Kia ora, e te whānau,

Welcome to this fortnight's blog post! We are so impressed with the tamariki - they have been making amazing progress in their learning since starting school. This, of course, includes their academic learning, as well as their emotional learning and their social learning. 

Our blog post today contains information about:

• the Koru team's class contract
• a typical day in the Koru team
• Structured Literacy in the Koru team
• Online Safety information
• and finally, some beautiful photos of the tamariki during the past fortnight.

He Waka Eke Noa:

We are all in this waka together!

As a team, we have discussed the meaning of this whakataukī and also the meaning of the word 'contract'. The tamariki together came up with some guidelines which we've all agreed to follow:

• We show 'We Care'
• We are kind to each other
• We use gentle hands and gentle feet
• We speak kindly to each other
• We look after our things, like our hats and our drink bottles
• We take care of our spaces and help at tidy up time
• We take care of the games and toys
• We are helpful
• We use good manners, like 'please' and 'thank you'
• We look after each other.

Other routines, which the children have embraced, include: 

• unpacking their bags when they arrive at school in the morning, including putting their Literacy folder in the right container; 
• remembering their poetry books and library folders on Friday; 
• lining up after break times; 
• 'showing five' whenever they are sitting on the mat; 
• and following the expectations in their small Literacy group lessons (sitting up, chair pulled in, focusing on the learning, and 'whiteboards are for writing, not drawing').

We thank you all for your continued support with the start and end of day routines!

A typical Day in the Koru team:

We also fit into our days: interoception (short little activities with a focus on breathing and noticing how our bodies are feeling), music and movement, and of course aspects of both Literacy and Maths are incorporated into Learning Through Play. 

A fun focus during Learning Through Play at the moment is the theme of 'Shops and Shopping'. The original shop set up included a children's library beside the shop as well as roles such as the delivery person, two shopkeepers and visitors to the shop and the library. Elizabeth was included in the play (the Mum) as well as Katie (the Dad). Other children have been involved making signs, labels, money and purses/bags.

The children have been learning new songs and actions at our Music and Movement times, and they agreed that they would like two of these shared with you so that they can teach you at home. We know you'll love them! The expressions and actions that we see while the children are singing are absolutely adorable. See if your children will sing to you now (a great opportunity for 'the child to be the teacher').

• The Dot Song
• Pop See Ko

Wow, what a wonderfully creative model!

...and a bird's eye view.

Creating a 4 element pattern with the penguins.

Five friends working together with the Mobilo.

Showing 'We Care' to ensure that the Mobilo is fairly shared.

"Here you are. You're welcome to use these pieces of Mobilo in your construction."

Collaborating on a Lego construction.

Putting in best effort and focus to produce top quality work.

Counting large numbers using the abacus.

"How many beads have been pushed across and how many are left?"

Collaborating to solve a problem using the abacus.

Working with a big buddy to count the beads on the abacus.

Showing 'We Care' by sweeping up small bits of rubbish with the brush and shovel.

Also showing 'We Care' by looking after our learning spaces. Thank you!!

What a kind thing to do for everyone, including our cleaner.

How many different ways can we make the number 5?

Working together to play the 'Shops' game.

Ensuring that the Children's Library, situated beside the shop, has enough chairs and books for visitors.

"Here you are, Batty... a book for you."

"Is everyone who is visiting the library feeling happy and comfortable?"

"Yes, thank you. It's lovely here!"

Beautiful dance moves...

...getting some practice in before the next disco?

So much energy and so many fabulous moves!

Kia ora, e te whānau,

A very warm welcome back to our fourth and final term of the 2024 school year. We especially welcome the families of the new children to our Koru team: Atlas, Isabella, Oliver, Ruby, Remy and Johnny. They've all made a lovely, positive start to school. Well done, tamariki!

Routines:

All children have embraced our routines and have fallen back into the swing of things with impressive ease. Earlier in the year, the children helped to develop our Learning Through Play guidelines, as follows:

• Use gentle hands and gentle feet
• Treat everyone with kindness and care
• Use quiet inside voices
• Tidy as you go
• Follow instructions quickly and quietly
• Be part of the team at tidy up time
• Don't tip everything out of a container, just take what you need (unless it's a jigsaw puzzle!).

These guidelines were the children's ideas and we revisited them at the start of this term, just as a reminder, and also so that our new children would be familiar with them. 

Other routines, which the children have embraced once again, include: unpacking their bags when they arrive at school in the morning, including putting their Literacy folder in the right container; remembering their poetry books and library folders on Friday; lining up after break times; 'showing five' whenever they are sitting on the mat; and following the expectations in their small Literacy group lessons (sitting up, chair pulled in, focusing on the learning and 'whiteboards are for writing, not drawing').

Friendship list:

Georgia will, once again, be sending out an invitation to those of you who would like to have your details added to our Friendship List, so please keep an eye out for an email about this.

Term Overview:

We have a very busy term ahead of us. Some of the topics that we'll be focusing on include:

• our school-wide focus areas (including How We Play, Moving Inside, Speaking and Listening and Tidying)
• our Word of the Week continues (including Being an Upstander, Honesty, Inclusion, Showing Respect, Friendship and Determination, along with several other key values)
• Life Education (with a focus on friendship - further details in the next Blog post)
• Cyber Safety (and again with further details to come)

Kia ora, e te whānau,

A very warm welcome to Fin and Greyson who have both joined our team recently. You've made a wonderful start to school, tamariki - well done!

It's been a very busy time for Koru team members, as we spread out to include our new learning space, Kōmanawa. Elizabeth's Home Group is starting and finishing the day there, and some Literacy groups are also being taught in Kōmanawa. The tamariki have fully embraced our new space, and are treating it with great care and respect. Welcome to Finlay and Greyson, who have started school and joined our Koru team.

• Boxes, please - a request from us to, please, save any boxes you might normally put out in your recycling bin and send them into school instead - the children are loving creating and decorating in the Maker Space in Hangere and we find that we're always in need of boxes, generally small to medium in size, although shoe boxes and even those slightly bigger can also be turned into homes for fairies, dioramas and so on. We'd also love any little bits and bobs such as ribbon, lace, buttons, small pieces of fabric, feathers, etc., for decorative purposes. Many thanks if you're able to help out with any of these items.
• Beckenham's Got Talent - your children may have been talking with you about the Beckenham Talent Show which is traditionally held at the end of Term 3. A member of our School Council will be coming to the Koru team soon to explain what is involved. There will be more information coming out shortly however, in the meantime, if your child has a particular 'talent' (for example, it might involve singing, dancing, gymnastics, hula hooping, telling jokes, performing magic tricks, etc.) they could be practising at home, in readiness for the Koru team show which will take place prior to the whole school Talent Show. One 'performance' from the Koru team will be selected to be performed at the whole school show. Children are welcome to join up with some friends and enter the Talent Show as a team. Please note, there will be more information to come very soon.

Staying Safe Online: Bullying

One in five young people in New Zealand have been the target of online bullying – it can happen to anyone, and it can be hard for parents and whānau to deal with. Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto takes online bullying seriously and would encourage you to chat to your tamariki’s teacher if you have any concerns about online bullying.

Visit Netsafe’s Online Bullying Advice for Parents to read more.

Maths Whānau Evening:

What a fabulous and enlightening evening this was. Rob Profitt-White has been working with kaiako (teachers) here at Beckenham Te Kura over several years now and how fortunate we were to have been able to have him presenting to whānau last night! It was great to see so many of our Koru team families present and we do hope that you found the evening enormously valuable.

An update on Maths in the Koru Team:

In the Koru team, as you know, we just LOVE Maths! Here is a reminder about aspects of Maths and the different forms Maths takes in our programme:

• a weekly problem-solving session
• Hot Spot warm ups, with a focus throughout each week on developing number knowledge, Move and Prove and Notice, Think, Wonder (see below for descriptions of these activities)
• small group lessons, during which the children are taught to use their number knowledge in order to strategise to solve number problems
• at times throughout each term, a focus on other Maths strands (aspects of Algebra, Geometry and Measurement and Statistics)
• a Maths game lesson
• and once a week on Fridays our handwriting lesson is devoted to specifically learning and practising the correct numeral formation.

     

Kia ora e te whānau,

The time really seems to be flying by with just a fortnight now until the school holidays, the last day of term being on Friday, July 5th. We have some exciting events planned for the final part of the term, including our Art Gallery trip on Monday, the Matariki evening on Tuesday next week and some Matariki baking on Thursday of next week just before the long Matariki weekend. Please see below for reminders about the dates on which these events and some others will be taking place.

We warmly welcome Aylah who has had her first full week at school (what a wonderful first week you've had, Aylah!), and we're also excited to be welcoming Millie who is going to be starting school on Tuesday next week. We're so glad to have you both in the Koru team, tamariki!

Important dates to remember:

• Monday, June 24th, 9:00 - 12:00 Koru team Art Gallery outing
• Tuesday, June 25th, 5:30 - 7:00 p.m. our whole school Matariki evening
• Thursday, June 27th, Koru team Matariki baking (we'll be baking plain scones with jam on them - please do let us know if you'd prefer that your child doesn't have a scone)
• Friday, June 28th, school is closed for the long Matariki weekend
• Friday, July 5th is the last day of Term 2

Cyber Safety at Beckenham Te Kura ō Pūroto:

In this Blog post, we have a focus on being Aware of Online Harm.

Many parents didn't grow up with the internet, so it can be hard to imagine how tamariki may use it. But these days, digital technology is a key part of our young people's lives. They use it for learning, communicating and entertainment.

Netsafe has released research that looked into parental awareness of children's experiences of online risks and harm. The research found a mismatch between parents' awareness and their children's experiences of upsetting online content.

To check out the research, and other Netsafe resources, visit this link.

Maths in the Koru Team:

In the Koru team, we just LOVE Maths! Our Maths takes the form of:

• a weekly problem-solving session
• Hot Spot warm ups, with a focus throughout each week on developing number knowledge, Move and Prove and Notice, Think, Wonder (see below for descriptions)
• small group lessons, during which the children are taught to use their number knowledge in order to strategise to solve number problems
• at times throughout each term, a focus on other Maths strands (aspects of Algebra, Geometry and Measurement and Statistics)
• and once a week on Fridays our handwriting lesson is devoted to specifically learning and practising the correct numeral formation.

 Kia ora e te whānau,

We hope this finds you all well and managing to stay clear of the winter bugs which are starting to circulate. We'd like to officially welcome Callia and her family to Beckenham to Kura o Pūroto. Callia started school with us on Monday this week. A warm welcome also goes out to Ehsan who is going to be starting with us on Monday next week. Ehsan has a big sister in the Kōwhai team, so we welcome Ehsan's family back to the Koru team!

We've had a very busy couple of weeks since our last Blog post. Activities have included:

• Pink Shirt Day last Friday (emphasising the value of 'kindness')
• the school Cross Country on Tuesday last week
• learning how to play charades
• learning some new waiata and playing Te Reo (emotions) Bingo
• Book Character Dress Up Day today...
• ... and of course lots of lovely Learning Through Play, with 'Inclusion' and 'Kindness' being our Words of the Week, and therefore a big area of focus for us all.

How can you help your child at home?

The emphasis in teaching spelling is to focus on the sound, as opposed to the letter name. Making the phoneme (sound) - grapheme (letter shape) connection is the first step in literacy learning.

Ensure that both you and your child are saying the ‘pure’ sound without an ‘uh’ sound on the end, for example, ‘lllll’ rather than ‘luh’. Please refer to this Youtube clip, The Sounds of New Zealand English, for more information on the sound that matches each of the letters.

Here are some ideas about ways you might use the letter cards at home with your child: 

Speed Sounds: use the cards as flash cards - your child can look at each letter card and say the sound it represents. See if your child can do this at speed.

‘I Spy’: You can play games such as ‘I Spy’, using the letter sound (not the name).

Stepping Stones: Place the cards on the floor with the letter facing up, as if they are stepping stones across the river. Explain to your child that they have to cross the ‘river’ without falling in the water. Your child steps on each card and says the corresponding sound.

Fish or Memory: You could make up a matching set of letter cards, and use both sets to play Fish or Memory together, by placing both sets of cards face down on the table or floor. Each player has to be able to say the sound, if they are to keep a matching pair of cards.

Writing the graphemes: you might make the letter sound and ask your child to write the matching grapheme (support your child as much as is needed with this activity)

Some of the above ideas can also be used with the heart words that your child either is, or will be, bringing home in their literacy folder.

Look out for more information about our Structured Literacy programme in future Blog posts.

...and now just a few more fun photos from the past fortnight!

Cyber Safety Information for Whānau:

Staying Safe Online...

As our tamariki spend more time online, it’s important parents and whānau help them stay safe. Now is a great time to talk to them about how we use the internet and digital technology.

Netsafe has created an Online Safety Parent Toolkit so parents, families and whānau have all the information they need to talk about online safety.

If you or anyone in your whānau needs support, you can contact Netsafe.

All You Need to Know About TikTok:

Tiktok is one of the fastest growing social media apps. It’s a platform for creating, sharing and discovering short videos – and many young people love it! From new dance crazes to funny clips to animal videos, Tiktok can inspire creativity and bring joy.

But it’s important that parents and whānau help their tamariki navigate Tiktok safely. Today we’re sharing the Netsafe Tiktok Family Safety Toolkit so you can help guide your whānau to a fun and safe digital experience.

We wish you all the best for a lovely weekend, everyone, and we look forward to seeing all of those beautiful, wide smiles at school again on Monday.

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,

Elizabeth, Stacey and Georgia