Category Archives: Kauri

Looking ahead at term 3 in the Intermediate Hub.

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It is great to be underway with another fun-filled term of learning in the Intermediate Hub. The children have made a great start to the term this week.

Speeches
We have leapt into speech writing this week, after Jarred led a motivation on writing and presenting a storytelling speech. The children have four weeks to write, and practise the presentation of their speech. Please encourage them to share their writing with you at home. Because the focus is on storytelling, use of voice, gesture and expression is very important, so the more time spent practising and learning the speech, the better. Speeches will be presented to home-groups in week 5. The team competition (six Year 7s and six Year 8s) will be on Monday August 29 and the zone competition, against local schools, will be on Monday September 5th in the evening (one Year 7 and one Year 8). Our school competition will be judged by someone from the Court Theatre.
Jarred used the 'story chairs' activity to show the children how to create a story.

Treaty of Waitangi
For the first three weeks of term 3, Sharon Tipene is running New Zealand History workshops with our hub. Sharon is a primary school teacher and a Treaty of Waitangi and New Zealand history educator. Each home group will have six one and a half hour sessions with Sharon. We are very lucky to have such an experienced and knowledgeable teacher working with us.

Sharon introduced props to signify important parts of NZ history.
Cantamath
Term 3 heralds the start of Cantamath season. This involves various projects and competitions.
Jarred and Nicky’s maths groups are working on Cantamath projects for home learning. These are due on Friday of week 2. Projects that are of a very high quality will go through to the Canatmath competition at Horncastle Arena on Wednesday August 24th. All children should be well underway with their project by now. We are more than happy to support children with ideas and advice. They just need to ask.
On the Monday afternoon of week 3, we will be holding our Becamath (group problem solving) Competition. All children will be competing in mixed ability groups of 4 from each home-group.
A squad of capable mathematicians, will meet during lunchtimes and possibly before school to hone their problem solving skills. From this squad, our Cantamath teams will be selected, comprising of four Year 7s and four Year 8s. They will compete at Cantamath on Wednesday August 24th between 4pm and 6pm.  

Ski trip
Our ski trip to Mt Hutt is coming up on Thursday August 18th. We now have enough skiing parent helpers, however we need a non skiing parent to help out at the base of the ski area, keeping an eye on kids who need a break and supporting where necessary. Please email Nicky if you would be happy to do this. This week the children learnt about appropriate clothing for a mountain environment. They will have one more session to learn about ski equipment, so that they are well prepared for a day of fun and learning on the slopes. The cost of this trip is $50, however with profits from our soup fundraising, we hope to reduce this cost. We will confirm this by the start of week 3. The charge includes lift pass, lesson and ski hire (including a helmet). Many thanks to the PTA for funding the bus trip. On Thursday we sent out a form for you to complete so that we can ensure every child is suitably clothed and equipped for this mountain experience. Here is the link to this form if you have yet to complete it.

We played 'dress the invisible skiers' to reinforce sensible clothing choices for a mountain environment.
Arts academies
Every year the Kauri Hub enjoys celebrating the performing arts by creating and presenting a Beckenham flavoured production. Unlike the shopping centres, we will not being celebrating Christmas in October, but will be building up to the joyous season over term three and four. This year we will be decking the halls and wishing everyone tidings of good joy, in ‘A Very Kauri Christmas’. The students will decide how they would like to contribute to our performance by signing up to one of our Arts Academies: acting/singing, dance, or wearable arts.

Swimming
Learning to swim is an essential survival skill, especially for us, living on an island. It is part of the New Zealand Curriculum – ‘it is expected that all students will have had opportunities to learn basic aquatics skills by the end of year 6’. Since the earthquake and the loss of our pool, we have been unable to offer as many aquatic learning opportunities for all students in Year 5 – 8 as we would have liked to. We are very aware that water safety is a topical issue, with many water-related fatalities occurring over the last summer.
To this end, we have arranged swimming lessons for all students in Year 5 – 8 at Aquagym for this term. Each student will have 8 swimming lessons, over two weeks, in weeks 6 and 7 (Monday 29 August - Friday 9 September). The students will be bused to and from Aquagym (459 Cashel St, Linwood) for their half hour lesson.
The Year 7 – 8 whānau will be split into two groups of 40 students, with one group having their lesson from 9 – 9:30am (with their bus leaving school at 8:30am), and the other group having their lesson from 9:30 – 10am (leaving school at 9:00am). The children have been organised into two groups, taking into consideration music lessons and being able to arrive at school by 8:30am.  Each group will then be split into smaller ability groups, so they are being taught at their level.

The overall cost of these 8 lessons plus transport is $85 per student. With 200 children involved, this is a total cost of $17,000. A request for your contribution will be added to your school account. If you don’t already have an automatic payment set up, you may like to contact Audrey or Jacky in the office, to enable you to budget for this.

Korfball
The Kauri Hub Korfball team, the Beckenham Guards, are scheduled to take part in their third interschool competition at Pioneer Stadium on Monday 15th August. We have been very successful at previous tournaments, with a second and third placing, and are excited to continue improving and giving our all! The team will be confirmed by Friday 5th August, and permission slips will be sent home.   

Asia awareness
The students in the Kauri Hub have been lucky enough to be given the opportunity to receive external tuition from a Chinese educator from the Confucius Institute based at the University of Canterbury.  As part of a school wide Asia awareness initiative, we will experience many aspects of Chinese language and culture, on a weekly basis throughout term three, starting in week four.

Talent quest
On Friday 23 September (the last Friday of this term) we will be holding the Beckenham Talent Quest at school. It will be held from 1:30 - 3pm in the school hall. There are three categories: Year 1-4, Years 5-6 and Years 7-8. The students are signing up for the talent quest at the moment, and then auditions will be held in week 6. Three acts will be selected for the final in week 9. We have such a talented group of students in Kauri this year, it will be a hard job just selecting three finalists. Good luck to all the students who intend to participate.

Week 9 Update

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Our choir performed at the South Music festival tonight and they were fabulous. A big congratulations to Jarred and the choir. All of that hard work paid off; we were so proud of you all. A special well done to the talented comperes and beautiful soloists.








This Thursday is our Showcase evening for Year 5 - 8. All children performing need to be at school, in the hall, by 6:50pm. Groups performing are: Te Whanau Mahi Tahi, the choir, Jarred's Passion Friday drama group and the Friday youth band. Ailie and Oakley will be our comperes and Marco and Lennox will be managing the tech support. There will also be groups from Year 5 & 6 performing, as well as a video about Year 7 & 8. All families are most welcome to join us for what promises to be an entertaining evening.

Science Fair is occupying lots of our time at school at the moment. It was reassuring to hear many children have completed their experiments at home. If you have not seen your child working on their experiment at home, please ask questions and encourage them to get busy on this today. Display boards, which are being worked on at school, need to be finished by Thursday.

Ski Trip: On Thursday August 18th (week 4), we will all be at school bright and early (6:45am), ready to jump on the buses and head up to Mt Hutt, for an awesome day of fun and learning on the slopes. For this day to happen, we need the support of parent helpers. Please click on this link if you are interested in joining us for the day.

Week 7 Update

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Week 7! Hard to believe, but we have three and a half weeks left of this term. Here are some important messages for this week.

Korfball: A huge well done to our korfball team who came third in the Christchurch competition at Cowles Stadium on Monday. They did so well, only losing one game. A special congratulations to Jaxon, who was named in the tournament team.


World Vision Famine: It was great to hear about the children's experiences of doing the 20 or 40 hour famine over the weekend. Please encourage your child to collect in their sponsorship money as quickly as possible.

Science: We are in the midst of science fair projects. By now your child should have their question sorted, research underway and maybe a hypothesis written. We are focusing on the paperwork and research at school, while the actual experiment needs to be undertaken at home. If your child needs equipment such as test tubes, beakers, thermometers, wires etc, they need to e-mail their home-group teacher, so these can be sorted.  The children need to take lots of photos of their experiment at different stages and save these photos in their google drive, so they can access them at school. Many thanks to those of you who are supporting your child with their learning at home. Experiments should be happening this week and next.  Note that the experiment may need to be repeated several times to get reliable data.

Showcase: Our Showcase evening is just over two weeks away on Thursday June 30th. The choir, Te Whanau Mahi Tahi, the drama passion group and some band musicians will be performing that evening. All children and their families are welcome to attend. 

Passion Friday Foodies: If your child is in this group, they should have consulted with you about the ingredients they need to bring to make their dessert this Friday. 

Creating gourmet pizzas last Friday. 

Clocks get their first layer of papier mache.

Taping the clock box together.


Week 5 Update

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Science Fair Projects: Over the past four weeks we have been scoping the topic of energy with the children in science. We have looked at different types of energy, how energy can transform from one form to another, renewable and non-renewable energy, and yesterday we had a visit from Eugene, an energy efficiency engineer.

Yesterday we introduced the idea of science fair projects to the children and they started browsing selected websites for ideas on which to base their projects. Please ask your child to show you their science fair document in Google Classroom, which has the outline of the process they will be working through. Here is a youtube clip which explains the process; start it at 2:50. This week their goal is to decide on a topic, a focus question and a hypothesis. It is really important that their questions is specific and something that can be measured and tested through an experiment. We will be looking at this in class on Wednesday or Thursday. Your support with discussion and ideas at home would be very much appreciated. This is an individual project. While we will be working with the children on their projects at school each week, we expect them to be putting in some time at home as well. We will update you each week on where they should be up to.

Writing: This is the final week to work on recount writing. The majority of the children are well underway and we are impressed with the quality of their writing. This writing needs to be finished by Thursday. Please ask your child to show you their writing and encourage them to work on this at home if required, so that they can have this completed on time. Each child will have 60 - 90 minutes of writing time over Wednesday and Thursday.

Sport: During the week, most children have lunchtime sports practices. If these are on the field, they will need to have a spare set of clothing to change into for this practice. Please remind your child to be prepared for this. On Friday when we travel for winter sport, every child must have a drink bottle. If they don't they don't go. Last week we had several children without drink bottles. All children should have water bottles in their buckets, so this shouldn't be an issue. Please check your child is prepared with a drink bottle at school.

Choir: Last week notices were sent home about purchasing tickets for the South Zone Music Festival on June 28th. If you have any queries about this, please contact Jarred. jarred.skelton@beckenham.school.nz

20/40 Hour Famine: It is less that two weeks until the Famine weekend. If your child has signed up for this, please encourage them to keep going with their collecting of sponsors, so that they can make a difference for the refugees in Syria.

Staff Student Netball Match: On Monday the Year 8s challenged to the staff to a game of netball. While the students had speed on their side, the staff had the height advantage. This time the game went to the staff. The students are already plotting their next challenge.







Looking great in our new basketball uniforms. The Beckenham Blazers are a very enthusiastic team, who are improving their game each week.

The Beckenham Ballers have had a great start to their season, with two wins so far.

Where are we going?

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Writing Motivation: What an epic time we had at the Margaret Mahy Playground on Monday. Thanks to the slightly inclement weather, we practically had the place to ourselves. The children had a blast! Lots of good experiences to draw on for writing over the next couple of weeks. The task will be to write about a memorable activity / event that the child has been involved in recently. It could be Monday's outing, or it could be something else that was memorable. Brainstorming and planning happens on Tuesday and writing will begin on Wednesday. Talking about experiences at home would be really helpful. The exemplar is copied below the photos.





































Tracy's exemplar:
Success Criteria:
  • Writing is in chronological order
  • Write in the past tense
  • Include strong verbs
  • Use first or third person
  • Include details to add interest to reader
  • Use time connectives; next, meanwhile, within hours, soon afterwards
  • Link the conclusion to the introduction

It didn’t matter that the sun wasn’t shining. Who cared? Golden rays of sunshine were not necessary for this exciting activity that the Inwood family was about to embark on. As the speed boat motored out across the undulating blue expanse, smiles on dials reflected the feeling of the whanau.

After half an hour, Sam, their driver, signalled that they had reached their destination. On the surface, nothing indicated the treasure trove they were about to discover below.

Donning the necessary equipment, Kate was ready first, and gracefully slipped over the side of the vessel into the ocean. Jonny and Phil quickly followed suit, leaving Tracy struggling with her floppy flippers. Minutes later, Tracy joined her family overboard. However, as she swam towards her husband, she felt a prickling sensation on her arms. It felt like she was being shocked by hundreds of tiny electric currents. Alarmed, she called out to Phil, who reassured her that she was swimming through a swarm of pesky sea lice, and that further ahead the water was fine.

Meanwhile, Kate and Jonny had powered ahead, and all that could be seen of them were their blue snorkels poking out of the sea like submarine periscopes. They had discovered the coral reef, and were gleefully exploring the underwater garden, pointing out wonders to each other. Blue starfished extended their spiny arms, hiding ineffectively. Transparent, black striped fish darted by, very close to the surface. A deadly black and white banded sea snake slithered peacefully over the sandy bottom, keeping to itself. It was almost impossible to track the multitude of colourful fish, floating lazily or swimming with purpose through the coral reef.

An hour snuck by, and soon the underwater spectators were being recalled to the boat by Sam. It was a quick dash through the stinging lice to reach safety. Clambering aboard, flopping onto the deck like seals, everyone stripped off their snorkel gear, ready to continue with the adventure of the day.

When you visit Fiji, it would be wrong not to go snorkelling. Combining the silent peacefulness of being underwater, with the close proximity of so many beautiful fish, is truly uplifting. Flying freely among such stunning marine animals is an experience not to be missed!