Kia ora, e te whānau,

Welcome to our Week 7 news, and isn't it hard to believe that we're over half way through Term 2 now?! 

We're loving hearing your tamariki complement each other as they notice our school values being put into practice by their friends, throughout their days at school. We even hear gorgeous stories about this taking place at home too! Tino pai, tamariki - you're awesome! 

The children continue to put impressive effort into their learning across all curriculum areas. Our Literacy programme in the Koru team includes: small group reading and writing (individual letters, heart words, short words at their level, and then leading to short and gradually longer sentences), shared writing (whole class), handwriting, phonemic awareness, Narrative Intervention and a weekly library visit.

Some of the following links have been shared in previous posts, however they're well worth resharing, for new families as well as a reminder for the families of children who started in Term 1:

• The Sounds of New Zealand English
• How to Help at Home
• Stage 1 
• Stage 2 
• Stage 3 
• Stage 4 
• Stage 4+ 

What’s coming up:

• Junior Park Explorers: June 18th (Hooray, and thank you so much to those of you who have offered to help. We really appreciate that!)
• Reports shared: June 19th
• Learning Conferences: June 23rd and 24th

Congratulations and thank you:

We would like to acknowledge our very own Izzy Sepie, who recently amazed us all by single-handedly raising a very large sum of money in response to Cade's request for support for those families who might be struggling to provide food, stationery and/or uniforms for their tamariki. Izzy's response to this request for help was to hold her very own bake stall, and all of the money she raised, she donated to the fund which the school holds to support these families.

Izzy, you're a superstar and we say, "Thank you!" Tino pai tou mahi.

Photo Gallery:

Koru Team News 2026

Term 2, Week 5

Kia Ora e te Whānau, 

This week we welcomed 3 new children, and their whānau, to our hub. It's great to have you part of our team! 

Thank you so much for helping your learner bring back their literacy folder each day! We have been loving hearing about all the practice they are doing at home with their soundpack, practising their heart words, and sounds, and then blending them to make little words!! Ka pai!!

Kinetic Letters

Kinetic Letters is the name of the handwriting programme we follow here at Te Kura o Pūroto. Each letter of the alphabet is grouped according to how we form the letter. We then practise the letters as a group. We start with the Jumper family where each of the letters, m, n, h, b, r, p,  start with a down, bump back up, push over. Our focus for the next few weeks is the abracadabra family of letters, c, o, a, d, g, q, s. These letters all begin with a magic c, pull around and push along the ground. Bounce and Skip are part of this programme and they help us to focus on our handwriting and remind us where the letters start. Are they a Bounce letter (start at Bounce's branch, top of the line) or are they a Skip letter (start at Skip's branch, half way up)? Bounce and Skip love watching the children practise their handwriting and often find it difficult to choose someone to have a sleepover with. We love seeing what adventures they get up to when they come to your house for a sleepover!!

 Kia Ora e te Whānau, 

It has been an exciting start to Term 2! We have quite a few new faces who have joined the hub in the last three weeks. It has been so nice seeing the children come together as a hub in their learning and play.  

Cross Country 

Last Friday, we had our whole-school cross-country. The Koru children showed our school value of 'We Love Challenge' when they gave it their best go and ran all the way around the park. The Koru teachers were so impressed and proud of everyone giving it a go. 

Inquiry Topic 

Our focus for this term is based on the Social Science curriculum, specifically Geography. We have started our learning close to home, looking at our school environment and what makes our place special. As the term progresses, we will move our lens wider to more of our city, island and then country. This week we learnt about our school logo, our full school name and the cultural narrative of our school.

Cultural Narrative 

Coming Up This Term: 

Friday 15th May - Book Character Dress Up Day - Children may come to school dressed as their favourite book character. 

Friday 29th May - Staff Only Day - School will be closed.

Monday 1st June - King's Birthday Holiday

Have a wonderful weekend, 

Kendall, Nicola, Elizabeth and Stacey

Koru Team News - Term 2, Week 1 

Maths in Term 2

This term, our Y0-2 ākonga (learners) are using Numicon equipment to support their maths learning. Numicon uses equipment which helps make numbers visible (see) and tactile (touch/use), allowing learners to see how numbers are composed (made up of), how they fit together and how they relate to each other.

The ākonga (learners) have been wonderfully engaged in these Numicon sessions. They have been highly motivated to complete the daily activities, explain their thinking mathematically and use their maths vocabulary.

Below are photos of our learners:

Koru Team News - Term 1, Week 8 

Kia Ora E Te Whānau, 

We have almost come to the end of our first term together. Your tamariki have come so far and learnt so much in such a short space of time. Learning a new routine and becoming settled in the school day timetable is a big transition, and they have all done this so confidently. 

Below you will find some more insights into our school day, some important dates for Term 2 and a few links at the end you may like to use during the holidays with your child. 

Kapa Haka

Whāea Cath is coming to visit us every other Friday for Kapa Haka. Last week, we learnt a new karakia and the actions that go with it. Then we sang some songs while Cath played her guitar. These were old favourites for some of us and brand new for others. Cath brought her little kiwi friend to meet us while we sang a song about kiwis. 

Maths

Our focus this week has been on measurement. We have used Gingerbread People to help use mathematical vocabulary and skills such as compare, taller, longer and shorter. We also ordered objects by their length using the vocabulary shortest and tallest. 

Inquiry - Kotahitanga

We have focused on how we use and show our school value 'we care' for the last two weeks. One of our favourite activities was musical hoops. As Kendall and Nicola took away more hoops, we had to think about how we could show 'we care' to make sure no one was left out when there weren't enough for us to have our own. 

Student Teacher 

Holiday Links 

As this is our last blog post for the term, we would like to thank you all for a wonderful first term. We have loved getting to know you and your children. 

Ngā Mihi, 

Nicola, Elizabeth and Kendall