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Kahikatea News: Term 4, Week 2

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 Kia ora whānau,

Our tamariki have had a busy and wonderful start to the final term of the year! 

We are well underway with our athletics practices, we have had a ponds visit and we have started ukulele and dance sessions on a Tuesday. 

A plea for any LLLL books (the readers we send home) to come back to school. We are carrying out a stocktake of these at the end of October, we are missing a few and they are very expensive to replace. If you find any at home please return to your child's classroom teacher.

A reminder for sunhats for Term 4 please.

Some dates for your diary:

Thursday 23rd October-Teacher Strike action, school is closed.

Thursday 30th October: Whole school athletics day. Kahikatea aim to run ours 11:00am-12:15pm, on the park.

Tuesday Arts:

We have been fortunate enough to receieve some funding to promote some performance arts sessions in the Year 1-4 classrooms. This means that on a Tuesday each homegroup has a 30minute ukulele session with our whānau worker Paerau (also a member of One Drop Nation) and a hip hop dance session with Steph from Legacy Dance. How lucky are we?!












Maths Learning:
We have had a two week focus on Geometry, looking at 3D shape. We have learnt some key mathematical language such as cube, cuboid, prism, cone, cylinder, faces and vertices. We have been learning about nets and how these are the blueprint/map for a 3D shape and learning about where we can spot 3D shapes in everyday life.




























Athletics:
We are well underway with our practices. These are happening 2-3 times per week. Please ensure that your child is wearing appropriate footwear to partcipate. Sandals are not appropriate for these practices in terms of health and safety.

















Ponds Trip:
We had such a wonderful time in our sessions run by the Christchurch City Council. We learnt about all of the differnt plant life and saw some of the invertabrates living in our pond. The council were impressed with the diversity of the ecosystems living in our Beckenham ponds.
Thank you to all of the parent helpers who came along to support us, we really appreciate you and cannot run these types of activites without your help.

























Kahikatea-Term 3, week 10

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Kia ora whānau,
A huge thanks for all of your  continued support over the term. The kids have worked so hard and have earned a well-deserved rest (as have my team). 
A big thank you to Maddy, who has been with us for the last 6 weeks in Sarah's home group. We wish you all the best for your future teaching career!

Here are some learning highlights below:















Beckenham te Kura o Pūroto-'The school of the ponds'

We took our tamariki for a short stroll by the ponds as part of learning about our cultural narrative. We talked about the importance of the ponds to the everyday life of our ancestors. Many students were keen to collect rubbish while we were there, showing our values of 'We Care' and 'We Make a Difference'.

If you are able to parent help on our ponds trip next term please fill in the form HERE.



Kapa Haka
This term in Kapa Haka Whaea Cath has been teaching us how to use the poi-there is a lot of learning about tikanga with poi and we have impressed her with our learning.
















Book Amnesty:
Can you please have a look for any decodable reading books over the break and bring them back to us next term. We have a few that are missing. No books will come home during the break.

Talent Show:
Well done to the lava chicken boys: Atlas, Alex, Greyson, Gray, Johnny, and Finn who represented Kahikatea in the school talent show. You were amazing, what courage! You showed 'We Love Challenge'!






 

Kahikatea: Term 3, Week 2

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 Kia ora whānau, 

A big warm welcome back to school! We have been so busy these past two weeks the recent break is all but a distant memory. The kids and teachers are all glad to be back together and into our daily routine.

We would like to welcome Kendall to the team (officially) and also our two new students, Eva Bath and Mae Harrison. Kendall's home group will have the addition of some new students who are currently transitioning from the Koru hub. They will start in Kendall's class mid-term. The children have met the new kids and are very excited to reconnect, build on pre-existing friendships and create new ones.

Literacy Decodable Books:

Literacy reading books will now come home on Thursdays. The process has been impacted with gymnastics these past two weeks.

So this means that reading folders only need to come to school on Thursday when your child will receive their new reader for the week ahead. Reading folders can stay at home all other days.

Library days:

Tuesdays-Talia and Amber

Thursdays-Sarah and Kendall


Inquiry Learning:

Our overall concept this year is change. So far we have covered: Term 1-Health and Physical Education by looking at physical and emotional changes in ourselves. Term 2-Technology we studied changes over time, using Toys as the context. This term we are focusing on Science and looking at the life cycles of different insects and animals.

We have started by identifying living and nonliving things and looking at the life cycle of a butterfly and a frog.

Gymnastics:

We had two great sessions at the CHCH School of Gymnastics. We are so proud of all of our tamariki for giving everything a go and putting in 100%. Everyone demonstrated 'We Love Challenge!'Get ready for the photo dump, there are more to come!


































Unfortunately, this was all of the photos we could get to load. Click HERE to access the album with all of our gymnastics pics inside.



Kahikatea News: Term 2, Week 8

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 Kia ora whānau,

It was lovely to catch up with you all at our recent learning conferences and at our whole school Matariki night. 

We cannot believe we are nearing the end of the term and nearly half a year gone with your, wonderful tamariki.

As you are aware, we are creating a fourth home group in our team. This home group will be taught by Kendall Skelton, who is currently a teacher in the Kowhai team and a parent to one of our Year 1 students. We are so excited to welcome Kendall to our team, we know she will be a great asset to us for the remainder of the year. 


Technology:
As part of our toys inquiry, we have designed a toy which we are going to attempt to start to make next week.
If you have any crafty items such as: buttons, fabric, cardboard, egg cartons, bottle caps, wires, plastic etc that you could send in, please do so by Wednesday of next week.
We will leave a big my food bag box in the Maker Space, on top of the bench by the sink for you to pop bits in!


Learning in Kahikatea:

We have been busy in maths where our focus over the past two weeks has been on Geometry-looking at the properties of  2D and 3D shapes and time. 



























Literacy:

Next term reading books will come home on a Thursday For the week. This means reading folders need to come to school on Thursdays instead of Mondays. This is to allow teachers to work through the books more than once before sending them home.

Library days are the same:

Tuesday-Amber and Talia

Thursday-Sarah and Kendall

Sarah's Literacy group looked at the story of the 'Gardeners' Maze. We had a go at solving some mazes, then created our own mazes for our friends to attempt to solve!











Matariki:

Over the past few weeks, we have been learning about all of the Matariki stars and what they represent, listening to many myths and legends and creating lots of artwork. Our Matariki night at Kura was a huge success. We hope you have a restful Matariki break with those who are near and dear to you.









Lost Property:
There is a few items of lost property over in the school office. Please pop in and grab these if any belong to you!

Thanks Team Kahikatea




Kahikatea News: Term 2, Week 6

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 Kia ora whānau!

We continue to be impressed with the progress our tamariki are making, this is reflected in the school reports which are live on HERO today-please make sure you sit down with your child and share all of the positives with them.

There are a lot of bugs around, both gastro and cold/flu. We appreciate your support in keeping your children at home when they are unwell. We continue to ventilate our hub, ensuring windows remain slightly open during the day. We have also begun to hand sanitise before eating again.


Matariki:

Matariki Evening

Tēnā koutou e te whānau,

We would like to invite you to our Matariki Whānau Rōpū hui.

Matariki is the start of the Māori new year and a time of reflection, connection and planning for the year ahead. We would like to celebrate with you and your whānau on Tuesday the 17th of June from 5:00 pm. The PTA will be having a Sausage Sizzle on the night for a small koha (donation). We will also be having performances form our Year 3-8 Kapa Haka groups, and each hub will be providing different activities to do with Matariki. There will be more details to come soon. 

Mānawatia a Matariki!



Learning Conferences:

We are looking forward to meeting with you and your child(ren) next week during their Term 2 Learning Conference. 

School will finish at 1:00pm on both days, Tuesday 10th and Wednesday 11th June.

To support the availability of staff for these conferences we ask for children to please be collected from school on both days at 1.00pm. Supervision will be available until 3pm for a small group of children who are unable to be collected at 1pm.
 

We need EVERY FAMILY to fill in this form (click here) to let us know your plans for your child(ren) on Tuesday 10th and Wednesday 11th June. This includes letting us know if you need your child supervised at school on one or both of the Learning Conference days from 1:00-3pm.

Children will not be able to leave the school grounds to walk/bike home at 1:00pm if we have not been advised by you that you want them to do that.
 
Please contact the school office if you need any support with the form or if you have any questions.
 
We thank you for your support on these days.

Cross Country
A big well done to the following Year 1 and 2 Kahikatea students who will be competing at the Hillview X Country Challenge on the 24th June:
Evelyn, Elsa, Marnie, Alma, Sadie, Erin, Ehsan, Angus, Bruno, Alex, Johnny, Greyson, Amelia, Molly, Ariella, Zoe, Leah B, Hanaē, Jack, Rowan, Dougal, Billy, Niko and William.
We know you will represent our kura with pride!

Mathematics:
This week we have been learning about measurement, particularly the area, volume and capacity of an object.
We based our work this week around Goldilocks and the Three Bears and spent a session filling bowls and testing out the capacity of some containers.