Kia ora whanau,

This week we started practising for our athletics day coming up next Thursday, 11th November. The children have been learning the techniques involved in competing in high jump, sprints, the gumboot throw and the bean bag toss. The children have been really enjoying trying something new. At this stage, because we are still at Level 2, unfortunately parents are unable to attend the event. We will endeavour to take lots of photos of your gorgeous children embracing 'We Love Challenge' to share with you following the event.

This week our shared reading focus has been 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'. Children have joined in reading parts of the story, retold the story and thought of different words to describe how the caterpillar was feeling. They have made many beautiful caterpillar and butterfly crafts. They have also been involved in class role plays and hot-seating in order to spark their thinking beyond the story.  Hot-seating is a drama strategy in which a character or characters, played by the teacher or a child, are interviewed by the rest of the group. It invites children to recount a specific event, explore motivation and multiple perspectives/experiences related to a theme, topic, event, or an idea within a story.

We have also been busy exploring numbers in our play this week.

Reminders:

School Photos - Chelsea and Tracey's home groups will be having their class and individual photos taken on Wednesday morning.

Athletics Day - Thursday, 11th November. Children can wear their house tops if they wish. Sorry, no spectators allowed for this event.

Hats - In Terms 1 & 4 hats are compulsory for outdoor play. Please ensure your child has a named plain red or black hat to bring to school each day.

Sunscreen - As the days get warmer we will be reapplying sunscreen before lunch playtime each day.

Calendar Art - Have you checked out your child's gorgeous colourful artwork yet online. Their artwork can be made into calendars, mousepads, cards, notebooks or more. These make perfect Christmas gifts! Orders close 9 a.m. on Monday, 8th November.

PTA Salami fundraiser - Hopefully these order forms have made it home! You can drop your order form and money to the collectors before or after school outside the Sandwich Rd entrance every day. Online orders and payments can also be made to the PTA. Orders close 11 November. Salamis will be ready for collection on the 9th and 10th December (after school or evening options), just in time for the holiday season or Christmas presents.

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,

The Koru teachers: Elizabeth, Nicola, Chelsea, Tracey and Stacey

Kia ora koutou,

What a great start to Term 3 we have had in the Koru Hub. Our busy days are providing many learning opportunities for our tamariki and we are enjoying seeing the progress they are making.

It is so lovely to hear about all the practice the children are doing at home with their sound cards and heart words. It really does make a difference to their progress at school. Once they have secured the sounds, they can use the sound cards to make small words and put the words together, in conjunction with their heart words, to make simple sentences. If they need extra letters, they can make their own on paper. Children can also practise writing the words they make. They will be able to show you their 3 friends pen hold and how they pick the pen up with their holding fingers which they pinch together to pick the pen up correctly. Once they are able to decode words by sounding out the individual sounds, their next step is to blend the sounds together as they read them. This will help them to become fluent readers and make sure they are understanding what they are reading. 

We Love Learning

We Get There Together

We Care

We Make a Difference

We Love Learning

We Get There Together and We Love Challenge

We Care

Using the cloud dough to make heart words - We Love Challenge and We Love Learning

Our shared book this week was about a gardener who created a maze out of hedge plants. During Learning Through Play we had a go at making and drawing our own mazes.

Creating a maze out of painted stones

Drawing mazes on paper

Using a whiteboard to draw a maze

We have begun our Keeping Ourselves Safe lessons in class. We have been talking about what makes us unique, along with the important information children need to know as part of keeping themselves safe. We have noticed that most children do not yet know their address or a contact telephone number. This would be a great time to have a practice with your child at home so they know how to contact you in an emergency. They will be bringing home a copy of the sheet they filled out, with support, at school to practise with you at home. Next week, we begin our lessons with Constable Ross.

We hope you have been enjoying participating in the school readathon. There is one more week to get those 'reading' minutes up. We will celebrate the end of the readathon next Friday with a Book Character Dress Up day, so get those creative hats on!

Have a lovely relaxing weekend together.

Ngā mihi mahana,

The Koru Team: Elizabeth, Tracey, Nicola, Chelsea and Stacey

Kia ora,

Can you believe we have just finished Week 9 of the term and only have one more week until the July winter break starts. I'm sure everyone will be looking forward to some relaxing family time over the break.

This week in the Koru team we have been learning about Matariki. The children have been busy engaging in some Matariki activities and learning about the 9 Matariki stars. It was great to see many of our children and their whanau gathering for our Rōpū Hui on Wednesday night to celebrate Matariki. We hope you enjoyed your night participating in the fun range of activities available.

We have been enjoying hearing about all the practise children are involved in with their Structured Literacy at home. Thank you so much for your support with this, it is making a huge difference to their progress throughout the stages. Just a reminder that children who are just starting their Structured Literacy journey will be bringing home a few letter sounds to practise at home and these will be added to as they progress. These can be used to practise the pure sounds the letters make and then can be blended together to form words. Heart words, these are words that cannot be sounded out, will also start coming home for children to practise. Once they are proficient in segmenting and blending the first 8 sounds together, and know the heart words, they will start bringing home decodable books to read with you at home. The ability to segment and blend sounds together is paramount to their success at decoding words, so this stage may take longer for some learners. It is exciting to see their progress take off once they have accomplished this skill. The next step is for the learner to be able to write the sounds they hear in words and we do lots of practise with this within our lessons. This would be a great home learning activity once they are secure in the sounds they are bringing home.

In our maths programme over the past week we have been using frogs and ponds to create number sentences. We started with 5 frogs, and increased the numbers during the week, and looked at how many different ways the frogs could be in and out of the pond and recorded our findings.

We loved seeing this team work together to create this construction. 

Well done to those children who participated in the fun run on Friday to support the student council in raising funds for the charity KidsCan. You all put in an incredible amount of energy! Ka pai!

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,

Elizabeth, Jo, Stacey, Chelsea, Tracey and Nicola

Kia ora ki te whanau,

We have welcomed 7 new children into the Koru hub since week 1. A very warm welcome to the new children and their whanau. Our 'Golden Oldies' are enjoying making new friendships and showing our school values 'We get there together' and 'We care' to help our newbies get to know the routines and settle into the hub.

Last week all our children showed another one of our school values 'We love Challenge' when they competed in the school Cross Country. We were so proud of their efforts in running the course. They certainly displayed our school values. 

All lined up at the start.

Feeling happy to have finished our first cross country.

Rocketship numbers

Look at our amazing writing in our structured literacy group.

Working together with a buddy to solve maths problems.

We're going on a bear hunt

Reminders...

Please make sure that literacy folders are coming to school every day with the letters and heart words inside along with any books. It is important they are sent every day as teachers might need to update the letters and heart words throughout the week. For those children who are reading the decodable texts, these books are needed at group time every day.

Thank you to those parents who are waiting in the courtyard each afternoon for their children to come to them. This really does make a difference to the end of our day and easier for children to find their whanau.

For all our new families, and as a refresher as the children are bringing home new letters, here is the link to the video which demonstrates how to make the pure sound for each letter. 

Heads up...

Please keep your eyes peeled for information about our exciting Art Gallery outing on Friday, June the 4th. We'll be seeking parent help for this outing, so look out for further details!

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,

Elizabeth, Jo, Stacey, Chelsea and Nicola

 Kia ora ki te whanau,

Can you believe it's week 11 and the end of the first term already! Time certainly flies in the Koru team with such fun busy days. We're sure you are all looking forward to some rest and relaxation and some precious family time together over the holidays. 

This week we welcomed lots of lovely little visitors who will be starting early in Term 2. It was lovely to have our new Koru teacher, Chelsea, join us on Wednesday to meet the new children. Chelsea will be joining the Koru team from the start of Term 2.

Over the last 2 weeks we have been exploring the story of The Little Red Hen and how we can show our school values 'We get there together' and 'We make a difference' to work together as a team during our Learning Through Play. We have seen some lovely teamwork being used to create some amazing work, and we've all been practicing getting there together to tidy up after our play.

This group were sharing equipment beautifully while working together.

'Teamwork makes the dream work'

Showing how 'We get there together' to complete a building project.

Using our segmenting and blending skills to decode a word.

Playing Jump during a structured literacy lesson.

Showing 'We get there together' by all helping to tidy up our classroom.

Showing great teamwork by working together on a project.

Putting the ideas all together as a team.

The collaborative collage project all completed.

Term 2...

We have some very exciting events coming up in Term 2 starting with the whole school cross country in the second week of the term, on Tuesday 11th May. The event starts with the senior children completing their run first. Our run will be between 2-3 pm, and we will give you more details closer to the time. The course for our children will be a run around Beckenham Park. We will familiarise the children with the course in the first week of the term and will get some practices in each day. You may also like to get your child out for some training over the holidays.

As we head into one of our winter terms after the holidays, children will not be required to wear their hats at playtimes. Hats will not be required again until the start of Term 4.

We wish you a lovely and safe autumn holiday together. We look forward to hearing about all the holiday adventures from your little ones at the beginning of Term 2.

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,

Elizabeth, Jo, Stacey and Nicola