Category Archives: Kahikatea

Kahikatea News Week 7 Term 2

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Kia ora e te whānau, 

Term 2 seems to be speeding by! We have been having a busy and wonderful time in the Kahikatea Hub, and we hope that you are all been keeping well.

Cross Country

The kids had an amazing time at the Cross Country on Tuesday this week! They should all be very proud of themselves for giving it a go and trying their best. Thank you to the whānau that were able to come out and support the kids and to everybody for supporting your kids.


Positive Behaviour for Learning

As part of our school-wide Positive Behaviour 4 Learning (PB4L) program, our focus this week has been learning about and using EMPATHY. Kahikatea learners have spent time discussing what empathy looks like, sounds mean tand feels like.

Dress Ups

As the weather is becoming colder we are finding ourselves taking part in a lot more indoor activities. One of our beloved activities is the dress ups. If you have any dress up costumes that you are no longer using please consider sending them our way. The kids would love some more options!

 

 

Upcoming Events:

Matariki Whānau Rōpū Hui

We would like to invite you to our first Whānau Rōpū hui of 2022. Matariki is the start of the Māori new year and a time of reflection, connection and planning for the year ahead. We would like to celebrate with you and your whānau on the 22nd of June from 5pm.

5:00pm - Welcome & Performance - Te Whānau Mahi Tahi

5:20pm - Move to hubs - Matariki activities

6:20pm - Return to hall - performance by Pōhutukawa and Kōwhai joint kapa haka rōpū

6:45pm - Hāngi (for those who have pre-ordered hāngi)

Nau mai, here mai. All Welcome!


The Christchurch Antarctic Centre

We are very excited to be visiting The Christchurch Antarctic Centre on Thursday, 23rd June.

 

Thank you to all those parent/whānau who have volunteered to assist. We now have sufficient numbers of parent/whānau helpers. Thanks everyone! 

 

Some important information:

  • Katie and Emma’s homegroups will be leaving school at 9am and will return by 12:15pm.

  • Please ensure that if your children are in Emma or Katie’s homegroups that they are at school on time on Thursday as we need to be boarding out buses at 9am.

  • Amber and Krystal’s home groups will be boarding their bus at 11.45am and returning to school by 3pm.

  • Please ensure that your child is dressed in their school uniform.

  • Please ensure that your child has a warm jacket/clothing.

  • Please ensure that your child has comfortable shoes.

 

Learning Conferences

Learning Conferences will be happening during the last week of Term 2, on Monday 4th and Wednesday 6th July, from 2:15pm - 6:30pm. To book your conference, go to http://www.schoolinterviews.co.nz/code/abad8

Reports will be available the week prior. Learning Conferences are an opportunity for you to meet with your child's home group teacher and discuss their progress and next steps.

 

Thank you for all of your support! That's all for now,

 

The Kahikatea Team

 

amber.donovan@beckenham.school.nz,  katie.mcfarlane@beckenham.school.nz, krystal.hunt@beckenham.school.nz, emma.hayes-smith@beckenham.school.nz

lisa.collier@beckenham.school.nz,




 Take a look throught this important social story all about our upcoming trip : 


Kahikatea News Term 2 Week 5

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 Kia ora e te whānau, 

We are halfway through the term already! We have been having a blast in the Kahikatea Hub, and we have some exciting events coming up soon for our tamariki.

Digital Tech with Kate

We have had the amazing opportunity of having Kate, from Digital Future Aotearoa, come and spend some time with small groups. She has been working on building tech and coding skills during our Wednesday Learning Through Play Sessions. Kate and the students have been working with Blue Bots and Spheros. Here are some lovely photos of the tamariki enjoying themselves. 


  





Positive Behaviour for Learning

As part of our school-wide Positive Behaviour 4 Learning (PB4L) program, we have been focusing on a Word of the Week. This week our word is KINDNESS, and all Kahikatea learners have spent time in their homegroups discussing what this words means to them and how they can demonstrate kindness.

Last week the word was RESPECT. Katie's homegroup produced some fantastic writing on what respect meant to them, and some students shared their writing with the students from Koru, Kahikatea and Kowhai during our Junior School Assembly last Friday. They did a wonderful job, and we were all very proud!



Mathematics Focus

This term, alongside our work on number, addition and subtraction, we have been focusing on problem solving during our mathematics lessons. We have been working on solving open-ended problems where there can be more than one solution. We have been working in groups, as well as independently, to solve these problems. Below is one of the problems that we have worked on. We used the visit from Bob Bickerton to form a real-life application to the problem.



Winter Clothing

As the weather starts to get colder, we are seeing lots of our tamariki dressed in lovely warm coats, jerseys, beanies and gloves. This is fantastic and it keeps them nice and warm. Please ensure that all items of your child's clothing are clearly named to assist in the event of an item being lost or misplaced.

Up coming Events:

Cross Country

Our Junior Cross Country is taking place on Tuesday June 14th. It is an event for students in New Entrants up to Year 4.

Some important points about the event:
  • parents are welcome to join us at this event on June 14th.
  • the afternoon will start at 1:00 p.m., with the oldest year group levels running first, on through to the New Entrants towards the end of the afternoon
  • practices will be taking place regularly between now and the Cross Country event: if you wish your child to be exempt from practices due to health reasons, please email your child's HG teacher as soon as possible to let them know
  • please send your child to school in appropriate footwear for daily running practices
  • please ensure that your child has their water bottle at school each day, including on the day of the event
  • children will be able to wear their house T-shirts on the day of the Cross Country
  • the postponement date for our Cross Country is Monday, June 20th.

The Christchurch Antarctic Centre

We are very excited to be visiting The Christchurch Antarctic Centre on the 23rd June. 
Thank you to all those parent/whanau who have volunteered to assist. We now have sufficient numbers of parent/whanau helpers. Thanks everyone! 

Katie and Emma's home groups will leave school at 9am and return by 12:15pm, and Amber and Krystal's home groups will leave school at 11:45am and return by 3pm.

Please ensure that your child is dressed in their school uniform and wear warm, comfortable footwear.


That's all for now,

The Kahikatea Team

amber.donovan@beckenham.school.nz,  katie.mcfarlane@beckenham.school.nz, krystal.hunt@beckenham.school.nz, emma.hayes-smith@beckenham.school.nz
lisa.collier@beckenham.school.nz,


 



















Kahikatea News Term 2 Week 3

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Kia ora e te whānau,

Here is the latest news from the Kahikatea team.


The Christchurch Antarctic Centre

The Kahikatea tamariki (children) and kaiako (teachers) are very excited to be heading to The Christchurch Antarctic Centre on Thursday 23rd June. The purpose of this trip is to consolidate the learning that our ākonga (learners) are doing this term around animal habitats.

Katie and Emma's home groups will leave school at 9am and return at 12:15pm, and Amber and Krystal's home groups will leave school at 11:45am and return at 3pm.

The curriculum achievement objectives that we are focusing on are...

Learners will...

- recognise that all living things have certain requirements so they can stay alive.

- recognise that living things are suited to their particular habitat


During our time at The Christchurch Antarctic Centre, the children will experience...

- a guided tour through the Antarctic Attraction and Penguin Encounter

- an 'Antarctic Storm' in the Snow and Ice Room

- a walk through the interactive gallery

- meeting some huskies


In order for this trip to go ahead, we require four parent helpers to come along per home group. You will be assigned a group of four to five children to supervise during the entirety of the trip.

Please email your child's home group teacher if you are able to help. 




Literacy in Kahikatea


We love literacy! Here is an example of how our timetable currently looks in regards to literacy. We will share more about maths and other learning areas in future blog posts, so check back in again soon!





That's all for now,

The Kahikatea Team

lisa.collier@beckenham.school.nz
katie.mcfarlane@beckenham.school.nz
krystal.hunt@beckenham.school.nz
emma.hayes-smith@beckenham.school.nz
amber.donovan@beckenham.school.nz


Team Kahikatea News Week 1 Term 2

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Welcome to Term 2 😃

It is wonderful to be able to welcome whanau into school grounds and for our school day to be returned to the usual 3pm. Thank you for continuing to follow our health and safety protocols and supporting your child/ren to do the same. We Get There Together!    

We are well into our learning programs and this week some children have a new literacy teacher. Please look in your child/childrens reading folder to find this HOME LEARNING notice: 

Kia ora e te Whānau,

Please find letter cards attached, for the stage your learner is working at in structured literacy. They can be cut up and put into the plastic bag and used at home. 

This is a copy of the Scope and Sequence your learner will be working through:

How can you help your child at home?

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

Ensure that your child is saying the ‘pure’ sound without an ‘uh’ sound on the end, for example, ‘lllll’ rather than ‘luh’. Please refer to a Youtube clip, The Sounds of New Zealand English (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SePU-T4S-js) for more information on the sound that matches each of the letters.

In your pack, you will have the letters for the current level. It is helpful to look at the Scope and Sequence above to also revise what has been taught prior. 

Letter-Sound Connections

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

Writing the letters: you say the sounds and your learner can write the letters. If they are not confident with this yet, let them copy the letter cards. They could write them on a whiteboard, on paper, or could even make their own flashcards.

‘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. As your child steps on each card they say 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.

Making words and non-words

Using the letters in the pack (and making cards for the letters taught prior), you can make CVC words (consonant, vowel, consonant). For example in stage 1, you could make words such as ‘map’, ‘tip’, ‘sit’. If you learner is feeling confident with this, try making some ‘non-words’- e.g. ‘mip’. This can be done as a reading task where you make the word/ non-word, and they read it, or they can build the word with the letters as you say it (e.g. “make the word sit”, and they select the ‘s’, ‘i’, ‘t’ from the letter pack). After your learner has built the word, they can also write it.  From stage 5, you can also focus on words with two consonants at the beginning or end e.g. slip, tilt

Practise decoding

When the decodable story books start to come home, your child will have already practised reading each book several times at school. The aim is for your child to be very confident as they read each text to you at home. If your learner does hesitate at any particular word, you could encourage and support them to segment and then blend the sounds in the word to decode that word. They could then re-read the sentence from the beginning to ensure fluency as they read. 

If you would like to learn more about Structured Literacy or the Science of Reading (as it is also called), a good place to start is the Little Learners Love Literacy website, littlelearnersloveliteracy.com.au, under the tab ‘Why Little Learners Love Literacy’.

Have fun with your children, as they learn the letter sounds and how to blend and segment them!


Health and Well-being

We still need you to let us know if any of our children test positive during the holidays, please.

If your child tests positive, please email me (principal@beckenham.school.nz) with their name, and the date they either started symptoms or tested positive. We will be forwarding numbers to the Ministry of Education through the holidays. 

If your child/children need to isloate at home do take a look at our  Learning at Home Page . It is being updated for Term 2 and will have new themes and activiites to explore. 


Up-coming Events

  • Cross Country (Year 0-4) DATE To Be Confirmed
  • Tuesday 10th May Te Ao o Taonga Puoro (The World of Singing Treasures) 
The performance features 20 different traditional Māori instruments including pākuru, kōhatu, tumutumu, pūrerehua, porotiti, hue puruhau, poi awhiowhio, kōauau ponga ihu, pūtōrino, kōauau, pōrutu, ororuarangi, nguru, pūtatara, pūpū harakeke, karanga ruru, karanga weka, karanga manu and pūkāea.
As well as demonstrating the instruments, discussing how to play them and inspiring students to make their own, the programme features a number of pūrākau (old stories) that give background stories to the taonga.

  • Thursday 23rd June Antartic Centre Visit
An opportunity to learn about the incredible Antartic environment and it's animals. More informtation regarding parent helpers will be sent home soon. 



Ma te wa, Team Kahikatea

amber.donovan@beckenham.school.nz

krystal.hunt@beckenham.school.nz

emma.hayes-smith@beckenham.school.nz

katie.mcfarlane@beckenham.school.nz




Kahikatea News Week 9 Term 1

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Kia ora koutou!

What a wonderful nine weeks we have had in team Kahikatea! We have been so proud of the hard work from all of the tamariki in our hub. Thank you for continuing to support us at this time, especially by keeping up to date with information being shared via HERO and by keeping your children at home when they are unwell.


A Week in the Life of a Kahikatea Learner

Below is an example of a typical week in the life of a Kahikatea learner. You may wish to talk about this with your child/ren. Some questions to prompt discussion could include:
- What is your favourite time of the day at school?
- Who do you enjoy playing with during morning tea and lunchtime?
- Which time of the day do you feel you learn the best? Why do you think this is?
- What is your favourite learning area? Why?
- What have you learned so far about being sustainable?
- What have you been learning in Structured Literacy?
- What have you been learning about during Maths?



Learning At Home

Here is the Learning at Home link for those of you who may need to use it. We are adding and updating our content every so often. This includes activities for Learning Through Play, Maths, and Literacy. If you child completes learning when at home, they can share what they have done via Seesaw. We would love to see the wonderful work that they are doing at home! If completing activities isn't achievable for any reason, then that is absolutely fine too.


Kinetic Letters Handwriting Programme

We have loved getting our Kinetic Handwriting lessons up and running. Thank you for the care that tamariki have shown Bounce and Skip when they come to your place for a sleepover. The excitement of the children when they get to take the monkeys home is delightful.





Sustainability

It has been wonderful to address our concept-based curriculum theme of Sustainability in Kahikatea in the past week. By the end of this term, all children would have had a lesson about taking care of our outdoor equipment, indoor equipment, water conservation, and how to reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Dolls

One of the most popular toys played with during Learning Through Play is our dolls. We are on the hunt for more dolls, furniture for the dolls house, etc. to build upon what we already have.


Reminders

Please name your child's lunchbox (including any small containers), drink bottle, sunhat, and school jersey. Please also remind your child/ren to please keep their shoes on at school. Children who do take their shoes off are encouraged to place them on one of the shoe racks in the hub and to put their socks inside their shoes.


Library

Amber and Krystals home groups go to the library on Tuesdays, and Katie and Emma's home groups go to the library on Thursdays. Please ensrue that you child has their library folder with them on their allocated day.








That's all for now! Thank you for your ongoing support. Please feel free to get in touch via your child's teacher via email anytime.

Team Kahikatea

amber.donovan@beckenham.school.nz
katie.mcfarlane@beckenham.school.nz
emma.hayes-smith@beckenham.school.nz
krystal.hunt@beckenham.school.nz
lisa.collier@beckenham.school.nz