Category Archives: Kowhai

Kōwhai News Week 9 Term 4

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Hi everyone,

Well, it's hard to believe that we are nearly at the end of the term with only one week to go! Here is the important info for the week ahead.

School of Gymnastics
Image result for gymnastics image clip artWe are off to the Christchurch School of Gymnastics on Tuesday. We still need parent help for this trip - 2 parent helpers per group. We will be going in 3 groups and the children will be in mixed groups. If you are able to parent help, please email Mike at:  mike.matulewicz@beckenham.school.nz
He will let you know what group your child is in and what time you will be needed. Each group session will be 2hrs in duration.

Talent Quest
We are having the school talent quest finals on Friday from 1.30pm-3pm. If your child is in the final, you are most welcome to attend.

Discovery Items Wanted
We are wanting some donations to support our Discovery learning in the morning.
We would LOVE any donations of:
* WOODWORK TOOLS- small hammers, nails, screwdrivers, wood etc.
* CROCKERY- cups, saucers, plates, cutlery etc.
* PEGS- crocodile style
* TOYS- any old or broken toys that the children can dismantle and make into new toys
* PIPES- any pipes, spouting etc.

Stationery
Many children need to replenish some of their stationery items. Please ask your child if they need to replenish any items, especially pens/pencils, whiteboard markers or glue sticks.

That's about all for now.
Have a wonderful weekend ahead.



Kōwhai News Wk7 T3

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Hi everyone,

We have had a busy couple of weeks with some fantastic learning happening across the hub.
Yesterday saw us having the auditions for the school talent quest which is being held in the last week of the term. We were so impressed with how many children expressed an interest in participating in this event.
The finalists have now been chosen for the school talent quest and they are:

  • George, Will, Harvey, Quinn, Fergus and Tahere performing the Duck Song
  • Emma Vaile, Lilian and Alyssa performing a gymnastics routine
  • Xanthe, Ella Thomas, Keira Ryder, Isla Chapman, Layla McCallum, Bailee Green and Briar performing "Hall of Fame" through dance and singing

Congratulations to all those who took part, displaying our school values, 'We love challenge', 'We make a difference' and 'We get there together'.

Discovery
Each morning we begin with our Discovery programme. This time provides the children with the opportunity to explore wonderings and curiosities. This week, there have been many children challenging themselves with new learning, from learning how to braid, creating 3D shapes with cardboard, drawing, building intricate models with Lego and even completing engineering challenges.
This time allows the children to problem solve, work alongside each other and to acquire new skills in the process. Here are some of the children in action:



 Gymnastics
This week we have begun our gymnastics unit. Each Monday afternoon, the children participate in a variety of gymnastics activities. We are wanting the children to develop their balance, coordination, rotation and the ability to perform a sequence of movements with control.







Literacy / Inquiry
As part of our Inquiry learning into sustainability, the children in Paulette and Anna's literacy group are going to be creating tracking tunnels as a way of identifying some of the animals that are inhabiting our school grounds. We would love to have any plastic bottles (milk/soft drink), plastic card, heavy cardboard, plastic sheeting (plastic drop cloths, PVC sheets), sponges, peanut butter, wood, cardboard boxes that could be used to construct a tracking tunnel.
The children will analyse the data they collect and use this to make any changes to ensure our school environment is sustainable for all wildlife.

Conservation Week
Next week is Keep NZ beautiful week. As a school, we are having a focus on the school surroundings and have been given an area to keep clean for the week. In our team, we are also going to be looking at our waste production and our goal is to reduce the amount of waste that we create each week. We are going to see if having smaller rubbish bins will help us to make less waste. You might like to take this time to see if there are any small changes that you might be able to make as a family. It has been great to see so many children using the wax wraps that are being sold by the PTA.

Pioneer Miniball
At this stage, we will only be able to enter in 2 teams to the Pioneer Miniball competition which is held after school on Wednesdays and Thursdays. If you are keen/able to coach, please let Paulette know ASAP so we know the number of teams that we can enter. Later this coming week, an email will be sent out with all the information about how to enter your child.

Parent Help - Reading
We would still love the help of another 2 parents to listen to children read each week. If you are able to help out, then we would LOVE to hear from you. This only needs to be for 1/2 an hour and it can be at any time of the day! Please email or see your home group teacher if you can help out.

Donations
We would love to have some donations of cups, saucers, plates, blankets, sheets, pegs or old toys ( they can be broken) for use at discovery time.
We will have a box in the hub and one in the office for you to put them in. The children will love using these for their learning.

Well, that's all for this week.
Kowhai Teaching Team








Kōwhai News Term 3 Week 4/5

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Here is the latest news from Kōwhai Team!

Parent Help Reading
We would LOVE the help of 1-2 parents each day to listen to children read. At the moment there are a few children that require some extra support. Having some parents to come in and listen to children read would greatly help their fluency and give the children some much-needed reading milage. If you are keen to help us please send us an email or pop in and see your point of contact teacher. This would only be for 20-30minutes and can happen at any time during the day! We look forward to hearing from you!


 Readathon
Readathon cards have been sent home and hopefully your child is all ready to go! The goal is for every child to read for 14 days consecutively. Each child has decided on a length of time that suits their ability and committments at home. 
All the money raised will go towards our outdoor spaces. We thank the PTA very much for having this focus and for organising events like this that will eventually provide fantastic outdoor areas in which our tamariki will be able to play and learn.
Miniball
We would love to offer the children in our team the opportunity to participate in mini ball at Pioneer next term.  For this to happen, we would need the assistance of parents who would be able to coach the team (teams of 8-9- they are 5 aside games). In the past, we have been able to enter 3 teams into the competition.
Miniball games are held on Wednesday (A and B Grade) and Thursday (C Grade). If you are keen to help, please contact Paulette

 Writing
At the moment we have been having a focus on persuasive writing during our literacy time. It has been great seeing the children creating sophisticated pieces of text to help persuade the reader to change their opinion on a topic. Here is one example of what the children have been writing:

Why dogs are the best pets!

One day we were walking in our classroom when we saw an AMAZING piece of writing about why cats are the best pets but we have different opinions dogs are the true best pets!
Why cats are bad!
My first reason is that cats are actually PESTS. Did you know that over 25 million native birds are killed each year by these carnivores and we wonder why are native birds are so hard to spot?
Second, cats are hard to train and if you give up your lifestyle could get ruined by a cat scratching up furniture and knocking over valuable and important objects.
You may think cats are cute and cuddly but the first time you do a job for them they think of you as there servant and they don't even give you a reward for it.
Now for the dogs!
Dogs really do deserve their title of, ‘mans best friend’ their loyal, intelligent, devoted and affectionate. Dogs are always wanting a good old pat and love to play games.
Another reason is dogs are really helpful towards humans e.g., they can be guard dogs ,sniffer dogs, guide dogs and search and rescue. How helpful is that?

If you are getting a new pet don't even consider getting a cat, get a DOG!

 Persuasive Writing about Rubbish in the Ocean:

 In Susan's literacy group we have been writing persuasive speeches about plastic in the ocean.
If you want to find out more about this here is a link:

Stop littering! It is bad for the environment and animals. They eat it and die. Did you know that a plastic bag looks like a jellyfish? That is why they are bad for the turtles.


Plastic is destroying habitats and scenery. If we all work together we can fix it by using boxes instead of plastic bags, or picking up rubbish whenever you can. Also, if you litter and you love animals,  stop! I would love to see the ocean with no rubbish in it.


By Annabel Grantham

Stop killing sea animals and stop putting   
Rubbish in the sea! If you throw away plastic bags turtles will think they are jellyfish and eat them. How would you like it? It destroys the scenery and every day more animals are dying.

We need to use reusable bags and honey wraps. Don't use gladwrap! If you throw away plastic it ends up in the sea! We need to do stuff about this! You should see the rubbish island in the ocean. Make the world a better place and stop using plastic.

By Violet Morel

Next week we will use these persuasive pieces as part of our Kowhai Speech Competition. It will be wonderful to see the children working on their speeches and developing the skills to effectively talk in front of others. We are planning to watch the Kauri team on Monday afternoon to help us know what to aspire to.


DMIC (Problem Solving) Maths

We have been having a great time learning about fractions at the moment. The children have really impressed us with their deep levels of thinking as they are solving problems. This term we have been working on solving problems with fractions. Here are two example of what the children have been working on:


Kowhai children went on a class trip to the Botanic Gardens. They searched the river for waterlife. 1/4 of what they found were eels. 1/3 of them were trout and they spotted 40 tadpoles. How many trout and eels did they see?

Problem 2
Image result for grass hockey clip art39 children in Kowhai are playing hockey. They spread themselves evenly into the thirds on the court. How many children are in each third? If another 14 children joined in, how many would be in each third? How many children are in two thirds?
Inquiry- Birds
As part of our Sustainability inquiry, we have been exploring the newly created Treemendous area and how we can make this more sustainable for birds and wildlife. Over the past few weeks, we have spent time in the Treemendous area, investigating the plants and birds that currently reside there. The children have been rotating around the teachers in the hub, participating in bird lessons.  Here is a sample of what we have been doing...

 Bird Beaks- Paulette's lessons have seen the children investigating bird beaks and their design. The children participated in a variety of experiments where they tried eating a variety of food using a tool (beak). This helped the children to determine why birds have a particularly shaped beak and how the beak enables them to eat a particular food in their habitat. 
 
Bird Feet- Anna's lessons have been all about the different types if birds' feet and how they are suited to different environments. For example, herons are wading birds and so they have long, thin toes which stop them from sinking in the sand and ducks have webbed feet which help them swim more efficiently through the water. We are now working on making posters which tell us all about birds' feet, what they look like and why. 


Image result for image of birds feet








Bird Identification- Susan
Image result for habitats bird nzBird Habitats- Rebekah's lessons have seen the children looking at the different habitats of birds. The children have demonstrated a lot of thought showing how the food available to birds vary, because of their habitat. We have also looked at how pests and predators effect our native bird numbers. We are excited to discover more ways we can get our native bird 


Hockey
Over the past five weeks, we have been lucky enough to have had Canterbury Hockey taking the children for hockey lessons. The children have learnt some basic hockey skills. This week, they were, 'put to the test' as they played in a mini hockey tournament. Here they are in action!


M.A.D. Time (Passions)
This term, the children have each chosen a passion topic to participate in on a Friday. The children were given the choices of Choir (Anna), Art (Mike), Drama (Paulette), Languages (Susan) and Dance (Rebekah). Each Friday the children have 45 minutes participating in these passion groups. It has been great to see the children so enthusiastic about driving their own learning and interests.

 That's all for now.
Have a great week ahead!
Kowhai Teaching Team

Welcome Back Kōwhai Term 3 Week 2

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It is hard to believe that we are already in Term 3! This term sees us having another action-packed term full of exciting learning for the children. 

Learning Conferences
It has been a pleasure catching up with so many of you this week at  learning conferences. We are very proud of the students who have had their learning conferences, showing that they are about to confidently talk about their learning, sharing goals and explaining how things happen in the Kōwhai hub. We really appreciate having this time to discuss your child and their learning. 

 Home Learning
Like last term, this term your child will bring home their home learning each week. There are only 3 tasks that need to be completed:
1.  Nightly reading (10-15minutes) which may be a book of your child's choice or a book that the teacher has sent home
2. Spelling words (5-6 words) 
3. MMM sheet (1 minute timed or untimed test)

 Can you make sure that your child returns their home learning folder and book to school each day as they need this to record the books they are reading and for them to practise their words at school. 
Each Friday, the children have a spelling test and need their home learning books for them to set up the learning for the following week. Your support with ensuring your child has this at school each day is greatly appreciated.

 Literacy
Our focus for the start of the term is learning about persuasive text and how to write an argument to persuade others. The children have discussed a variety of topics that they are keen to write about. Over the next few weeks, we will learn how to craft a successful piece. 

For their writing to be successful, the children are aiming to:


  • State their point of view clearly in the introduction and the conclusion.
  • Explain their thoughts and position on a topic.
  • Give reasons for why they think that using connectives.
(e.g. furthermore, however, consequently, therefore, so, because, firstly, finally)

  • Give reasons and evidence to back up their position.

We will post some of their arguments on the blog for you to read over the coming weeks.

Maths
We have just begun exploring fractions as part of our maths learning this term. It has been great to see the children making connections with their maths knowledge and using this to help them solve their problem. We are currently solving problems like these:


 


Freya has two pizzas that are divided into eight pieces. She eats 4/8 of one pizza and 5/8 of the other. How much pizza has she eaten?


Torun has two pizzas.  She gives 3/5 to George and 9/10 to Quinn.  How much pizza did she give away? How much is left?


Sam is sharing some chocolate with the class. There are 24 pieces in a block. He breaks it into thirds to share with Violet and India. How many pieces will they each get?

You might like to discuss fractions at home to help build your child's understanding.

Image result for ecosystemsInquiry- Sustainability
As part of our Inquiry topic in Sustainability, the children are continuing to explore the key statement:
People make choices to sustain their wellbeing and the environment.

This term we are going to be exloring our local environment and the ecosystems and the requirements they need in order to stay alive. We will be using the Treemendous area as a place of inquiry and will look at conducting a variety of scientific investigations in this area. We will keep you up to date with our findings.

Hockey
We are lucky enough to have Canterbury Hockey coming in to take weekly sessions will our our hub this term. Over the next 5 weeks, the children will have a session each week to develop their skills and they will then participate in a mini tournament in week 5.

Buddies
Last week, we worked on sharing our learning with our buddies and identifying our next steps for learning. Here we are in action:


Well that's all for now. Have a wonderful week ahead.

Kōwhai Teaching Team


Resilience Movie July 2018

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Resilience the movie.... about adversity
Relationship of disease and behaviours.
Looking at relationship of abuse... the ten aces adversee childhood experiences.  
Look at ace scores.... 
Adverse Child experiences... ace study.
Exposure to trauma.stressful things affect the health.. not getting to the root it's not a.d.d and medications won't help this. 
Score of 4 or more 32 more times likely to have a behaviour problem at school. 
Tall about  adreleline and cortisol. It takes a toll on the body if you are exposed to it too long. 
Exposure to trauma effects the brain. 
Toxic stress what do we do about it...
Friends to talk too. 
When there is no support.
When you are young you can't pull your socks up. 
How can you plan for future when you are focused on just getting through the day.
Running a programme that is training adults to treat children the right way.
How you feel is how you interact with your children and people around you. If you feel stressed or worried you won't be yourself. 
Use techniques to voice what their worries are will help them maintain their resilience.  
Drama therapy with kiss to help a calmNess. Mis kendra curriculum. 

Screening for an ace score.
What next....
Reduce adversity...home visits to see challenges at home.
Buffering the parent to 
Mindfulness and meditation... help to identify feeling
Nutrition
Exercise 
Sleep hygiene 


Shift it's not what's wrong with you it's what happened to you. 
Knowing about the risk factors and knowing you can do something about it. 

Wwe. Resilience movie. Com

Nadine harrit burke... 

Offering resilience training. Rtlb service