Kia ora Koutou
He mihi mahana ki a koutou katoa,
What a wonderful start to Term 4 we have had!  Hopefully, the weather will start to improve soon and we can enjoy consistently sunny days.

Our Kete Values and Tokens

Calendar Art

This week all the calendar art orders arrived and were sent home.  If you have any queries regarding your order please contact the PTA at pta@beckenham.school.nz
Ngā tamariki artwork is now displayed in the hub. Beautiful!

Calm Space

Sharing our talents

Erina brought along her Cello for us to see and gave a lovely impromptu show.

Sun Hats

During Terms 1 and 4, the expectation is that everyone is to wear a sunhat. We require everyone to wear hats that shade the face, neck, and ears, whenever the children are outside and involved in school activities. Hats must be broad-brimmed (min. 7.5 cm), or legionnaire/bucket hats (min. 6 cm brim, deep crown). These hats provide significant protection to the eyes. If a child does not have a hat at school, they will be asked to stay in an allocated shaded area.

Boxes for craft and construction

Athletics

Our School Athletics will take place on Monday 4th November.  Ngā tamariki are practicing their running, jumping and throwing. Team Kahikatea students will start our rotations at 11:50am, after having an early brain break snack, and we will finish the day after lunch with fun sprints and the annual House Teams relay.  As ngā tamariki will be out on the field for the duration of the rotations, could you please apply sunblock to your child/children before arriving at school.  We will have sunblock at school to reapply if needed.
After physical activity ngā tamariki often have a larger appetite so please supply a larger lunch on the day as well as a named drink bottle for them to take with them to their rotations.

Kia ora Whānau

Thank you for all of your help and support over the term.

He waka eke noa - this is a canoe we are all in together, and we only keeping it moving by paddling together!

South Library Trip
We had a fantastic time exploring innovation and technology at South Library. We used Beebots, Scratch, undertook a library tour and saw a 3D printer operating! Scratch is a free app. It will be key in helping our students learn early programming skills, in line with the new Digital Literacy curriculum. 

Look at these little readers!

Look what you can make with a 3D printer! Wow!

Watching the magic

Bee Bot Fun

Scratch Junior

Scratch Junior

Keep NZ Beautiful Week
We have picked up rubbish galore this week! We know that the rubbish in our local environment can easily blow into rivers and gutters, and out to sea. We encourage everyone in our community to make a difference by picking up the rubbish they see (even if it wasn't theirs!).

Mental Health Week
We learnt more about Te Whare Tapa Whā and the four (now five!) areas of wellbeing. See here for useful information and lots of ideas for working on your own wellbeing at home. 







Connecting with Community
Holidays are a perfect time for connecting with each other, and your local community. Some options: 
* The CCC Libraries have a number of interesting events and workshops for children.
* The Breeze Walking Festival includes free walks....check out the Gruffalo Exploration!
* Local planting and clean-up days are advertised on the Canterbury Enviro Calendar.

' We are proud to have students who have given up talent show to march in the Climate Change Rally. Here are one family, getting ready to set off.

Our Korero Corner this week.

Games, books and activities

Can you recognize these shapes? Can you name them in Maori? Can you name the parts of your tinana (body)?

We are currently working with our Resource Teacher of Literacy to best target the reading needs of a number of our students. Through observations, we have noticed that some of our readers have not yet made the firm connection between letters and sounds (the alphabetic code).
This is an essential skill for learning to read. We are therefore strongly focusing on letter-sound relationships during reading lessons with some of our children who need it. In order to reinforce the connection we are using decodable texts. Almost every word in these books can be sounded out if unknown. As the books are not rich in vocabulary or sentence structure, it would be very beneficial if you could read to your child to continue to expose them to age appropriate language.
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask.
Other games and activities that would help your child make letter-sound connections are: 
I-Spy (using the letter sound and the letter name)
Snap or Memory using the words from the books on small cards
Play 'name 3 things' that start with/end with...
Our glue stick supply is running very low. If you have a glue stick at home please send to school for our tamariki to use. These will be gratefully received!
We have been super impressed by the amazing performances by our tamariki. Look at these gorgeous kids...

Kia ora Whanau,

Over the last 3 weeks Lisa and Amber have been running practices for students who are interested in being in the Talent Show. These have been during lunchtime and some afternoons.

This week we have 2 lunchtime rehearsals scheduled: in the hall on Monday and again on Friday. If your child has a costume, please send it to school with them on Friday.

By the end of this week Lisa and Amber need to select 3 (groups and/or individuals) to perform at the school Talent Show on Friday 27 September 1.40 to 2.45pm.

Kind thanks for all your support and inquiries regarding this event. If you have any further questions, please get in contact with Amber or Lisa.

amber.donovan@beckenham.school.nz
lisa.griffith@beckenham.school.nz

Arohanui,
Team Kahikatea.