Kia ora, e te whānau,

What a lovely first week back at school, following the holidays! The children, as always happens after a holiday break, have loved reconnecting with teachers and friends. We warmly welcome our new children and their whānau: Ana, Asher, Ava, Aya, Charlie, Ethan, Finn, Poppy and Rome. It's wonderful to have you all at school with us, and well done to all for settling so beautifully into school life. 

A very warm welcome also to our new children, and their whānau, who joined us towards the end of last term - Finley and Freddie. It is so lovely to have these children in the hub with us as well. They too have both settled in beautifully and our 'golden oldies' have been really amazing at making everyone feel very welcome.

Nut-free lunches, please:

A reminder that in the Koru team we are nut-free. We recognise that some children may have dietary requirements which mean that nuts do need to be included in some lunchboxes, however we do ask that, as far as possible, your children's lunchboxes remain nut-free. This also includes coconut. Many thanks for your support with this.

Our school-wide 'Word of the Week':

Your children may have discussed with you that each week at Beckenham te Kura o Pūroto, throughout the school we have a 'Word of the Week', which, in the Koru team, is embraced by one and all, and guides our Learning Through Play. Our 'Word of the Week' last week was 'upstander'. An upstander is 'a person who speaks or acts in support of an individual or cause, particularly someone who intervenes on behalf of a person who may have been hurt by someone else.' An upstander is the opposite of a bystander.

Coming up, we have other such 'Words of the Week' as: honesty (which will be our focus throughout the week ahead), inclusion, respect, kindness, resilience, empathy, determination and cooperation. These concepts are so important for our wee ones, and we are always incredibly impressed with the way the children put these words into practice, as well as reflect on and discuss specific instances of their use.

Hats required:

Most children are remembering their hats each day, and are doing very well with looking after their hats when indoors. We are asking the children to keep their hats in their bags while they are inside. This way, the children should, in theory, always know where their hats are!

The week that was:

Don't you just love numbers?! Ready and awaiting their next number challenge!

On some days, the sandpit is definitely the place to be! Check out the collaborative and problem-solving skills on display in these photos.

Dolls for sale!

Practising for Athletics Day: the gumboot throw requires a fine combination of skill and style, as you will see in the photos that follow.

We look forward to seeing as many family members as possible at our Athletics Day on Wednesday. Please note that the Koru team children will be participating in their events from the start of the school day through to the morning tea break at 10:30 a.m. It's crucial that your children have sunblock applied before they arrive at school and that they have their hats and named water bottles. 

Please note that we have sunblock at school in the hubs, if, on any morning, you would like to apply more sunblock or perhaps have run out at home.

We do trust that you've all had a wonderful long weekend with your families, and we look forward to those wide smiles and sparkling eyes at school again in the morning.

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,

Elizabeth, Georgia, Nicola, Tracey and Stacey

 Kia ora e te whānau,

We hope you are all having a lovely weekend together with your families! We have been very busy in the Koru team over the past fortnight: 

• we've had some very exciting new outdoor equipment arrive, and the children have been having fun experimenting with its use
• we've had two fun Learning Through Play themes: 'Puppets' and 'Shops' 
• and the children are continuing to make great progress in their Literacy and Maths learning! Thank you so much for your support with this at home - it makes such an enormous difference. 

We would like to say a very warm welcome to Finley who started school last week. It is so lovely to have Finley in the hub with us. He has settled in beautifully, and our 'Golden Oldies' have made him feel very welcome and at home. 

Word of the Week: Throughout the year, each week we have a school-wide 'Word of the Week'. Some of our focus words this term, have included: Determination, Empathy, Resilience, Respect, and Kindness. This week we have been focusing on Co-operation. We have been discussing and reflecting on what our play and relationships will look like, sound like, and feel like when co-operation is being incorporated into what we say and do. You'll see some impressive examples of cooperation in the photos below! We encourage you to talk with your children about these values and to ask them what they believe each of these words means.

Learning Through Play: During each school day, our tamariki are involved in Learning through Play activities incorporating different social competencies, all while the children are engaged in play. This can involve:

• improving social skills, such as turn-taking, sharing, negotiating, and ensuring that things remain fair
• being aware of the use of our school kete values in the classroom environment
• learning new tricks and skills, as well as being inventive, with the outdoor equipment 
• role playing within some of the different play areas like the family corner, the puppet theatre and the shops display, and 
• learning how to work together with others and practise the skills needed to work collaboratively and to be a team player. 

We also have different themes to help spark interest in the Learning Through Play. Throughout Term 3, our themes have included: obstacle courses, cafes, vets, puppets, and shops. These themes have provided tamariki with endless opportunities and new ideas for their play. In the photos below, you will see how creative and imaginative our tamariki are. The children have been very creative in their use of the new outdoor equipment which has arrived.

Disco: On Friday afternoon, we had our school disco. What a fun time the children all had practising their dance moves and enjoying spending time with friends and having a boogie! We loved seeing them in their amazing and beautiful disco outfits. Here are photos of some of our tamariki at the disco!

We hope you are all having a safe, happy, and relaxing long weekend and we can't wait to see you all back at school on Tuesday!

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,

Georgia, Elizabeth, Nicola, Stacey and Jeanette

 Kia ora koutou,

We hope that this finds you at the end of a lovely weekend with your families, and we look forward to seeing your wee ones with their beautiful, wide smiles, tomorrow morning!

Our focus in this post is on Maths, and in particular on the Maths strand area of Probability. In the first week of the previous fortnight, we focused on developing the language of probability, introducing such terms as 'always', 'perhaps', 'certain', 'possible', 'impossible', 'will', 'might', 'won't', 'will', 'maybe', 'never', 'yes', 'no'. The context for this learning took the form of familiar stories such as Little Red Riding Hood, The Gingerbread Man, Cinderella and Maui Catches the Sun, and the children were asked such questions as 'Do you think Little Red Riding Hood will see a tree on the way to Grandma's house?' and 'Do you think Red Riding Hood will see a hedgehog in the forest?' 

Whatever the children's decisions, they were always asked to justify their thinking.

During the second week, we learnt more about probability by playing card games, such as Memory, using sets of animal cards (including various numbers of animals, at the most, ten cats, ten dogs, six mice and one pig). As we played the games, we thought about how likely it is for 'an event' to happen, for example, 'What are the chances of picking up two cats as opposed to picking up two dogs?' The children were asked to think about such questions as:

• What card do you think you will turn over next? (given the cards that have already been turned over)
• Why do you think that?
• Which cards do you think will be last?
• Which are the hardest pairs to find?
• Which are the easiest pairs to find?

In this game, Feeding Greedy Cat, which cat will get the most fish, the blue cat or the red cat?

Was there a lucky colour in your game?

In this game, was it better to be in the team collecting the same cards or the team collecting the different cards?

Which card do you think you'll turn up next? And why do you think that?

Is it certain, possible or impossible for Cinderella to see a hot air balloon on her way to the palace?

Will the gingerbread man always, possibly or never see a tractor on his way to the river?

What are the chances that the first card you turn over is a dog? Why do you think that?

Which card will you choose to turn over next?

Which are the hardest pairs to find? Which are the easiest pairs to find?

Are you collecting pairs that are the same or pairs that are different? Is it better to collect pairs that are the same or pairs that are different?

Which coloured cat is going to get the most fish?

Is there a 'lucky' colour? Was the same colour 'lucky' every time you played the game? Our Probability focus gave the children an in-depth look at uncertainty and chance, in a variety of situations. They were given the opportunity to acknowledge and anticipate possible outcomes, always justifying their thinking each step of the way. What a lot of fun we had in Maths throughout this last fortnight! ...and one final message - many thanks to you for the continuing support you are giving your children with their learning, by helping them to practise their heart words, their sound cards and their reading at home with you. The difference this makes is invaluable and we certainly appreciate it enormously. All best for the week ahead! Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou, Elizabeth, Georgia, Nicola, Stacey and Jeanette

 Kia ora, e te whanau,

This term is whizzing by! Can you believe we are halfway through Term 3 already?

It was great fun seeing all the children and teachers dressed up for Book Character Dress Up Day on Friday of Week 4. There were some amazing costumes!

Each week our kura has a 'Word of the Week', which is a focus across all teams. This week's word is 'kindness'. Throughout the week, we have lots of discussions about what the word means and how we can demonstrate the word in and out of the classroom. We love seeing how the children are displaying the word of the week throughout the day, and how they use the word to describe situations that happen during their play. It's always so neat hearing our learners use previous 'words of the week' in their explanations and discussions with teachers and peers too. Next week's 'Word of the Week' is 'resilience'.

We hope you are all having a lovely weekend together, and we look forward to the week ahead. 

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,

Georgia, Elizabeth, Nicola, Stacey and Jeanette

Kia ora, e te whanau,

We hope you and your whanau are happy and healthy, and braving these cold days. Our first three weeks back in Term 3 have been very busy ones! All of our newbies have settled in really well, and we love seeing the smiling faces on all our tamariki at drop off times in the morning, as they say their happy goodbyes. We appreciate your support in helping your children to independently carry their school bags, and unpack their bags when they arrive at school in the morning. They are doing a great job at following their other routines of: putting their lunchboxes and drink bottles on the shelf; putting their literacy folders in the correct boxes; and putting their library folders into their homegroup boxes. 

A special request: We love and appreciate the support and helpfulness of our parent helpers. Thank you again to everyone who has helped out this term! It has made our activities and events run much smoother, so thank you. We have a special request to any parents who would be willing to help with cleaning some handwriting whiteboards for us. We have received some new whiteboards and are wanting to give our old ones a 'spruce up'. This wouldn't take long, so if you are interested, would you please email your child's home group teacher to let them know? Ka rawe - it would be great!

Friendship List: It is that time year again, where we are sending out an updated version of our friendship list. For our new parents, this is a list with contact details of other whānau, so that you can arrange playdates and catch ups between the tamariki in our Koru hub. If you would like to be on this list, or are unsure if you are already on it, please email your child's home group teacher, including both the email and contact number you would like to have added to the list. We are hoping to have this sent out by the end of Week 5 (26th August), so would you please let us know by Wednesday, 24th August, as to whether you would like to be on the list. 

Structured Literacy:

This week's blog post has a Structured Literacy theme. Thank you all so much for your support with your child, helping them to practise their sounds, their heart words and any of the books which come home in their Literacy folders. We just love to see the support you're providing at home, as it is definitely making a large impact on the progress the children are making: 'We Get There Together'! 

For the whanau of those children who have just started, Structured Literacy is a teaching approach which teaches tamariki about the pure sounds of letters, and then using this grapheme-phoneme knowledge to decode words (segmenting and blending sounds in a word), leading on to reading sentences in books. Children also learn a selection of heart words (words that cannot be sounded out and have to be learnt by heart). Your child's Literacy folder will contain some sound cards and heart words, and as the children progress and learn new sounds and heart words, your child's set will be added to. These sound cards can be used to help children to practise their sounds, and as a next step, you might join letter cards together to form consonant-vowel-consonant words which children can use to practise blending the sounds together to form words like 'cat', 'map', etc. 

Once tamariki are proficient in segmenting and blending their first 8 sounds, and they know all of their first 5 heart words, they will then be given decodable books to bring home with them, so they can practise their reading from school at home when reading with you. The ability to segment and blend sounds together is a key skill to have when decoding words, and is important in your child's success. Once these skills have been accomplished, it is so exciting to see the children's progress flourish and develop. 

Another great task to do at home with your tamariki, once they are confident with their sounds, is getting them to write their sounds, heart words, and the sounds they hear in words. This is the next step for our learners, and something we are practising in our lessons at school.  

We do lots of different and amazing activities to help with children with their literacy learning. This includes activities like Sound Swap, sounding out and blending activities, grab and read games, writing practice, reading word cards, using 'Move it, Say it' boards to decode words, using magnets to make words and then writing them underneath on the whiteboards, and so many more, to extend the learning of these skills in different ways. 

If you have any questions about our Literacy program, please feel free to email your child's home group teacher. Also, a final reminder to please make sure your child's literacy folder comes back to school every day, with both their sound packs and books inside, as these are used in lessons the following day. 

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,

Georgia, Elizabeth, Nicola, Stacey and Jeanette