Category Archives: Koru

Koru Team Blog: Term 2 Week 2 (9/05/2025)

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 Kia ora e te whānau,

Welcome to this week's Koru Blog!

Book Character Dress Up Day: Friday 16th May
As part of our Readathon, we are excited to have a Book Character Dress Up Day on Friday, 16th May. All children are invited to come dressed as a book character, or if they prefer, to come in their usual school uniform. We can't wait to see all of the fabulous book character costumes- they can be as little or as big as you can make, find or create!!




Cross Country: Friday 23rd May
Our whole school cross country event will be on Friday, the 23rd of May. There will be more information to come about what time our Koru children will be running. Tamariki will be able to wear their house tops for this event. We are training most days for the Cross Country, so it is helpful for the children to wear comfortable running shoes. Our race will be between 11.30am and 12.00pm. The first race is the Year 8 runners, which will start at 11:00am, and the whole event should be finished by 12:00pm. See below for a map of where our Koru children will be running.



Literacy:
Our Koru children need to bring their Literacy Folders back to school EVERY day and put them into their group box in the hub. When the children learn a new letter, this will be added to their 'sound pack' of flash cards. When a literacy group has read a book a few times together, they are ready to take it home to read. If a child does not have their folder at school, we unfortunately cannot give them the book to take home, as each reading book costs $9 and we need to look after them by keeping them in literacy folders and returning them to school.

Phonemic Awareness Instruction
We are learning to blend words. We use the left hand to say the first word, the right hand to say the second word, and then clap our hands together when we say the compound word. eg. out - side, outside

'out'

'side'

'outside'

We are learning to segment words. The teacher says the compound word and place both hands together with palms up. Students repeat the word and then segment into two words, by separating their hands. eg. raincoat, rain - coat.


'raincoat'

'rain'

'coat'


Literacy Group Lessons
Each lesson covers revision about letter sounds (phonemes) and Heart Words that the children have already been taught. This helps to increase confidence and knowledge of the letters to know their sound when reading and how to write them. As the children work through the Stage 1 sounds (m, s, a, i, f, t, p, c), they learn the name of the letter, the sound (phoneme) and how to write it (grapheme) and read it. Before being given a book, they need to know the first 8 letters and the sounds they represent, as well as the skills of segmenting and blending sounds. This is to ensure success and accurate reading, rather than guessing. 
Writing a list of Heart Words

Literacy group lesson time! Writing heart words: I, my, the.

We read sentences and then write them. We check that they start with a capital letter and end with punctuation, and we read them back to ourselves to check that they make sense. Can you see a Heart Word? Does it finish with a full stop or a question mark?

Reading back the sentence together.

Here is Milo the Monkey, the letter 'm' makes the sound /m/. What do your lips do to make this sound?

Listening to a sound and writing the grapheme for it.

Writing the first 8 letter sounds.

It takes lots of concentration and practice to learn how to make our letters the right way!

Literacy helpful links 


Cybersafety
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 wonderful weekend!
Ngā mihi nui,

Stacey, Elizabeth, Katie, and Niquita

Koru Team Blog – Term 2 Week 1

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Kia ora e te whānau,

A very warm welcome back to school for Term 2! It has been a wonderful and wet start to the term with a lot of time spent indoors!


Our School Values

At Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto we have five school values:

  • We Care - Arohaina te tāngata me te taio

  • We Get There Together - Mā tatou te waka e hoe

  • We Love Learning - He taonga te ako

  • We Love Challenge - Nau mai te wero

  • We Make a Difference - Nā matou he rerekē te ao

This week, we have focused on our values of 'We Care' and 'We Make a Difference' to ensure that we all have happy days at school. Ngā tamariki have been amazing, showing inclusion, kindness, and consideration towards each other.



Our School Values


Our word of the week is upstander. An upstander is someone who speaks or acts in support of someone who is being mistreated. A fun way to learn about this was to go on an adventure with Oat the Goat. Feel free to let your child show you Oat the Goat's journey. Here is the link.



Concept-Based Curriculum (Inquiry)

Our school-wide concept-based curriculum focus this year is change. During Term 2, we are learning about change in Science.

This week, we learnt that adding ingredients creates change (structure, texture, colour and taste). Our first experiment involved children measuring ingredients to make milk. We then added vinegar to see what would happen. We noticed that the texture changed, and then the milk curdled. Ew!

Here were some of the hypotheses that children came up with before doing the experiment:

"The milk powder will change the colour." - Isla

"The water will go higher when the powder is added." - Frankie

"The water might turn purple." - Mohamed

"Adding vinegar might change the water's colour." - Beau

"There will be an explosion." - Jasper











We hope you have a wonderful weekend and look forward to seeing you next week.

The Koru team

katie.mcfarlane@beckenham.school.nz

elizabeth.drummond@beckenham.school.nz

niquita.dalley@beckenham.school.nz

stacey.mclachlan@beckenham.school.nz



Koru Team Blog: Term 1 Week 11 (11/04/2025)

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Kia ora e te whānau,

Wow, we have made it to the end of our first term for 2025! We would love to say a massive 'thank you' to all our tamariki and whānau for showing our school value 'We Get There Together - Mā tātou katoa te waka e hoe'. 

Here are a few things our children have loved about being in the Koru team:


"I like playing with the Lego and drawing."


"I am showing We Care by listening to others."


"I love sitting at the yellow jellybean table for Literacy and learning new letter sounds."


"I love making new friends."


"I like learning."


"I like drawing with my friends."


"I like playing on the car mat with special cars."


"I like our teachers."


"I like going to Treemendous and the Junior Playground at Little Play and Big Play."


House Groups:
Our Koru children have been allocated a 'House Group' to belong to: Fisher, Heathcote, Tennyson and Waimea. Children from the same family/whānau are put into the same house. Each house group has it's own chant and tamariki learn this so they can participate in the house chant at sports and special events, and in Celebration Assemblies if their house has won the house points for the fortnight. You can find the House Chants here, and there are also videos that you can share with your child to help them learn their house chant. Each house has its own colour, and there are House Shirts that are an optional part of the school uniform, that can be purchased and worn on Fridays, or sports/special event days as advised in the newsletter.

House Games:
In Term 1 and 4, House Leaders from the Kauri Hub take House Games for all the Beckenham tamariki. Our Koru children played many fun games with the House Leaders and children from their House Group. Some favourite games were a sandpit treasure hunt, cat and mouse, hula hoop and ball team challenges and Duck, Duck, Goose! 

Cat and Mouse

Team ball challenges

News for Term 2:
We warmly welcome Niquita to Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto next term. Niquita will be our third Home Group teacher to join our Koru team. 

Kōmanawa block (the classroom up the ramp) is undertaking some building work, starting in the school holidays and will be completed around the middle of Term 2. Once this work is complete, our Koru team will start to use this learning space too.

Kiss and Drop
As more children are starting in the Koru team, our hub can feel a little overwhelming for some tamariki in the morning. Please aim to "kiss and drop" your child off at the door, rather than entering the hub with them. This will help set your children up for a calm, quiet, and successful transition in the morning. Thank you for your support with this!

Learning Through Play
Box construction continues to be a popular activity in the Koru team. If you have any boxes that you would usually put in the recycling, please send them our way! Our children love to stick, colour, shape, cut, decorate and paint. 

Have a wonderful break,

Ngā mihi nui,
Koru Team
Katie, Elizabeth, Stacey, Lucy, Maisy, Denise








Koru Team Blog – Term 1 Week 9

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It is incredible to think that we are nearing the end of our first term together, and what a fantastic term it has been!

Today was our school's 'Celebration of Culture' day. This week, the school has focused on diversity, and the Koru team has been learning about what 'culture' means. 










Kiss and Drop

As more children are starting in the Koru team, our hub can feel a little overwhelming for some tamariki in the morning. Please aim to "kiss and drop" your child off at the door rather than entering the hub with them. This will help set your child up for a calm, quiet, and successful transition in the morning. We also have separate doors for our two homegroups to use when entering in the morning, as well as separate lunchbox/drink bottle shelves. Thank you for your support with this!

Mathematics: 

Measurement Learning
Last week, during mathematics, we focused on measurement. This involved children exploring estimation, measuring using non-standard units, and ordering from shortest to tallest using gingerbread people. On Friday, to celebrate our awesome learning, we baked gingerbread teddies. They were DELICIOUS!










Learning Through Play

Box construction continues to be a popular activity in the Koru team. If you have any boxes that you would usually put in recycling, please send them our way! Our children love to stick, colour, shape, cut, paint, and decorate. So far, we have had skyscrapers, a house for a hamster, and a treasure box. Who knows what will be created next!



Playground Boundaries

We frequently revisit the playground boundaries with our children to ensure that they have happy and safe break times. Here is where the Koru children play. Each space has a teacher on active supervision at all times to help your child if they need it. Koru children do not use the park area during break times.






We look forward to seeing you all on Monday. 

The Koru team

katie.mcfarlane@beckenham.school.nz

stacey.mclachlan@beckenham.school.nz

elizabeth.drummond@beckenham.school.nz






Koru Team Blog Term 1 Week 7 (14/03/2025)

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 Kia ora, e te whānau,

Welcome to this fortnight's blog post! We are so impressed with the tamariki - they have been making amazing progress in their learning since starting school. This, of course, includes their academic learning, as well as their emotional learning and their social learning. 

Our blog post today contains information about:

  • the Koru team's class contract
  • a typical day in the Koru team
  • Structured Literacy in the Koru team
  • Online Safety information
  • and finally, some beautiful photos of the tamariki during the past fortnight.

He Waka Eke Noa:

We are all in this waka together!

As a team, we have discussed the meaning of this whakataukī and also the meaning of the word 'contract'. The tamariki together came up with some guidelines which we've all agreed to follow:

  • We show 'We Care'
  • We are kind to each other
  • We use gentle hands and gentle feet
  • We speak kindly to each other
  • We look after our things, like our hats and our drink bottles
  • We take care of our spaces and help at tidy up time
  • We take care of the games and toys
  • We are helpful
  • We use good manners, like 'please' and 'thank you'
  • We look after each other.
These guidelines were the children's ideas and we revisit them regularly, just as a reminder, and also so that our new children are familiar with them too. 

Other routines, which the children have embraced, include: 

  • unpacking their bags when they arrive at school in the morning, including putting their Literacy folder in the right container; 
  • remembering their poetry books and library folders on Friday; 
  • lining up after break times; 
  • 'showing five' whenever they are sitting on the mat; 
  • and following the expectations in their small Literacy group lessons (sitting up, chair pulled in, focusing on the learning, and 'whiteboards are for writing, not drawing').

We thank you all for your continued support with the start and end of day routines!

A typical Day in the Koru team:


We also fit into our days: interoception (short little activities with a focus on breathing and noticing how our bodies are feeling), music and movement, and of course aspects of both Literacy and Maths are incorporated into Learning Through Play. 

A fun focus during Learning Through Play at the moment is the theme of 'Shops and Shopping'. The original shop set up included a children's library beside the shop as well as roles such as the delivery person, two shopkeepers and visitors to the shop and the library. Elizabeth was included in the play (the Mum) as well as Katie (the Dad). Other children have been involved making signs, labels, money and purses/bags.

The children have been learning new songs and actions at our Music and Movement times, and they agreed that they would like two of these shared with you so that they can teach you at home. We know you'll love them! The expressions and actions that we see while the children are singing are absolutely adorable. See if your children will sing to you now (a great opportunity for 'the child to be the teacher').

Have fun at home with these songs!

Structured Literacy:

Our Structured Literacy groups are up and running, with the children learning the routines and expectations very quickly, and partcipating and contributing beautifully at these times. 
This link takes you to our school website which contains some background information for families about The Science of Reading. 
Your child will be bringing their Literacy folder home from Monday to Thursday, after school, and it's crucial that this folder is returned to school and unpacked from children's bags, every morning. Teachers will be topping up the letter and heart word packs regularly.
A big focus, when the children first start bringing folders home, is learning the letter sounds and the heart words to a fluent (or automatic) level, so practising using these as flash cards is incredibly helpful. This is explained for you very clearly in the second two links below.
Once the children recognise each letter and can make the sound, and recognise and read each heart word, they are then able to practise writing these at home with you. Letter cards can be joined together and read as words, for example, words with two sounds to start with (/a/, /t/ and /i/, /t/, and so on), then words with three sounds (/m/, /a/, /t/ and /f/, /i/, /t/, plus so many more). 
Have fun with this learning at home, and please remember it does need to be fun, so if your child is feeling tired, wait for a time when they have more energy and are better able to focus.
We hope that you find these links helpful:

Many parents didn’t grow up with the internet, so it can be hard to imagine how tamariki may use it. But these days, digital technology is a key part of our young people’s lives. They use it for learning, communicating and entertainment.

Netsafe has released research that looked into parental awareness of children’s experiences of online risks and harm. The research found a mismatch between parents’ awareness and their children’s experiences of upsetting online content.

To check out the research, and other Netsafe resources, visit this link. 

And now for some photos of your wee ones from over the past fortnight:

Wow, what a wonderfully creative model!

...and a bird's eye view.

Creating a 4 element pattern with the penguins.

Five friends working together with the Mobilo.

Showing 'We Care' to ensure that the Mobilo is fairly shared.

"Here you are. You're welcome to use these pieces of Mobilo in your construction."

Collaborating on a Lego construction.

Putting in best effort and focus to produce top quality work.

Counting large numbers using the abacus.

"How many beads have been pushed across and how many are left?"

Collaborating to solve a problem using the abacus.

Working with a big buddy to count the beads on the abacus.

Showing 'We Care' by sweeping up small bits of rubbish with the brush and shovel.

Also showing 'We Care' by looking after our learning spaces. Thank you!!

What a kind thing to do for everyone, including our cleaner.

How many different ways can we make the number 5?

Working together to play the 'Shops' game.

Ensuring that the Children's Library, situated beside the shop, has enough chairs and books for visitors.

"Here you are, Batty... a book for you."

"Is everyone who is visiting the library feeling happy and comfortable?"

"Yes, thank you. It's lovely here!"

Beautiful dance moves...

...getting some practice in before the next disco?

So much energy and so many fabulous moves!

We hope that you're all thoroughly enjoying the beautiful weather that we've been having this weekend. We look forward to seeing those bright, happy smiles back at school tomorrow.
All best for the week ahead!

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,
Katie, Stacey and Elizabeth

katie.mcfarlane@beckenham.school.nz
stacey.mclachlan@beckenham.school.nz
elizabeth.drummond@beckenham.school.nz