Kōwhai News Term 1 Week 7

Kia ora whānau,

Here is an update on what we have been doing over the past 2 weeks.

Reading/Library Folders

We would just like to remind you that in order to take reading books and library books home, your child will need to have a reading folder OR a library folder. This does mean that your child will need to keep their folder in their bag so they are able to take reading books home during the week, if needed.

Our library days are as follows:

Monday = Nick and Rowe's literacy groups

Tuesday = Anna M and Anna R's lteracy groups

Wednesday = Krystal's literacy group

Construction Boxes

We are needing more construction boxes for Discovery. The children just love making things, from houses to instruments and many other imaginative things besides. If you have any tissue boxes, cereal boxes, shoe boxes or any other cartons, please bring them to school as we would love to use them!

PB4L Focus

This week we are focusing on tidying and friendship.

For tidying, we are focusing on the following good tips:
- tidy as you go
- finish the job
- cooperate
- everything has its place, e.g., sandpit toys, sports equipment
- take care of our outside environment by, e.g., picking up rubbish

For friendship, we have been looking at what friendship means to us and how we can be a good friend.

Toys At School

An increasing number of children have been bringing toys to school this term. We would just like to emphasise that toys are NOT allowed at school. We would really appreciate it if you could be vigilant so that there aren't any toys going to school in your child's bag. They are a huge distraction and we also don't want them to get lost. Thank you so much for your support with this.

Parent Playground Helpers

Last year, we had a wonderful group of parents and caregivers who came along to school during lunch play to support our tamariki in the junior playground. We will be restarting this again from the beginning of Term 2. The benefits of being on the parent playground roster include being involved in the school day, and getting to know other parents and your child's friends. Please email Katie if you would like to offer your help for Term 2. katie.mcfarlane@beckenham.school.nz

Victoria Park

This week we had some amazing trips to Victoria Park where we learnt lots about the native plants and animals that can be found on the Banks Peninsula and how things have changed over the years with pests being introduced and settlers arriving. We experienced a bush walk, looking out for the native plants and animals that we could see and we learned about pests and how we can track them by identifying their tracks and poo which we found out is called 'scat'. We also looked at the different traps that are used to get rid of pests. It was a very informative experience whilst also being lots of fun! A huge thank you to all the parents who came along to help. We couldn't have done this without out you. Have a look at the photos below:




































Kōwhai News Term 1 Week 5


Kia ora whānau,

Welcome to our Week 5 blog! Here is some information on what's been happening over the last two weeks and what is coming up. 

Native Nurturing Learning Trips to Victoria Park

We are very excited about our trips to Victoria Park on the 13th and 14th March. Children will definitely need their hats, water bottles, jumpers and lunch box. 

Schedule  

Weds morning: Anna M's group      Weds afternoon: Anna R's group
Thurs morning: Nick's group           Thurs afternoon: Rowe's group
Krystal's group will go in smaller groups with one of the groups above.

We will:

  • Explore the different habitats that exist in Banks Peninsula and identify why they are valuable.
  • Explain how plants and animals that live in native forest and tussock lands are interdependent.
  • Explain how pests impact our native forests and explore some solutions to these problems.
  • Identify actions that they can take to encourage sustained growth of native animal and tree species.

Learn more about New Zealand nature with this booklet from DOC, designed for caregivers and their children.

Maths 

We're so impressed with how quickly students are getting to their maths class and embracing all our different types of learning. All groups are working on place value, number knowledge and basic facts. Each week, students complete exercise and application tasks, open-ended and unfamiliar problem-solving tasks, games and teacher focus groups. The akōnga especially love our introductory 'Rapid Routines'. These are fun maths thinking tasks, such as Which One Doesn't Belong.

Science: Gathering Data by Listening 

During the afternoons, we're enjoying tasks from other curriculum areas, such as social sciences, sport and P.E., science and interpersonal learning. Some classes loved an activity which involved listening to and testing sounds in science recently!




Discovery 

Enjoy looking at our recent Discovery pictures!







Top Team

Today Top Team came to Beckenham and the Kōwhai children had a great time trying lots of different team-building activities out on the park. They worked in teams of 6-8, competing against other teams as they rotated around a variety of tasks. They showed amazing co-operative skills and really embraced the school value 'We Get There Together'. It really was wonderful to see and we are so grateful that the weather turned out so well for us. Have a look at the photos below:




















Have a great weekend!

From the Kōwhai team





Kōwhai News Term 1 Week 3

Kia ora whānau,

It has a been a busy week in the Kōwhai team!

Top Team

We have organised another Top Team event for our Kōwhai children this year which is very exciting! Weather permitting, the event will take place on Friday 1st March in the afternoon and the children will be taking part in all sorts of fun activities. Just a heads up that there will be some water activities involved so please make sure your child has a change of clothes (including shoes) in their bag and a towel to dry off after the event. Thank you for your support with this. 

We also require 11 parent helpers for this event to ensure it runs successfully. You would need to arrive at school before the Top Team briefing at 1:10pm and the event will finish around 2:55pm. It will involve running an activity station, explaining the activity to the children and generally overseeing it. If you are keen to help, please let your child's homegroup teacher know and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

Literacy and Maths

Next week, we will be starting our literacy and maths interchange programmes. We have organised the children into new literacy and maths classes. The children will go to their literacy teacher for literacy lessons and their maths teacher for maths lessons every day. They will still be with their homegroup teacher at the start of the day and after lunch.

As part of their literacy programme, the children will generally take one or two books home each week. Students working in Stage 1 - Stage 7.5 of the structured literacy programme will take home at least one structured literacy book (e.g., a Pip and Tim book) home each week to read to you. Students who are working beyond Stage 7.5 are expected to independently read chapter books (or similarly advanced books) of their own choice at home. Each literacy class visits the school library every week to issue new books.

For more detailed information about our home learning literacy activities, please click here.

Minecraft 3D Printing

Some of the children have recently been learning about using Minecraft for 3D printing. They have designed and constructed a model of a character, toy or scene in Minecraft and are now in the process of 3D printing their creations. As a final step, the children will paint their printed models.


Designing a character in Minecraft




Preparing the character for 3D printing




The 3D printer is printing the character

We have also been creating Minecraft self-portraits using grid paper which has been a lot of fun!



Skipping

During Discovery, some of our students have discovered a passion for skipping. Here's a video that shows some really cool tricks that people can do when they are skipping. Whilst our skill level isn't quite at this stage yet - we are aiming high! 'Just keep skipping!'


Discovery

Here are some photos of the children's learning during discovery:















Kōwhai News Term 1 Week 1

Kia ora whānau,

Welcome to 2024! We are so excited to be back and we are very much looking forward to getting to know all your tamariki over the next few weeks. 

In the first two weeks, we are focusing on getting to know each other and establishing routines. We will mostly be based in our homegroups initially but we will also be mingling as a team during Discovery every morning.

Below are some photos of some of the activities we have been doing over the first two days: Everyone has been having lots of fun as they reunite with friends and get to know new ones.




































Kōwhai News Term 4 Week 9

Kia ora e te whānau

Welcome to the Kōwhai team's week 9 blog. We are fast approaching the end of the school year and many of our students are counting down the sleeps until Christmas.

We have planned lots of fun activities to finish off the term, including 6 football sessions, and we all very much enjoyed watching Kauri's production of, 'Oh, the Places We Will Go', this week.

Football Sessions

Our tamariki have been lucky enough to have football lessons in these last two weeks of term. They have been delivered by Kōtuitui, who support bicultural and multicultural learnings through playing football and is a free program for schools. They provide outdoor football sessions for tamariki to enjoy irrespective of their football ability levels or previous experience. This is a new program as part of the FIFA Women’s 2023 World Cup legacy.

The children have all been enjoying these lessons, getting outside and having a good runaround as well as learning valuable ball skills and working together as a team. 





Science

As you will know, our students recently had a visit from Kerry, a representative from the Department of Conservation. Kerry taught the children lots of valuable information about kea. During the visit, the children participated in a tracking exercise where they used a device to locate a toy kea in the park. This hands-on experience allowed them to connect with nature and learn more about conservation work.
Students have been very busy making kea cards for Kerry as a thank you for such an exciting lesson. Below is a photo of us searching for the toy kea hidden in the trees. It was fitted with a transmitter!
There was much hilarity involved!



Kea Cards



Sketching

Over the last few weeks, we have been learning about sketching, going out into the park and to Treemendous to sketch nature. This week and next week, some of us are sketching fruit and having a little taste of all the different fruits afterwards. Yum! We have been sampling cherries, apples, pears, kiwi fruits, mandarins, strawberries, pineapples and even lemons. The children have been loving the experience! Below are some of the sketches the children created.









Farewell to Roger

Last week, we said farewell to Roger, our ukulele and guitar teacher who is leaving at the end of the year. We enticed him over to the hub where we sang him a song and presented him with a card from the children. He has been teaching the tamariki ukulele for most of the year and we will really miss him next year. Thank you, Roger, for all your hard work and dedication!



Farewell to Kathryn

We are also farewelling Kathryn, our literacy and maths teacher, who has been working hard with all our tamariki since term 2. We thank you so much, Kathryn, for your dedication to the children and we wish you all the best in your future pursuits!


Finally, we would like to thank you for all your support throughout the year. We couldn't do this without you! We have had an action-packed and fun-filled year with your tamariki and look forward to being reunited with some of you next year. We wish the year 4's all the best on their future adventures in Pōhutukawa and wish you all a wonderful and restful summer holiday.

Ka kite ano,

From the Kōwhai team