Kia ora, e te whānau,
Category Archives: Koru
Koru Team news, Term 2 Week 3
Kia ora, e te whānau,
Koru Team:
This year Elizabeth and Stacey are co-Team Leaders for the Koru team. We currently have two home groups, Elizabeth and Stacey share a home group and Georgia is the teacher of the other home group. You will see Elizabeth at school; Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. You will see Stacey at school; Monday, Tuesday and Friday. Sonya is the Teaching Assistant for our Koru team. You also might see Megan and Nicola teaching in Koru too.
Koru team news, start of Term 2
Kia ora, e te whānau,
We hope you are all happy and healthy and had a lovely holiday break! It was such a treat to see all of those wide and happy smiles back at school this week. We would like to give an especially warm welcome to William, Eddie, Reinhold, Sylvia and Henri, who have all started school this week. What a wonderful job they are all doing settling in!
All of our tamariki have happily returned to the routines of school, and are enthusiastically embracing their learning. They have been doing a wonderful job in their Literacy and Maths lessons, and are putting lots of energy and enthusiasm into their Learning Through Play.
A reminder about routines:
- It's great if your child is able to independently carry their own bag into school, unpack it and put their lunch and drink bottle on the shelves
- Your child's Literacy folder needs to be returned to school every day, and put into their group Literacy box first thing each morning (children who were at school in Term 1 will already know which container is their group's container; new children will be helped with this by one of the teachers)
- On Fridays, your child will bring home both their poetry book and their library folder. Both these items need to be returned to school by the following Friday
- We ask that caregivers avoid bringing children in to school through the staff carpark, rather, if entering off Sandwich Road, please come in up near the flagpole or in through the gate down near the corner.
- If you would like your name and contact details to be added to our Koru Team Friendship List, please email Georgia your information by Wednesday, May 10th, and Georgia will update the list and share it on the Friday of that week
- Here is Georgia's email address: georgia.mckenna@beckenham.school.nz
- If your name is already on the list, please don't worry about contacting Georgia again.
- Gumboots (especially if wet)
- Rain coat
- Named water bottle
- Shoes, spare socks and change of clothes (in school bag)
Koru Team news, to the end of Term 1
Kia ora, e te whānau,
We trust that this finds you having had a very safe, happy and relaxing Easter break, and now part way into an equally safe and happy school holiday break.
Our heartfelt thanks to you all for the amazing support you have given your children and the staff throughout the first term this year. We appreciate every offer of help and support, both small and large!
Congratulations to the tamariki, who have had an amazing term, making impressive progress in their learning, including social and emotional as well as academic. This includes our little newbies, many of whom may have only had a few days at school, and who have all stepped into their new role as primary school learners, willingly embracing the challenges with positivity and enthusiasm.
For those of you who would like to view (or view again!) the Literacy videos we've shared over the past term, here are those valuable links once again, including those at the Stage 2 level:
- The Speech Sounds of New Zealand English
- Stage 1
- How you can help at home Stage 1
- Stage 2
- How you can help at home Stage 2
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Impressive focus being shown here! |
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"That will be $1:50, thank you." |
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Art and craft in the art space. |
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Beautiful, careful colouring! |
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Oh, my goodness - what's going to happen next? |
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At the vets. |
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At school, playing schools :) |
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Skip and Bounce will love this handwriting. |
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Great balancing in the next three photos. |
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Such wonderful focus and care being shown here. |
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The result of one of our Science experiments using dye and flowers... we followed the sequence: question, hypothesis, test, observe, discuss and conclude. |
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Playing one of Sonya's beautiful board games! |
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A favourite puppet. |
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My hand shape: traced around, coloured and trimmed. |
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What an amazing set up this team has created. |
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Animal dress up day - what a gorgeous little lion cub! |
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A cute little mouse showing great focus here. |
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A cheetah teams up with a unicorn. |
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Great physical skills on display! |
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Fun and games in the sandpit. |
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What a beautiful smile :) |
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Wonderful focus on display here. |
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An enthusiastic member of the jigsaw puzzle team. |
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We love books... |
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... and numbers! |
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All dressed up, having made a selection from the dress up box. |
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Scone-making photos from our final day of Term 1... |
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Koru Team News, Term 1 Week 5
Kia ora, e te whānau,
We hope you have all had a lovely week. In the Koru hub, we have had a very busy week, as we continue with our small group Maths and Literacy learning. The children are doing a great job adjusting to the routines, following expectations, and trying really hard with their learning. They have been absolute superstars!
This week, we welcome Annabelle and Ariana, who started in the Koru Team in Week 4, and Archie, Alex and Violet who started in the Koru team this week. You have all settled really well into the routines and have done a great job at following instructions, making friends, and trying new things. Ka pai, tamariki!
We also welcome back Georgia and Nicola into our Koru teaching team! Nicola will be in for Stacey, generally on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, for the remainder of Term 1. Georgia has started back full-time, as more children join the Koru team and will be here Monday to Friday.
Friendship List:
We have decided to extend our Friendship List date until Wednesday, 8th March. If you have not already, please email Georgia (georgia.mckenna@beckenham.school.nz) with your details if you wish to be on this list. This is a great way to get in contact with other whānau to arrange play dates.
Word of the week:
The word of the week this week has been 'Respect'. In the Koru team, we have discussed what respect means, how we can show respect to others, how we can respect our classroom equipment, and why respect is really important in order to develop trust in the relationships you have with others. If you wanted to discuss our word of the week further, you could chat with your child about what showing respect might look like at home, during your weekend activities, and in different environments.
House games:
This week, we had our first House Games. House Games involve the whole school and are when the children play different games with other children in the same house. House Games are run by the house captains and deputy house captains. There were lots of different activities that the tamariki tried, and the senior leaders did a great job at running these activities. Our tamariki showed "We Love Challenge", "We Love Learning", and "We Get There Together", through being engaged with the activities, listening to the leaders, persevering and giving the activities a great go, trying their best, and most importantly, having FUN!
Structured Literacy:
We have continued in our small groups, during Structured Literacy time, to learn new letter sounds at Stage 1. Each time a new sound is learnt, your child will be bringing home a few letter sounds to practise at home and these letter sets will be added to, as the children progress. These can be used to practise the pure sounds the letters make and then once children have learnt segmenting and blending skills, they can then use these skills to segment and blend the sounds together to form words.
You may also notice some Heart Words in your child's sound pack. Our Heart Words are words that cannot be sounded out, simply need to be learned 'by heart' and when the children are at home, can be used to practise reading and writing. Once children are proficient in segmenting and blending the first 8 sounds together, and know the first five heart words, they will start bringing home decodable books to read with you at home.
Here at school, we have recorded some videos to support our whānau with understanding what our literacy stages look like and what you can do to support your learner at home.
Click on the links below to access videos at Stage 1.
Awesome teamwork!
- Please do remember that our staff carpark is an area through which vehicles will be moving throughout the day, especially at the Hangere end of the carpark, where cars and vans are frequently either dropping off at or picking up from the Ferndale unit; we ask you to please enter and exit the school grounds through the gates at either Eastern Terrace near the public toilets, at the corner of Eastern Terrace and Sandwich Road or near our school flagpole on Sandwich Road. You might also come into our courtyard area from Beckenham Park. Thank you very much for supporting us with the safety of all around our school
- Please ensure your child's Literacy folder comes back each day. This is extremely important, as our tamariki are adding new sounds and heart words to their sound pack so they can practise their new learning at home, and when their folder is not at school they are unable to take their new cards home
- Please do ensure that your child's library folder and poetry book are packed and returned to school for Fridays each week. These items can be returned earlier in the week, however if they're not at school for use on Fridays, this can be disappointing for children, especially if they're unable to get new library books out for the weekend and the week ahead.