Kia ora whānau, 

What a wonderful first full week back learning at school! It has been great to see all the students back on campus and we are looking forward to everyone coming back on site when we reach Level 1. 

Over the last three weeks of term, our inquiry is "Travelling the World via Art" where we look at different cultures around the world and how art is made and celebrated. This week various homegroups have travelled to Mexico, Egypt, Australia, Vietnam and the UK. Over the next few weeks all of the students will get to learn about art from these countries and create different art using pastels, paint, sketching and clay. 

As Sandy mentioned in the newsletter on Friday, over the next two weeks we will be completing various assessments. This means that your child won't necessarily bring home reading books with them. Please help us by continuing to read books of their choice at home with them. 

Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori 

This week we have been celebrating the Māori language during Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori. Here is an activity you might like to try at home.

Paki Whitu Game

Have some fun with PAKI WHITU - This game requires the use of your hands.

Term 4 Miniball

Please read and fill out this survey if your child is interested in playing Miniball in Term 4.

Kōwhai Hub activities

We have loved getting back in and exploring our learning through play. Here are some pictures of learning through play, and learning throughout the day in the Kōwhai hub this week. 

Have a lovely weekend. 

The Kōwhai Team 

Kia ora whānau, 

It's been a busy start to Term 3 and spring is just around the corner. We can't wait! 

Keeping Ourselves Safe (KOS) 

This term, our wellbeing focus will be the Keeping Ourselves Safe programme. Your child/children may bring home some tasks which you can help them to complete (such as learning their phone number and address). 

Keeping Ourselves Safe is a comprehensive child abuse prevention programme for schools. Its purpose is to:

• teach students a range of safe practices that they can use when interacting with other people, both online and face to face
• teach students how to recognise the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships, and encourage students who have been or are being abused to seek help
• prevent abuse by making parents and teachers more aware of their responsibilities to help students avoid abuse.

School Community Officers are available to support schools to plan and implement Keeping Ourselves Safe.

source: Keeping Ourselves Safe

Readathon 

Your child should have brought home the yellow slip for Readathon last Friday. On Friday the 20th we will have a book character day to celebrate the Readathon, where your child can come dressed up as their favourite literacy characters. We do not expect you to go and buy a costume for your child for this. 

Learning Games 

Please remember that if your child wants to play the Maths and Structured Literacy/Spelling games at home, they will need to sign in with their school Google account. Please talk to your child's homegroup teacher if you are not sure what this is. 

Here are a few picture of our first few weeks of Term 3.  

Have a lovely weekend. 

The Kōwhai Team - Laura, Nick, Rowe, Quynh and Meagan 

Kia ora Kōwhai whānau, 

(NB: We sent this post out on Tuesday using the new HERO app. If you didn’t get it through HERO, check your settings on the HERO app so that you get instant notifications. This will eventually become our primary way of sending team notices out so please do try and get your login working. Our staff in the hub, and in the office, are happy to help you if needed.)

Kōwhai students will be attending 2 gymnastics sessions at Christchurch School of Gymnastics (QEII) in Term 3 on Thursday August 26th and Thursday September 2nd. 

Each session will be 1.5 hours long. The Year 3 session will run from 9:30 am to 11.00am and the Year 4 session will run from 11.00am to 12.30pm. 

Children Need to Wear Clothing they can move in:

• School shirt or equivalent (eg a red t-shirt) 
• Leggings or shorts
• Easy to remove shoes
• No tights, extra long pants, school dresses, skirts, jeans, hoodies, belts, buckles or zippers
• Long hair must be tied back. 

We will not need additional parent help for these trips. 

The student annual donation is used to help cover the cost of these sessions. If you have not yet made a contribution to your child's school account please do this as soon as possible. You can access this information by logging into HERO. Information about this can be found on the school website.

Ngā mihi, 

Laura, Rowe, Quynh, Meagan and Nick 

Kia ora whānau, 

This term has certainly flown by! The last few weeks have been full of many great experiences for our tamariki. 

Hillcrest Cross Country

Georgie took some of our keen runners to the Hillcrest Cross Country on Friday. She shared that she was so impressed with our tamariki and they way they displayed our school values throughout the event. Ka pai to everyone who participated! 

Well done to the following students who came in the top five of their year group: 

Laura Stoney - 1st Year 3 girls

Bianca Ashworth - 4th Year 4 girls

Ben Stoney - 5th Year 3 boys

Matariki

We have been learning about and celebrating Matariki in a variety of ways over the last two weeks such as art, weaving, singing and dancing. Our children have impressed us with their knowledge about Matariki.

Maths

Fun Run

We are really proud of the students who chose to run in the fun run to raise money for Kids Can today.

Discovery

Here are some photos from Learning through Play and Kapa Haka over the last few weeks. 

Have a lovely weekend! 

The Kōwhai Team - Laura, Quynh, Meagan, Nick and Rowe

 Kia ora Kōwhai whānau, 

We hope you all had a lovely long weekend last week. The teachers had a very productive staff only day on Tuesday, learning about many different things. This week the students have been learning more about Changes during our science lessons. They have also been exploring how to code during inquiry as well. We have some future master coders in our hub! 

Literacy Classes

With our structured literacy approach the teachers are constantly monitoring and checking students understanding of letters and sounds. Throughout the year, as we look at where the students are at in their learning, we may reshuffle of our literacy groups to best meet student needs. Your child may not necessarily bring a reader or journal home each night. On these nights, they can choose a book from home to read. 

Small containers

If you are a family that uses My Food Bag or something similar and have many of those little sauce containers around, we would love to have these in the hub. These are great for some of our science experiments and storing paint (with the lids on). If you have any spare please send them in! 

Four Square 

Some of our students have recently started playing four square during Discovery and play breaks. We are still learning the rules, and how to manage ourselves when playing. 

We are focusing on the following:

Being a good sport.

Playing according to the rules.

Cheering for each other - even when someone is out we can say "good try", "you had a great run!"

Here is a video of the rules, so you can try and practise these at home! 

Many of the Kōwhai kids are very excited about the Disco on Friday the 11th of June in the hall and have been practising their dance moves!