Kōwhai School of Rock Day

Well, hasn't it been wonderful to finally see the sun again! The start of June thus far has been a bit dreary and we hope that the sunshine continues! 

Sleep Research:

Recently we have been learning about the benefits of getting a great sleep and what factors contribute to sleeping well.  We are now entering the sleep science phase. This involves the children recording the time they switch their light out to sleep and the time they wake up in the morning. 

Over the next few days, your child will be bringing home sleep slips to fill in, along with a small clock, which is theirs to keep. The sleep slips are part of the sleep inquiry we are working on at the moment, which comes under the bigger umbrella of 'sustaining our well being'. The students are required to fill out three consecutive slips in order to analyse their sleep patterns and formulate a goal to do with sleep.  We would love these slips to be returned to school the next day so that each child has a record of how they slept and how they felt when they woke up.

Here is a link to a video which explains how to programme the sleep clock.
Here is a copy of the sleep slips for your reference.


Literacy Learning
Across the team, the children have been inspired by both Rudd and Riley's visit last Friday. This has resulted in many children learning about insects and caring for the environment. Some of the children have been creating short movies during literacy to share their findings. There are more clips to view on google classroom, however here are a select few.

Bugs- By Quinn, Fergus and Freya

Insects- By Cleo, Zoe, Emma and Taylor

Bugs- By Vida and Dahlia

Insect Art- Mikes Home Group


Reminder: Tuesday 26th June - School will close for formal instruction at 12:30pm

Due to the Paid Union Meeting for teachers in Christchurch that will be happening on the afternoon of Tuesday 26th June, we will be skeleton staff (Principal and Teacher aides only) from 12:30pm due to our teachers all needing to attend the union meeting. We are requesting that you pick up your children at 12:30pm that day, or contact the office to let us know they will be staying at school so we can arrange supervision.

Bringing Toys/PE Gear to School
We have started to notice an increasing number of children bringing toys and sports equipment with them to school each day. Please be assured we have plenty of sports equipment for your children to play with. When a child's ball or toy goes missing it can be very upsetting. To avoid this happening, we are asking that all toys and sports gear stay at home. If your child forgets this rule we will store the item in our "think tank" and it can be retrieved at the end of the day. Thank you for your support.

That's all for this week. Make sure you scroll through the blog to see other posts about our Art Extravaganza Day and our Friday Sport.

Have a wonderful week ahead!
Kōwhai Teaching team

We had our first bug inspired art day yesterday. In home groups, the children had the opportunity to create bug or bug related sculptures. We hope to install these in the tremendous area. Here we are in action!

Art Extravaganza Movie

Kowhai News Week 6 2108

Bug Art Extravaganza Day 

Next Thursday, the Kowhai Team are having an Art Extravaganza Day. This has been inspired by our investigations into bugs, following on with a visit from Ruud Kleinpaste, 'The Bug Man'. We are looking at creating some amazing sculptures and outdoor art for everyone to enjoy. We would love some more art supplies (wool, fabric, clay, wire, beads or newspaper) so if you have anything spare you could drop into us, we would very much appreciate it.

Treemendous Makeover!

Sleep Scientist 

During week 8, we will be entering the next phase of our inquiry into sleep, which comes under the bigger umbrella of 'sustaining our well being'.  This will involve the children being sleep scientists. Being a sleep scientist will involve your child bringing home sleep slips to fill in or them to record the time they go to bed and how long they sleep for. They will also be given a small clock, which is theirs to keep. The students are required to fill out three consecutive slips in order to analyse their sleep patterns and formulate a goal to do with sleep. We would love these slips to be filled in (with your assistance, if needed) and returned to school the next day so that each child has a record of how they slept and how they felt when they woke up.

Literacy 

Tied in with our Bug Art Extravaganza Day, we are going to be focussing on learning about insects during our literacy time. We will be reading all about insects and their features and how they survive in their different habitats and then we will use this information to write reports on them. It will be bugs galore! If your child is interested in a particular bug or bugs and they have some books or interesting information about them, then please do encourage them to bring these in. We would love for them to share their enthusiasm!

ASB Financial literacy

This week we have had a special visitor in our maths groups. An educator from ASB came to teach us about money!

We learnt about notes and coins and the difference between a debit card and a credit card. Now we know that a debit card uses our own money while a credit card uses the bank's money (and charges us a fee!)

Then we played a really cool game called "Look for the best deal". We visited a virtual supermarket and made good choices about what to spend our virtual money on.

We are very grateful for these financial literacy lessons from ASB.

Winter!

We were talking in our home group about winter this week. We have all been finding it difficult to get out of bed lately! We decided that we needed to remember all the good things that winter offers us and came up with this list:

Last Friday, the children who visit our elderly residents at Thorrington Resthome were filmed for the What Now TV show. This was a super exciting experience for all involved. What Now are currently creating an item to show how people volunteer in our local community. They heard about our team visiting Thorrington Resthome to connect with our elderly friends and wanted to put us on the show.
Here are the children in action, being filmed and wearing the new High Vis vests that have been kindly donated by HRS Construction.
We hope to organise a trip to the What Now Studio for these children so they can see how the footage is edited!