. Amber and Sarah's home groups will have a session next week.