We will be spending lots of time revising and checking we know all our letter sounds next week. Here is what you can do at home to practise letter sounds:
* Make a letter poster e.g. create a 'g' page with cut out pictures / drawings of things that start with g
* Point to a word in your child's home reading book. Ask them, 'what is this sound? What is the letter name'?
* Have fun with our phonics song. Kiwi Kids Phonics Song
* Using junk mail or magazines, practise finding letters. Ask your child, 'what sound does this letter make?'
* Play eye spy
* See our 'home learning' page on this blog for more ideas
NOTE: we talk with the children about some letters making more than one sound.
e.g. c makes 'cat' and 'city';    g makes 'goat' and 'giant'




Welcome to new starters




Come and see our published writing in class. You can leave us a comment on our work!

    

Footsteps Dance Group
We were lucky to have footsteps dance group show us a fun superhero song with actions during the week. We also had a session on feelings with the Group. During this, we discussed our feelings and made feeling faces. 




Mutukaroa Learning Conferences

Alphabet Ideas
Team Koru  currently have a big focus on building on our alphabet knowledge (this includes the letter names and the letter sound). It would be fantastic if you could support this at home.You could do this by;

• Using the packs that you would have received from Rowena through the Mutukaroa Programme. 
• When your child is writing their name, talk about what letters make up their name.
• Get your child to help write shopping lists and talk about the sounds that go with letters.

Contact Information and Cyber Safety form
If you have not handed in your 'Contact Details' sheet or 'Cyber Safety' form yet, please hand this into the office next week.


Word Pack
You would have received a 'Word Pack' from Rowena, please practice a few of these each night adding in a few more as your child gets to know some words. It is important to keep reviewing words until they are mastered.Your Mutukaroa learning pack also has a list of games to support learning these words in a fun way e.g. The Ladder game and the Slap game. If you have not received this pack  yet, it will be given to you at your child's learning conference. If your child started at the end of last year and has lost this pack please see your child's 'Point of Contact Teacher' so they can organise you another pack.

Team Koru News
Just letting you know that we will be sending out a fortnightly newsletter via a blog update.  Please make sure you check this so you know what has been happening and be aware of future events.
Please check the Notices Board  (in the entrance to Hub 10/11) daily as we use this to convey any important messages.

River of Flowers
On Monday the 22nd February Hub 10 & 11 participated in the chalk river of flowers to remember the people who passed away in the earthquake 5 years ago. The children demonstrated great respect and worked well together  during this activity.  We were also very proud of them during our whole school and community remembrance gathering on the field.  The children are a credit to all of you.
Most of these children have only been at school a few weeks.

Getting there together

Welcome & Reminders

Discovery Sessions

We have been focusing on two of our school values, 'WE CARE' and 'WE GET THERE TOGETHER'.  In hub 10-11, we have been playing lots of name games and doing various buddy activities to show we get there together (photos below). We will have our first WHARE TIME where our New Entrant students will work with older buddies from across the school and teachers, and complete various 'get to know you' activities.

Some of the children working in buddies for maths:
  
  


Ideas for maths at home http://koru.beckenham.school.nz/p/cool-maths-links.html


Some of the children working in buddies for whare time on Friday:
 


We have been showing 'We Care' by putting our materials and bags away, and using kind words. We are very good at looking out for and buddying up with each other in the playground too!


    

Literacy

In hub 13 during maths time we have been learning to solve addition problems up to 10 using materials. In these photos, we are tracing around our hands to make a template and show our working for a particular equation this way. Some of the children are starting to use imaging by holding their hand behind their backs and counting fingers without looking and others are working in their heads and then verbally explaining their thinking.