Kia ora i te whānau,

The chilly start to winter at Beckenham te Kura hasn't stopped the tamariki from having fun and exciting days of learning.
The frenzy of interest at learning how to skip during Discovery, has kept many children physically and mentally challenged. What an amazing improvement has occurred with regular practice and perseverance.
Other interests across the hub have been rich with creativity, especially at the Creation Station. Thank you to the parents who regularly contribute bits and bobs for this area. It is amazing what creative minds can create from boxes and empty containers!
With Kōmanawa fully open now, tamariki have enjoyed exploring their new learning space. During Discovery, there are three places to choose from now, Pūkaki, Kōmanawa and the courtyard in front of Kōmanawa.

We look forward to learning and transition conferences with you and your child  next week.



















Ka kite,

Jo, Stacey, Elizabeth and Kristika

Kia ora i te whānau,

We are continuing to make the most of working and playing both outdoors and indoors, as the balmy weather persists.

Long rope skipping: working as a team.

Expert skippers take flight!

Literacy in Learning Through Play:
Our Learning Through Play photos focus on portraying the children as they engage in literacy-based activities. Reading and writing in a play setting ensures that the literacy learning is absolutely authentic in relation to that situation. The Literacy, in such situations, is driven by the children and represents a need that has presented itself in the play.

The children love playing 'schools' (Yes! They come to school, and 'play' schools!) and at one point in the game, the question was posed: " Can we have our own modelling book, please?"

A part of playing schools: practising handwriting...

...and reading.

The children requested their own visual timetable, which they then trimmed and laminated for their own whiteboard easel.

Here we are, awarding house points!

A Focus on Respect:
As a whole school, we have been putting even more of an emphasis on 'respect', beginning 2 or 3 weeks ago. We asked our children in Koru, what this word means, what it might look like, and what being respectful might sound like too. We have discussed who and what we need to show respect towards. Here are some of the thoughts that the children have come up with:

• Tidy as your go (showing respect for our learning environment)
• Be polite and use good manners (showing respect for self and others)
• Be kind and caring (showing respect towards others)
• Work and play quietly indoors (showing respect towards others)
• Be helpful towards others (showing respect towards others)
• Be caring towards, and with, our resources (showing respect for our environment)

Showing respect for our environment

Jacinda visits Beckenham:
What a treat we all had at Beckenham last Thursday, when Jacinda came to visit us. She actually came in order to meet and speak with Lucy Gray, one of our wonderful Year 8 students, and our Strike 4 Climate organiser, and we were all lucky enough to be present when Jacinda arrived, and was introduced to us all by Lucy. You may well have read the full article about Lucy, and her hopes and dreams for our planet, in The Press yesterday.  Our Koru children were incredibly lucky, because they were invited to sit at the very front of the area where Jacinda and Lucy were going to stand. The children all showed Jacinda their brightest smiles and most sparkling eyes (this, they practised beforehand!). Unfortunately in these photos you can't see the smiles or the eyes, but you may recognise the backs of some heads...


Maths Problem Solving:
The children are working extremely well as they challenge themselves and are challenged, at Maths problem solving time (or DMIC, which is the acronym for Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities). During this part of the day, we always place a big emphasis on our 'groups norms'. Our group norms are the ideas the children came up with at the start of the year, being those behaviours and attitudes which they believe they would need to display if they were going to be doing their best learning. Some of these behaviours include:

• smile at your buddy
• use your buddy's name when you are speaking to him or her
• help your buddy to understand
• be kind and caring
• take turns and share
• ask your buddy a question if you don't understand.

Two buddies smiling at each other!

A great way of solving a tricky subtraction problem.

Alex and Chester showed that this same problem could be written as an addition equation.

Kiko and Natsune used the 100s board to help, as they went about solving the problem together...

...and here is their recording.

Handwriting:
We love handwriting time! The children show amazing focus and always put in impressive effort, under the watchful gaze of Bounce and Skip. We begin with finger strength and dexterity exercises, then we move on to practising picking the pen up and ensuring that our grip on the pen is correct, before beginning our letter formation practice. We are very proud of the children's beautiful work, and the progress that they are making in this area of their learning.
















Ka kite koutou. We hope you have a wonderful week.
Ngā mihi mahana,
Jo, Stacey, Kristika and Elizabeth

Welcome back to Term 2.
We are called the Koru Team. We are Year 0 and 1 children.

On Monday we had our school cross country fun run. The tamariki were amazing! There were lots of excited children who managed to finish their run with a smile on their face. A big thanks to everyone who came to watch and support our runners.

The children showed all our school values at the cross country:

We love learning - we were learning movement skills and about giving things a go.
We get there together - we cheer each other on and encourage everyone to do their best.
We care - we congratulated everyone not only the people who came first.
We love challenge - we kept trying even if it was tough
We make a difference - we chose a positive mindset. We did it!

Kia ora, whānau,

It's almost impossible to believe that here we are in the final week of term! The children have had a marvellous term together, getting to know each other, their teachers and developing their understanding of our routines and expectations in relation to play and learning at school.

We wish you all the very best for a relaxing and safe holiday with your families. Further on toward the end of this post, you will find some links to Youtube clips which might be fun to use with your children at home over the next few weeks. Some clips relate to Numeracy, some to Literacy and we'll also have a couple of links to songs about kindness and well-being.

Art Gallery outing:
Thank you so much to those parents who were able to accompany us to the Art Gallery recently. We really appreciated your support. The children had a wonderful time and have enjoyed completing their art works in class over recent days. Check out our very own gallery of art works on display in the hub.




















Once again, our sincere thanks for your support with this outing!

The Three Billy Goats Gruff:
This has proven to be a motivating and inspiring provocation over the past two weeks, and has prompted much role play, creativity, and some very inspired bridge building. The children have worked together and problem-solved, and this has required negotiation and persistence to achieve some fascinating outcomes.










When We Were Very Young:
Thank you all for sending in the extremely cute and endearing photos of your children when they were little. The children are currently engaged in writing about themselves when they were young, including the funny, cute and adventurous things they used to do. Keep an eye out for their published writing from this week.
Also, a reminder that Friday is favourite baby toy day. The children will have a chance to share their toys and tell their friends about why this particular toy became their favourite. You could help at home by discussing this with your child, in advance of Friday.

Friendship List:
Please add a tick beside your child's name if you would like other families to have your contact details, particularly for organising play dates over the holidays. We'll have a list attached to the whiteboard tomorrow, and will be sending contact details home with the children on Friday.

Handy Links for holiday learning:

• Subitise with Jack Hartman
• The Big Numbers Song
• Counting Down From 20
• Jolly phonics alphabet plus digraphs
• Nothing Like a Good Friend
• Kindness Is Free

We hope you have a great holiday, everyone!

Ngā mihi mahana,
Jo, Stacey, Elizabeth and Kristika

Learning to read is lots of fun! Our reading programme includes reading to children, reading with children and reading by children.

It is wonderful that reading folders are coming to school every day and the children are doing a great job putting them in the correct group box before school. Having your reading folder at school every day also ensures children can read their books both at school and home. Rereading familiar texts provides children with reading 'mileage', and helps enormously in the development of fluency, phrasing and expression.

Our guided reading groups enjoy their books together most days. This provides opportunities for children to learn the skills of what good readers do, like learning to decode unknown words, learning letter sounds and blends, making predictions about what might happen next, having great discussions about the books and asking questions.

In writing, we start with shared writing. This is when we plan and construct writing together. The teacher models and talks through the process of constructing a text. The children contribute their own ideas throughout this process. This provides a supportive setting to model the process of writing, focus on letters, words, and letter-sound relationships, model strategies for checking and improving and demonstrate the use of a range of forms and structures in written language.

There are opportunities in a guided writing group for children to try writing independently, to learn to write high frequency words, and to play literacy games together.