Kia ora e te whanau,

We're are really looking forward to seeing you all again on Monday! It's been such a long time. A special, warm welcome to all of the children, who are going to be starting school with us this week.

We're also welcoming Sophie Mulligan, who is our new teacher in the Koru team. Sophie will be the Home Group teacher for our newest children. We are so lucky to have you, Sophie, and all of the children are going to love getting to know you, and work with you this term.



See you at the flagpole:
Children, on Monday, Jo will be waiting at the flagpole to meet you, so once you arrive at school with your parent, you can give them a big kiss and a hug goodbye there. Jo will then make sure that Elizabeth picks you up and then helps you with your bag, and finding a cubby hole when you reach the veranda.
Parents, if you have to come on site for any reason during the day, there is a requirement that you sign a Contact Register, so please report to the school office for that. This includes any whānau who are bringing or collecting children for their school visits. Before leaving, please make sure that you sign out.

Please, if you haven't already seen this little video clip on Seesaw, view the Welcome Back to School video below, with your children. It's better to watch this clip, and the following clips, in full screen (click bottom right).

Here, also, are the two videos which Sandy sent out via our school newsletter yesterday.


A few little 'housekeeping' items:

• please ensure that your child brings a named drink bottle to school every day, and this drink bottle needs to be taken home and cleaned again every day after school 
• If your child has an older sibling here at school, it's absolutely fine for that brother or sister to bring their younger sibling to the veranda each morning, if that helps with the daily drop off
• a reminder that for our Koru children, they will be ready to be picked up at the flagpole each day at 2:45 p.m. Once again, if you have an older child at school, or if your child is booked into BOSCO, then the school day will finish at 3:00 p.m., and they will wait in the hub until this time
• our handwashing and hand sanitising routines have been very clearly outlined in Ministries of Health and Education guidelines. Please let your child's Home Group teacher know if your child has a reaction to hand sanitiser, and we shall ensure that they wash their hands rather than use hand sanitiser.

Our theme for next week:
You may have heard on our little video clip that we're going to be having a 'Superhero' theme next week. This will culminate in a 'dress up' day on Friday, so your children can be thinking about what they might like to wear on Friday. This can be as simple as a handtowel for a cape, or alternatively, as complex as your child wishes to make it!

We trust you all have a wonderful weekend, and we're really looking forward to seeing all of the wee ones on Monday!

Ngā mihi mahana,
Jo, Stacey, Sophie and Elizabeth

Kia ora e te whānau,

We are all so proud of you all. What you are doing for Learning at Home is impressive. Through Seesaw posts, phone calls and emails we know you are doing your best.

Our Seesaw interactions show us that you have been very busy. We love seeing what you have been doing, so please keep sharing via Seesaw.



Sharing our learning
This week we also shared some of the student work with the team. Have a look for this post on Seesaw, if you haven't already, and see what your teammates have been up to.

We can see many of you have been working with numbers to 10, learning your alphabet letters and sounds, learning your sight words and reading Sunshine Online. Ka Pai tamariki.

Koru Learning at Home web page
From next week our Koru Learning at Home page will look a little different. The same information will be available but will be displayed differently. We hope this will make it easier to find what you are looking for.

Welcome Assembly
Below is a link to the Term 2, 2020 Welcome Assembly. This assembly is a chance to welcome all the children who started part way through Term 1 until this week. A wee hint: it will be easier to watch the assembly if you adjust it to fullscreen.




For those who may be interested in a Lego competition
Junior Neighbourhood Support Canterbury challenges you to…
Make a Stop Motion Lego Movie!
You can use lego or other toys to share one part of your Covid-19 isolation time. Some ideas for the experience to share include (but are not limited to):
Keeping 2m away
Going to the supermarket
Staying at home
Leaving the house for exercise
Easter or ANZAC Day 2020

Send your entries to jns@canterburyns.net before Level 2 ends and we’ll put them into a movie that everyone can watch.

If you need some help getting started with Stop Motion, have a look at https://www.instructables.com/id/Stop-Motion-Animation-for-Kids/

Top quality colouring here.

What a very cool wee desk and chair set up!

Cloud dough, made from cornflour and hair conditioner - this looks very therapeutic...

What wonderful creativity and construction skills - does this character have a name?

More creative construction skills being displayed here! Does this character have a name, we wonder?

Beautiful Easter egg colouring for the window; a lovely soft toy line up for our national teddy bear hunt; and chalk-drawn games for passers-by - oh, what fun!

More creativity and construction, here combined with Science, to result in this electric car - fabulous skills!

The family night walk around the neighbourhood - what a cool idea.

An ice cream shop! Wonderful thinking...

"Oh, I'll have that delicious-looking chocolate ice cream, please!"

What an incredible amount of hard work went into this puppet show. Wouldn't we all love to know the story that goes with these characters?

Mmmmm... what could possibly be in that bowl? Yum, yum, yum.

A Mad Hatters' Tea Party - oh, what fun!

Up a ladder and helping with papier mache...

...early days in teaching the exuberant puppy to sit calmly while the cryptic crossword is underway.

Kia ora,

We hope you are all doing well in your 'bubble'. The teachers have been relaxing this week through baking, art, reading and taking walks or biking, applying the physical distance rule, around the local area.



There are some lovely autumn colours to see on the walk around the neighbourhood.




Wow! We have loved seeing the creativity and fun that has been happening during the first week of the holidays.

Thank you to our tamariki who shared a photo with us. We hope you enjoy seeing what your teammates have been up to.


We will do another post after Easter, so please, send in your favourite photo from the second week of the holiday, by Monday 13th April.

Elizabeth's email address: elizabethgail.drummond@beckenham.school.nz
Jo's email address: jo.smith@beckenham.school.nz

Kia ora, dear tamariki and whānau in the Koru team,

We wanted to check in on you all, and find out how you're doing, and what you've been up to.

We hope you all had a great first day of the holidays yesterday, albeit a day spent, no doubt, mostly indoors because of the miserable weather. Didn't that just make today's glorious weather even more so, though?!

Jo's been fitting in lots of yoga, and who's that there on either side, with their own little yoga mats set up?!

How cute is that?