Wow, this term is flying by. Can you believe it’s already Week 8? Kahikatea has been full of learning, creativity, and new experiences these past couple of weeks. Here’s a snapshot of what we’ve been up to:

Keeping Ourselves Safe (KOS)

Constable Meg visited us to teach important lessons about how we can keep ourselves safe. Our learning has included:

• How to identify Police officers and understand that their job is to keep us safe.
  
  

• What to do if we get lost, and how to recognise adults we can trust.
  
  

• Learning the correct names for body parts.
  
  

• Marching and saluting.
  
  

• Understanding what consent means and practising role-plays where we confidently say no.
  
  

Here’s a short video to continue these conversations at home: Consent for kids

Clay Art

Our clay skills are growing every week! Nicky has been showing us how to make and shape pots, which has been both fun and challenging. This project has been a wonderful way to live our school value: We Love Challenge.

Here are some photos of our process, from shaping to painting our unique clay pots! 

Maths – Statistics and Graphing

In Maths, we’ve been learning how to use tally charts and collect data. Next week, we’ll take the next step by exploring graphs – learning how to read them and create our own based on the data we’ve gathered.

You can support this learning at home by encouraging your child to collect data on something that interests them (e.g. favourite fruit in the family, colours of cars passing by, or types of toys they have). They can then organise their results in a tally chart and even try creating a simple graph to show what they found.

Trees for Survival

We are excited to share that Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto has been chosen as the first urban school in the South Island to take part in the Trees for Survival programme! 🌱

Trees for survival is a Charitable Trust started by Rotary​ and works in partnership with Regional Councils,​ schools, sponsors and volunteers. I​t is an environmental programme which works with school students to grow​ and then plant​ native trees on sites such as wetlands, hillsides, stream edges, to increase​ biodiversity, stabilise soil and help improve water quality. 

This week, our ākonga planted our very first seedlings. We learned how to care for the seedlings properly and keep ourselves safe while working with potting mix. We are super excited to watch these grow and continue looking after our seedlings!

Find out more about Trees for Survival here: https://www.tfsnz.org.nz/

Over the past few weeks, our tamariki have been busy with some incredible learning experiences, and there are lots of exciting updates to share from the Kahikatea Hub!

One of the highlights was our trip to Ferrymead. Our ākonga had an absolute blast exploring toys and stepping back in time. We know many of you are eager to see what they got up to! 

Reminder - Staff Only day

On Friday, the 30th of May, the school is closed.

A Fantastic Day at Ferrymead!

We had an amazing day exploring Ferrymead, and our tamariki absolutely loved the hands-on learning experiences. Our ākonga were split into small groups and rotated through five exciting stations, each highlighting a different aspect of life and play in the past. These included:

• The Science Behind Toys – Exploring the mechanics and physics that make toys work.
  
  

• Puppets – Learning how puppets were used for storytelling and play.
  
  

• Indoor and Outdoor Games – A chance to try out traditional games from the past.
  
  

• Exploring an Old Classroom – Our tamariki stepped back in time and even created their own thaumatrope – a simple optical illusion toy from the 1800s! (Want to try it at home? Check out this video: How to Make a Thaumatrope)
  
  

• Wandering the Ferrymead Township – A chance to explore the buildings, vehicles, and streets of Ferrymead.
  
  

The trip was not only fun but also a great learning opportunity. Our ākonga discovered how toys and games have changed over time, the perfect lead-in to the next phase of our inquiry: designing and creating our very own toys!

We can’t wait to see the creativity that comes next!