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

Kia ora e te whānau,

Welcome to Week 4 of the third term! 

We would like to extend a very warm welcome to Poppy Wallace-Bell. Poppy is with us for the final 7 week placement of her teacher training at the University of Canterbury. Please introduce yourselves to Poppy and help to make her feel at home with us here at Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto.

There is so much wonderful learning taking place within our hub, including a focus on Calendar Art, a Digitech topic starting next week, amazing learning in Maths (including 2D and 3D shapes, repeated addition leading on to multiplication, skip counting forwards and backwards in 2s, 5s and 10s and learning the doubles, e.g., 3+3, 7+7, etc., all the way up to 10+10) and of course, our Structured Literacy group learning. Your children are fantastic learners and we're all very proud of them!

Eight of our Koru team members are going to be moving through to the Kahikatea team on Monday next week. We wish them all the very best and will miss them enormously. We know that as long as they continue to be guided by our Beckenham Values they are going to prove to the new Kahikatea team members that they are wonderful learners and loyal friends.

Maths Week Next Week!

To celebrate Maths Week, we will be having a daily joke and maths problem on a whiteboard, outside Hangere, for you and your child to solve! Come to school each day with plenty of time to spend with your child mulling over the joke and solving the problem together.

Mathematics & Statistics: Understanding your child's learning

The Ministry of Education's Parent Portal is a collection of resources for parents, families and carers. Here, you will find information about the learning your child is engaging in at school, within their year level, and how you can support them at home with their learning. Feel free to have a look and explore what you can do at home to support your child's Maths learning, while, at the same time, keeping it fun!

KOS:

Keeping Ourselves Safe

The Koru team will be participating in the Keeping Ourselves Safe programme during Weeks 6 and 7 of this term. Your child's homegroup teacher will teach six sessions and Constable Meg will teach two sessions.

What will children learn?

They will learn:

- to work out when their safety is at risk

- how to keep safe when they meet and mix with other people

- who and how to ask for help if they, or someone they know, is being abused

- to go on asking for help until someone does something to stop the abuse

- that it is important to make and follow personal, family, and school safety rules

Children will have some short activities to work through at home with you. Thank you for your support with this. Please click on this link for more information about Keeping Ourselves Safe.

Beckenham's Got Talent:

The Student Council members are organising a Beckenham's Got Talent event this term. If your tamariki are keen to sing, dance, play an instrument, perform some magic, drama or poetry, please sign them up by emailing your child's teacher. The maximum group size is eight people and the maximum performance time is four minutes. Auditions for the final event are in Week 8.

If your child wishes to audition for our school talent show, whānau are welcome to organise this with their child and/or a group of children. Any practices will need to take place at home after school. 

Structured Literacy:

Here are a few little video links below (some of which have been shared before, and are now being reshared for new families):

• The Sounds of New Zealand English

One of our teachers has recorded some videos to support our whānau with understanding what our literacy stages look like and what you can do to support your learner at home:

• Stage 1 & How to Help at Home
• Stage 2 
• Stage 3
• Stage 4
• Stage 4+

We hope you find these videos both informative and helpful as you support your child's learning at home!

And now for this fortnight's photo gallery:

Showing 'We Care', by helping with some planting in the Pūkaki play space.

Preparing the roots of this little tree for planting.

Wow - awesome building skills on display here!

More care and kindness being shown towards the environment.

Caring for this newly planted tree.

'We Get There Together'.

Wonderful teamwork, tamariki.

Inquiring into why our shadows change at different times throughout the day.

Making the link between repeated addition and multiplication.

...and learning that the multiplication sign 'x' means 'groups of'.

Beautifully formed letters at handwriting time.

Making the link between knowing the doubles and therefore knowing the two times table.

We know that a sentence starts with a capital letter, has spaces between the words and (mostly) ends with a full stop.

Learning about 2D shapes and their properties.

A hexagon...

A trapezium...

A parallelogram...

A triangle...

A pentagon...

A rhombus...

Showing 'We Get There Together' and 'We Care'.

More lovely teamwork.

Good friends working together on their project in the sandpit.

What a wonderful thing to do together in the warm sunshine - don't you just love a good book!

The audience grows...

Happy times with our Koru team friends!

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,

Katie, Stacey, Niquita and Elizabeth

Kia ora, e te whānau,

A warm welcome to this week's Koru Team blog post. It's been a very busy fortnight, filled with lots of amazing learning, as well as the whole school Book Character Dress Up day last Friday and, of course, today's Cross Country event. The children did incredibly well during their Cross Country run today, showing 'We Love Challenge' (completing the course, and doing their best to show determination and stamina) and 'We Get There Together' (encouraging their classmates if anyone was finding the running challenging). We thank our Year 7 and 8 Kauri students who supported the Koru team tamariki as they ran today.

Kiss and Drop:

We know that the children all enjoyed the Readathon's Stop, Drop, and Read, which helped to support some great reading habits. Thank you so much to those of you who were able to collect sponsors to help raise funds for our school.

  

If you still have sponsorship money to collect, this can be transferred directly to the PTA account 12-3148-0244558-00 using 'Readathon' as a reference.

The costumes on Book Character Dress Up day were absolutely adorable.

Check out the selection of photos below for some of the 'characters' who arrived at school last Friday!

We hope you have a very happy and relaxing weekend and we look forward to seeing the tamariki, bright-eyed and eager, next week.

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,

Katie, Stacey, Niquita and Elizabeth

katie.mcfarlane@beckenham.school.nz

niquita.dalley@beckenham.school.nz

stacey.mclachlan@beckenham.school.nz

elizabeth.drummond@beckenham.school.nz