Welcome back!
We hope that you all had a wonderful time with your children over the two-week break. We have had a stunning first week back and have launched feet first into all our key programmes.

Inquiry
Our inquiry concept continues to explore the theme of SUSTAINABILITY. This term sees the children digging deeper into this concept of well being with a particular focus on sleep.




Cross Country

Next Thursday 10th May, we will be having our very first FULL SCHOOL cross country event. This year we have decided to have this event on the same day, so parents can easily support their child/children on the one day. This also provides us with the opportunity for our older students to support our younger students (tukana teina). We have begun to build up our fitness for this event and will be running each day. Please make sure your child has sensible running shoes at school each day as this will make the training much easier. Running in gumboots or dress boots is not ideal.

Home Learning
We began home learning again this week. Each night the children have 3 simple tasks to complete.
MMM- 1 minute timed test
Reading- Reading their book from school or a personal choice (10minutes)
Spelling- 5-6 spelling words identified as ones they need to learn.
 Your child might like to try these strategies:
Rainbow Write- Write the word in different colours over the top of each other.
Staircase Spelling: Write a letter on each line gradually spelling the word.









Swimming Lessons
As we mentioned at the end of last term, this term we will be going to Aqua Gym for 10 swimming lessons as our tamariki have not had swimming for the past two years here at school. The swimming lessons will be from 14th-25th May. The children will be put into an ability group by the instructors at the pool and we will have 3 sessions each day. The lessons are going to be 30 minutes in duration and ALL children will need a swimming cap for the lessons. This is a wonderful opportunity for the children to grow their swimming capabilities which are so important when living around water.

Parent/ Adult Help
We know we have an incredible group of parents and caregivers in our team and we would really love some adult help to come in to support some of our current programmes.

Ways you can help:
Maths- Helping children with their counting, writing/reading numbers
Reading- Listening to children read
Writing- Supporting children during a writing session
Baking- Coming in to bake with a small group of children

If you are able to assist us, please email or come in and see your home group teacher. We are open to any of your offers and know your help will greatly benefit many of the children in our team!


Dental Van
The dental van will be on site over the next couple of weeks to complete routine dental checks.

Dates for the dairy
School photos- Book that haircut, shine those shoes...school photos are happening on 28th May.

Wow! It is hard to believe that we are already in the last week of the term. This newsletter is to inform you of the essentials for the week ahead.

We have had another report of headlice in our team. We have discussed the importance of keeping hair up while at school and for children to keep their heads away from each other. Please take a couple of minutes to check your child's hair to ensure there are no unwanted pests taking up residence!








TOP TEAM
As part of our inquiry, the children are learning how we can sustain our fitness and leadership skills by planning a Top Team activity. The children have organised themselves into learning groups and have designed a 'Top Team' style event for the Koru team to participate in.
They have worked hard to think about the school values this activity promotes and how they will organise and run the station. This week, the children will conduct their activity with some of the children in Pōhutukawa team for them to give them feedback on their instructions and suitability of the activity. On Thursday, the children will run this event, let's hope the weather is fine! It should be loads of fun. Here are some pictures of the children in action.



BECKENHAM MINI BALL
We had an exciting finish to the Term 1 mini ball season at Pioneer with two of our teams, Bombers and Bandits, playing off in the finals for their pool. These were both nail-biting games and resulted in both teams winning and becoming the Term 1 champions. Well done!
We would like to take this time to thank, Jamie Day, Anna Clarke, Katie McFarlane and Joe Chapman for coaching and supporting the teams at the games. Without this wonderful adult support, we would not have been able to have so many children play. We need all mini ball shirts to be returned to school before Thursday please. Miniball will start again in Term 4.


THANK YOU
We would like to express a HUGE thank you to Charmaine Pedersen and Narina Sutherland who have supported our class programmes each week. Thank you so much for working with the children to support their learning, creating resources and putting away books.
We desperately would love MORE parents to come and support our programme. We are looking forward to growing our parent/adult help in Term 2. Please come in and see us or send us an email if you are able to help.













PIZZA MAKING
We need the wonderful help from one parent to help some children bake pizzas on Friday. If you are able to help out from 11-12pm, please let your child's home group teacher know.

AXOLOTL SITTING
The axolotls are really excited about the up and coming holidays and would LOVE to organise a friend or two to stay with over the holidays. They are really easy to look after and only require feeding each day. If you would like to look after them, please email Paulette or come in and see her.

SWIMMING TERM  2
FYI- As part of our P.E programme in Term 2, the children in our team will be having two weeks of swimming lessons at Aqua Gym. Each day we will bus to the pool and have a 30minute lesson with the instructors. At the moment this will look like it will cost us $80-$100 per student and we are still seeking grant applications to support us with this.

That's all for now
Kowhai Teaching team

TWIGHLIGHT FAIR

On Friday morning, we were entertained and inspired by Anne Kayes who is a part of the Storylines Festival. Anne is an award-winning NZ author who won the 2016 Storylines Tom Fitzgibbon Award. Anne talked about her novel, 'Tui Street Tales' which is about children in a street where the ordinary everyday life becomes strange and are based on a fairytale theme. 

 

We have had an amazing first two weeks back at school. The weather has been perfect, the children have been enthusiastic and the teachers have enjoyed getting to know the students in Kōwhai hub. As always, there is a lot happening, and a lot to look forward to during the first term.




Problem Solving in Maths
We have begun teaching our problem style approach in maths this week.  This has required the children to work in co-operative whānau groups with 3-4 children. We have had an emphasis on what effective group work looks and sounds like and it has been exciting to see the children participate in rich mathematical discussions as they share or question the ideas that are shared when solving the problem. 
Here are examples of some of the group thinking.














Life Education / Inquiry Learning
Next week, it is our turn to visit the Life Education van. Each class will have two lessons with the focus being on friendship, showing empathy and how we communicate with others. These are all important concepts to explore, especially at the beginning of a new year at school and supports our current class teaching around feelings and emotions.



Buddies
We began buddies last week with some of the children in Kauri Whanau. Most of the big buddies had 2-3 children. The focus of our sessions has been to get to know each other with the creation of fortune tellers and buddy posters. 



Literacy
This week we began our writing programme and we have been highly impressed with the quality of writing being produced by the children in our team. This often occurs when parents read books regularly to children as this exposes them to wonderful language.  It also enables them to hear how reading should sound as well as promoting a love of reading. Keep up the great work! 
The focus next week is on establishing our reading programme across the team. We will be developing the necessary routines for reading where the children will read in a variety of ways: reading by themselves, reading to a buddy, listening to reading, playing reading/literacy games and even visiting our new school library! FYI-Home Learning will begin in week 4 with books being sent home then. 


Learning Conferences
We would like to say a huge thank you to all the families who were able to attend a learning conference at the start of this term. As a teaching team this has enabled us to learn more about your child and how we can meet their needs this year. We really enjoyed meeting you all and are looking forward to the year ahead with your whānau.  We are always available through email and are very happy to meet  to discuss anything that arises. If you haven't done so yet, please take the time to fill in the google form which was sent out in the last newsletter via this link.  This feedback is really valuable for us as a school.

Discovery Learning

Each day we begin with Discovery Time. This time provides the children with the opportunity to work together and to learn through play and exploration. It has been great to see the children problem solving, exercising their creativity, working together and developing their communication skills. We have learnt many things about the children through our conversations and observations which will be reflected in our teaching approaches with them. Here are some photos of the children in action.