Kia ora e te whānau

Kahikatea End-of-Year Picnic and Swim

The Kahikatea children are booked in to have a picnic lunch at Waltham Park, followed by a swim at Waltham Pool on Thursday 10th December.  This fun day is to celebrate our fantastic year of learning.  

The children are able to wear either their house t-shirt or school shirt for the day and will be required to wear suitable shoes for walking to and from Waltham Park/Pool.  They will also need suitable swimming costumes: either shorts or togs (no bikinis please).  Please send your child with their togs, towel in a bag, making sure all items are named.  We will be leaving school at 11:00am, arriving at the park at approximately 11:15am.  There will be a range of fun games and activities as well as the opportunity to play in the adventure playground.  We will eat lunch slightly earlier at 12:30pm and leave for Waltham Pool just before 1:00pm.   We will be leaving Waltham Pool at 2:30pm to arrive back at school before 3pm. 

To enable this activity day to happen, we will need the assistance of at least 4- 5 adults for each homegroup.  If you would like to volunteer to do so, please complete the google form here or contact your child/children's homegroup teacher as soon as possible.

There is no additional charge for this trip as the cost is covered by your school donation. If you would like to discuss any aspect of this trip,  please contact your child’s homegroup teacher.

 Kia ora e te whānau

We have had a lovely 2 weeks of swimming and water safety lessons at Pioneer Pool.  Ngā tamariki have had developed confidence and water safety skills,  as well as strengthening their swimming strokes and breathing techniques.    This would not have been possible without the fantastic help from our wonderful parent community.  Thank you for all that do to assist us and tatou tamariki to have the best experiences possible. Also a huge thank you to our amazing tamariki who were fantastic throughout, shining through putting our Kete Values into action.  

Kia ora e te whānau

What a busy term we have had settling back into school life after lockdown.  We are very proud of all our wonderful tamariki in the Kahikatea whānau and all the wonderful things they have achieved in their learning. Below are some photos of the activities they have been enjoying as we continue to learn and explore transformation and Matariki this week.











Pōhutakawa Concert
We were invited to watch the Pohutakawa whānau share their singing groups today and really enjoyed all the wonderful songs they performed for us.  





Handwriting with Bounce and Skip

Now that we are settled back into Level 1, Bounce and Skip may make an appearance at your place.  Each home-group has its own special set and our wonderful handwriting monkeys love to spend the night at home with one of our wonderful tamariki.  
Bounce and Skip have the tricky job of watching our daily handwriting carefully and selecting the child they think is focusing on the task and reaching their handwriting goals.  





Learning Conferences
We have really enjoyed having the time with each of you and your tamariki, sharing their learning journey so far, and their next steps with you.  We do appreciate you taking the time to meet with us, and hope that our conferences were able to provide you with some valuable insight into your child's progress and the learning goals we are working towards together.

What's happening in Christchurch over the term break
Below are links to some fun activities or places you may like to visit with your tamariki over the term break:

Tūrangi: Christchurch City Central library
https://my.christchurchcitylibraries.com/turanga/turanga-whats-on/
Canterbury Museum
https://www.canterburymuseum.com/whats-on/
Christchurch Art Gallery
https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/exhibitions/?section=events&type=family-activity
Free events at Kids Fest 2020
https://www.kidsfest.co.nz/events/?event-type=&location=&event-date=&age=&free-child=1&keyword=


Learning through play Loose Parts
We are looking for donations of the following to support our play-based learning:  

• Old newspapers and non-glossy magazines

• Unwanted craft items e.g. wool, string, material scraps

• Old clean socks 

• Large suitcases or old chests (for storing dress ups)

• Boxes for creations (eg biscuit boxes, soap boxes, etc) 

• Clean plastic milk bottles 

• Plastic caps (from milk bottles etc) 

• Old kitchen pots, pans, spoons, etc.

Kia ora Koutou
He mihi mahana ki a koutou katoa,
What a wonderful start to Term 4 we have had!  Hopefully, the weather will start to improve soon and we can enjoy consistently sunny days.

Our Kete Values and Tokens

Calendar Art

This week all the calendar art orders arrived and were sent home.  If you have any queries regarding your order please contact the PTA at pta@beckenham.school.nz
Ngā tamariki artwork is now displayed in the hub. Beautiful!

Calm Space

Sharing our talents

Erina brought along her Cello for us to see and gave a lovely impromptu show.

Sun Hats

During Terms 1 and 4, the expectation is that everyone is to wear a sunhat. We require everyone to wear hats that shade the face, neck, and ears, whenever the children are outside and involved in school activities. Hats must be broad-brimmed (min. 7.5 cm), or legionnaire/bucket hats (min. 6 cm brim, deep crown). These hats provide significant protection to the eyes. If a child does not have a hat at school, they will be asked to stay in an allocated shaded area.

Boxes for craft and construction

Athletics

Our School Athletics will take place on Monday 4th November.  Ngā tamariki are practicing their running, jumping and throwing. Team Kahikatea students will start our rotations at 11:50am, after having an early brain break snack, and we will finish the day after lunch with fun sprints and the annual House Teams relay.  As ngā tamariki will be out on the field for the duration of the rotations, could you please apply sunblock to your child/children before arriving at school.  We will have sunblock at school to reapply if needed.
After physical activity ngā tamariki often have a larger appetite so please supply a larger lunch on the day as well as a named drink bottle for them to take with them to their rotations.