Kia ora, e te whānau,

A very warm welcome (back) to you all, and we especially welcome the families of our newest tamariki. The children have settled beautifully, and we are truly impressed with the way the older children are showing such care and kindness towards the children who had their first day at school last week. 

We have a busy term ahead, and will be keeping you up to date with our whiteboard notices, as well as through our blog posts. Also, please make sure you read our school newsletters as they are sent out to you via Hero. Another way to keep up to date is by checking our school website where you can find our school calendar. Here you will find all the details you will need to know, about what's coming up in the days, weeks and months ahead.

What's coming up: 

On Friday, August 7th, a 'Scooter-athlon' is being held at Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto. This will involve Koru team tamariki running a short distance, scooting around a course which will be well-marked for the children and finishing with another short run. Teachers will take their Home Groups out to walk the course, prior to the event itself. There will be several marshalls at points around the course, to ensure that children follow the correct route. The running parts of the course are in the park, and the scooting part is around the edge of our junior playground and also includes the courtyard area on the river side of the hall.

If you happen to have a spare scooter and helmet, we would be very grateful if you were willing to lend them for use during the event. Please see your child's Home Group teacher if this is the case.

If your child would like to participate, however doesn't have a scooter and a helmet, please let your child's Home Group teacher know and we will endeavour to match your child with a spare scooter and helmet.

Please note that this is a fun event and there is no compulsion for children to participate.

Those children participating will do so in house groups:

• 2:25 p.m.: Fisher and Heathcote
• 2:35 p.m.: Tennyson and Waimea

Kia ora, e te whānau,

Welcome to our Week 7 news, and isn't it hard to believe that we're over half way through Term 2 now?! 

We're loving hearing your tamariki complement each other as they notice our school values being put into practice by their friends, throughout their days at school. We even hear gorgeous stories about this taking place at home too! Tino pai, tamariki - you're awesome! 

The children continue to put impressive effort into their learning across all curriculum areas. Our Literacy programme in the Koru team includes: small group reading and writing (individual letters, heart words, short words at their level, and then leading to short and gradually longer sentences), shared writing (whole class), handwriting, phonemic awareness, Narrative Intervention and a weekly library visit.

Some of the following links have been shared in previous posts, however they're well worth resharing, for new families as well as a reminder for the families of children who started in Term 1:

• The Sounds of New Zealand English
• How to Help at Home
• Stage 1 
• Stage 2 
• Stage 3 
• Stage 4 
• Stage 4+ 

What’s coming up:

• Junior Park Explorers: June 18th (Hooray, and thank you so much to those of you who have offered to help. We really appreciate that!)
• Reports shared: June 19th
• Learning Conferences: June 23rd and 24th

Congratulations and thank you:

We would like to acknowledge our very own Izzy Sepie, who recently amazed us all by single-handedly raising a very large sum of money in response to Cade's request for support for those families who might be struggling to provide food, stationery and/or uniforms for their tamariki. Izzy's response to this request for help was to hold her very own bake stall, and all of the money she raised, she donated to the fund which the school holds to support these families.

Izzy, you're a superstar and we say, "Thank you!" Tino pai tou mahi.

Photo Gallery:

Kia ora e te whānau,

It is incredible to think that we are into the second half of our first term together... and what a fantastic term it is! The tamariki are well-settled into school life, including our routines, timetables, and expectations. It's a joy to listen to them referring to our school values at both mat time, and during their learning and play. Their ability to articulate their thinking and their reasoning is second to none, and we're very proud of the way that they are already 'living our school values' (in particular, 'We Care' and 'We Get There Together' which are our focus values for Term 1)!

Kotahitanga (Getting On Together):

Throughout this first term, we have been focusing on the importance of making connections, forming, maintaining, and sustaining relationships.

Over the term, our work has (and will be) related to:

• personal identity and self worth (feeling good about ourselves)
• belonging
• talking about ourselves, including about our feelings and expressing our opinions
• enhancing relationships (working cooperatively)
• communication
• friendship (defining friendship, establishing friendships, maintaining and sustaining our friendships)
• social environments and, in particular, our class (aroha; what it looks like, feels like, sounds like; and making good choices in our happy hub!)

Maths in the Koru team:

Our Maths programme in the Koru team is made up of several different components:

• Warm ups
• A sequence of lessons focusing on a particular strand, or strands, of Maths (e.g., Maths and Statistics, Geometry, Algebra, etc.)
• Problem solving
• Maths games

Warm ups:

These take place at the start of each Maths lesson, and can take the form of an activity we call Notice, Think, Wonder, another activity we call Move and Prove, or a focus on number knowledge.

'Notice, Think, Wonder' will begin with a photograph which is designed to stimulate thinking and questions. Some examples might be:

What do you notice? What do you think? What do you wonder? What do you notice? What do you think? What do you wonder?

The letters 'a', 'b', and 'c' (and also 'd' as the children become familiar with the activity) are positioned on corners of the mat. The tamariki are given thinking time and then might be asked to 'turn and talk', to discuss their thinking with a learning buddy. They are then asked to move to the letter which represents the option that they have chosen. The 'prove' part of Move and Prove asks children to justify their thinking - why did they choose the answer which they chose? 

• All About Us (a 3-week topic, focusing on Number, Geometry, and Algebra)
• Pattern Makers (Algebra)
• Counting One to One (with a focus on Number Structure and Operations)

A selection of photos taken during these topics follows, and these will provide a glimpse into the learning the children have been engaging in during these topics.

Problem Solving:

Once a week, we have a problem-solving activity, during which the children are presented with a Maths problem to consider. They will generally work with a learning buddy and will have access to a range of equipment, including materials to help with their thinking and a whiteboard and a whiteboard pen for recording (one of each of these, between two children, encourages sharing and turn-taking).

An example of a possible Maths problem

Maths Games:

On Fridays, our big buddies from the Kauri team spend time with us and, during this time, the children are provided with a Maths game which they will play in small groups, each group supervised by one of the Kauri team students.

On the last two Fridays, the game the children have played is the game called '21'. (This might also be a fun game to play at home.)

This is a strategic counting game where players take turns to add 1, 2, or 3 numbers to a running total, starting from 1. The objective is to not be the player who says "21"!

In the Koru team, we are learning to think and act like Mathematicians, and we are LOVING it!!

• Here we are practising our interoception activities:

• Practising the letter sounds and forming the related grapheme:

• Playing schools:

• Playing hospitals:

• Practising writing the heart words:

Kia ora e te whānau,

It is very hard to believe that we are at the end of our school year - a bittersweet feeling for all, as we say our farewells in advance of the long summer holiday. 

Our children have continued to work hard in all areas of their learning, despite the fact that many of them are feeling very tired indeed! We congratulate all tamariki on their impressive self-management, as the resources around them have been packed up, walls have been cleared, and spaces emptied, leading up to the final big furniture move on Thursday afternoon. Friday arrived, and the children had their first day in Tahaki, embracing the new space with enthusiasm and positivity. Very well done indeed, children. We're proud of you!

We send our heartfelt thanks to those families who were able to give their time last Thursday after school. We appreciate all you were able to do to help us. Your willingness and patience as we were trying to negotiate the boxes, the furniture, and the equipment were truly amazing. You just quietly pitched in, saw the needs and gaps, and filled them. Hooray for you!

Literacy books:

If you happen to find any Little Learners reading books over the summer break, please return these to the office in the new year.

Kia ora, e te whānau,

We've had another busy and brilliant fortnight in the Koru team, with our newbies settling in beautifully and our children who are having their visits before starting school, showing lovely confidence as they become familiar in their new setting. A very warm welcome to all of our new tamariki and their whānau, and thank you to our older children who are ensuring that the new children are feeling safe and secure at school! You are showing 'We Care' and 'We Get There Together'.

Athletics Day:

What a fun and fabulous time the children all had at our Beckenham te Kura Athletics Day on Thursday! The Koru team children participated in a range of games and activities, including throwing, running and jumping, incorporating a wide range of movement skills and using a variety of equipment. The children displayed the full range of our school values throughout their athletics activities, including: 'We Care', 'We Make a Difference' and 'We Get There Together' (our focus value last week) as they looked after their brand new friends who had only had a short time at school; 'We Love Challenge' as they took part in activities that really stretched them physically; and 'We Love Learning' throughout the lead up to their Athletics Day, as they practised and displayed new skills, in order to join in as best as they were able on the day itself. Well done, to our tamariki - we loved seeing you try your best and participating fully at our school Athletics Day! Tino pai tou mahi. Please scroll down for a selection of photos taken on the day.

Literacy:

Children are continuing to make great progress in their Literacy learning, and we know that you'll find it very exciting to witness this as your children share their resources and books with you at home. 

When children first start school, they will bring home a little letter and heart word pack in their Literacy folders. As they become confident with their sounds, their heart words, and they learn how to blend sounds together, they will begin to bring home their first reading books.

At all stages of the children's Literacy learning, your help at home is incredibly valuable. You can use both letter cards and heart word cards as flash cards and children can practise reading them at speed. Another great way to support your child's learning is to help them to practise writing the letters and their heart words. Being able to write the letter for each sound and spell the heart words, is important at all stages of your child's learning.

Here are some links to short videos which we hope you will find helpful. Some families of older children may have viewed some of these videos earlier in the year, however, we thought it valuable to share them again, not only for the parents/caregivers of new children, but also as a refresher for those of older students:

• The Sounds of New Zealand English
• How To Help At Home (All Stages)
• Stage 1 Structured Literacy
• Stage 2 Structured Literacy
• Stage 3 Structured Literacy
• Stage 4 Structured Literacy
• Stage 4+ Structured Literacy
• Stage 5 Structured Literacy
• Stage 6 Structured Literacy