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!
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.
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
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.
Bird Identification- Susan
Bird 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
