Kia ora e te whānau,

As we start to get to the end of term 4, we look back on and celebrate the awesome year we have had in the Koru team! The tamariki have settled into school beautifully, formed wonderful connections with their peers, and have adjusted well to school life. These last few weeks of term will be rather busy, but full of lots of fun!

We welcome Jasper, Kanoa, Olena, and Max who have started over the last few weeks, to our Koru team. They have all made a positive and happy start to school! Well done, tamariki!

Life Education

This blog post is focused on our time in the Life Education classroom that we have had over the past few weeks. We had two sessions which focussed on Big Emotions and the Qualities of a Good Friend. In these sessions, our tamariki met Harold the giraffe, and spent time with Helly, the educator in the special Life Education van. In our Big Emotions session, our tamariki learnt about the different emotions we feel and some strategies we can implement to try to move out of being in a 'stuck' feeling back into a 'stay' feeling. In our Qualities of a Good Friend session, our tamariki focused on "growing" a friend, and discussing the different attributes a good friend needs. We also heard some funny jokes from Harold, as well as having an awesome Disco party to finish our last session. 

The sessions were really enriching and engaging for our tamariki. Below are some photos of our time in the Life Education classroom.

Reminders:

• Our last day for school this year is Tuesday 17th December. School will finish at 12:30p.m. on this day.
• Reports have gone out on Hero, so please check this out if you have not done so already. A reminder not all children will be receiving an end of year report. 
• We're loving this warmer weather! Thank you so much for sending your children to school with sunblock and their hats. Remember - no hats, no play!

 Kia ora, e te whānau,

We have all been enjoying these warm days and the opportunity to spend some of our Learning Through Play sessions playing outside. There has been lots of activity in the sandpit, a favourite this week has been excavating ponds and filling them with water from the outside tap. You may have noticed some sandy shoes coming home! As the weather continues to warm up we will be involving more water play during Learning Through Play, so please make sure your child has a change of clothes in their school bag, incase they do get a bit wet when playing.

Cyber Safety

During the afternoons in week 3 (last week), we completed a unit on Cyber Safety. This unit focused on sharing personal information online and thinking about what kind of people we can trust when sharing our personal details online. We followed Hector the Dolphin, and his friends, as they navigated their way through some different online situations. During week 6 we will continue with Cyber Safety with the focus on understanding that their emotions can be a powerful tool to assess unsafe situations, the importance of checking with an adult before going online, and being open about their online experiences with a trusted adult.

Life Education

We enjoyed our first visit to meet Harold in the Life Education classroom this week. This weeks session was on Big Emotions, learning that all emotions are important but we don't want to get stuck in some emotions for too long. After we identified some different emotions and how they make us feel, Helly the Educator, in the van, showed us a few things we could do to try to move out of being in a 'stuck' feeling back into a 'stay' feeling. More information about the second lesson (next week) and some photos will be in our next blog.

We have a couple of short weeks coming up:

• Next Friday, 15th November, is Canterbury Anniversary Day
• Monday 18th November is a Staff Only Day so school will be closed to students 

Kia ora, e te whānau,

A very warm welcome back to our fourth and final term of the 2024 school year. We especially welcome the families of the new children to our Koru team: Atlas, Isabella, Oliver, Ruby, Remy and Johnny. They've all made a lovely, positive start to school. Well done, tamariki!

Routines:

All children have embraced our routines and have fallen back into the swing of things with impressive ease. Earlier in the year, the children helped to develop our Learning Through Play guidelines, as follows:

• Use gentle hands and gentle feet
• Treat everyone with kindness and care
• Use quiet inside voices
• Tidy as you go
• Follow instructions quickly and quietly
• Be part of the team at tidy up time
• Don't tip everything out of a container, just take what you need (unless it's a jigsaw puzzle!).

These guidelines were the children's ideas and we revisited them at the start of this term, just as a reminder, and also so that our new children would be familiar with them. 

Other routines, which the children have embraced once again, include: unpacking their bags when they arrive at school in the morning, including putting their Literacy folder in the right container; remembering their poetry books and library folders on Friday; lining up after break times; 'showing five' whenever they are sitting on the mat; and following the expectations in their small Literacy group lessons (sitting up, chair pulled in, focusing on the learning and 'whiteboards are for writing, not drawing').

Friendship list:

Georgia will, once again, be sending out an invitation to those of you who would like to have your details added to our Friendship List, so please keep an eye out for an email about this.

Term Overview:

We have a very busy term ahead of us. Some of the topics that we'll be focusing on include:

• our school-wide focus areas (including How We Play, Moving Inside, Speaking and Listening and Tidying)
• our Word of the Week continues (including Being an Upstander, Honesty, Inclusion, Showing Respect, Friendship and Determination, along with several other key values)
• Life Education (with a focus on friendship - further details in the next Blog post)
• Cyber Safety (and again with further details to come)

 Kia ora e te whānau,

Wow we have reached the end of Term 3! What an awesome term it has been! We asked the tamariki what their highlights from this term have been and they said:

• "Learning everything"
• "Being in Kōmanawa"
• "When you come in and the teachers say a warm welcome"
• "Coming to school"
• "Playing with my friends"
• "Having lovely teachers"
• "Everyone being kind to everyone"
• "Bounce and Skip Handwriting"

• Karawhuia - Give it heaps!
• Wananei - Wicked!
• Kia tau - Relax
• Ka mau te wehi - That's amazing!
• Nāu āno i mahi - You did it!

Here are some photos of what are tamariki have been up to lately:

Reminders for Term 4:

• Sunhats: In Term 4, children need their sunhats every day. If these are not brought to school, your child will stay under the veranda in the shade during Little and Big play. These will be kept in your child's bag and taken home and bought back each day. Thanks for your help with this!
• Sunscreen: Please apply sunscreen to your child before coming to school if you wish for them to wear this. We will have a bottle in the hub for children to reapply throughout the day if needed. If your child needs their own sunscreen, this can be bought to school in a named bottle, and will be kept on the teaching station. 
• Lunchboxes: Please ensure for next term your child is only bringing water to school (no juice or other drinks). We would also love if we can refrain from having lollies/candy in your child's lunchboxes as well. It is important to help teach your child how to open and close their lunch boxes, so they can do this independently at the start and end of eating times. It would also be amazing if you could either pre-cut or teach your child how to open packets in their lunchboxes (for example potato sticks, chip bags, twisty yoghurt pouches, muesli bars etc.) Thank you for your help in this!
• Literacy Folders: Please bring these back every day
• Library Folders and Poetry Books: These are needed on Fridays for our new poems, and also so that new library books can be issued. 
• Changes to contact details - If there has been any change to your contact details, or those of the emergency person you have for your child, please advise the office so they can be updated.

We hope you all have a fabulous, safe, and relaxing school holidays, and we can't wait to see you all refreshed for a wonderful Term 4!

 Kia ora, e te whānau,

A very warm welcome to Alex, Dante and Harry who have joined our team recently. You've made a wonderful start to school, tamariki - well done!

Preschool visits - On Fridays we have been welcoming visits from some of our local preschools. This is a great chance for some of our tamariki to see their past teachers and friends from preschool. The children just love showing their preschool friends around the hub and playing with them again! Their teachers also enjoy seeing how they have settled into school.

Word of the Week - Each week our kura has a school-wide Word of the Week. This weeks word is Determination. The Word of the Week is introduced each day in the daily notices and often there will be a story or short video clip to demonstrate the word in action. These words show us how we can live our school values. We have great discussions about the word and talk about the various ways we can demonstrate the word during our day. Each word is revisited each term so the children get to know them well and can identify ways they, and others, can show the word. Next weeks Word of the Week is Cooperation. Other words we use are, upstander, honesty, inclusion, kindness, respect, resilience, friendship, and responsibility.

Calendar Art -You might have noticed the very cute calendar artwork has been finished and is on display in the hubs. If your child is in Georgia's or Elizabeth's Home Group you will be able to purchase their artwork either as a calendar, a notebook, a mouse pad, or a pack of greeting cards. These make great gifts for relatives! This is a PTA fundraiser. Keep a look out for the order form coming home soon. 

Sunhats - A little heads up as we move into some sunnier weather, it is compulsory for all children to wear a hat in Terms 1 and 4 when outside at school. These can be plain black or red, in either a wide brimmed style, or bucket hat. They can be purchased from Mainland Uniforms or other clothing retailers. Please send these to school clearly named.

Changes to contact details - If there has been any change to your contact details, or those of the emergency person you have for your child, please advise the office so they can be updated.

Staying Safe Online Scams - People in New Zealand are losing millions of dollars to scammers each year - and this is just the figures reported to Netsafe so the actual figure is likely much higher! It's important that you and your tamarilki know what to look out for to avoid scams. Netsafe have put their best advice together to help you stay safe online and stay away from scams.
Read their scam tips here. 

Look at our great little set ups using different equipment in the classroom.

We have been enjoying the beautiful spring weather outside...