Category Archives: Kowhai

Kōwhai News Term 1 Week 3

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Kia ora whānau,

It has a been a busy week in the Kōwhai team!

Top Team

We have organised another Top Team event for our Kōwhai children this year which is very exciting! Weather permitting, the event will take place on Friday 1st March in the afternoon and the children will be taking part in all sorts of fun activities. Just a heads up that there will be some water activities involved so please make sure your child has a change of clothes (including shoes) in their bag and a towel to dry off after the event. Thank you for your support with this. 

We also require 11 parent helpers for this event to ensure it runs successfully. You would need to arrive at school before the Top Team briefing at 1:10pm and the event will finish around 2:55pm. It will involve running an activity station, explaining the activity to the children and generally overseeing it. If you are keen to help, please let your child's homegroup teacher know and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

Literacy and Maths

Next week, we will be starting our literacy and maths interchange programmes. We have organised the children into new literacy and maths classes. The children will go to their literacy teacher for literacy lessons and their maths teacher for maths lessons every day. They will still be with their homegroup teacher at the start of the day and after lunch.

As part of their literacy programme, the children will generally take one or two books home each week. Students working in Stage 1 - Stage 7.5 of the structured literacy programme will take home at least one structured literacy book (e.g., a Pip and Tim book) home each week to read to you. Students who are working beyond Stage 7.5 are expected to independently read chapter books (or similarly advanced books) of their own choice at home. Each literacy class visits the school library every week to issue new books.

For more detailed information about our home learning literacy activities, please click here.

Minecraft 3D Printing

Some of the children have recently been learning about using Minecraft for 3D printing. They have designed and constructed a model of a character, toy or scene in Minecraft and are now in the process of 3D printing their creations. As a final step, the children will paint their printed models.


Designing a character in Minecraft




Preparing the character for 3D printing




The 3D printer is printing the character

We have also been creating Minecraft self-portraits using grid paper which has been a lot of fun!



Skipping

During Discovery, some of our students have discovered a passion for skipping. Here's a video that shows some really cool tricks that people can do when they are skipping. Whilst our skill level isn't quite at this stage yet - we are aiming high! 'Just keep skipping!'


Discovery

Here are some photos of the children's learning during discovery:















Kōwhai News Term 1 Week 1

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Kia ora whānau,

Welcome to 2024! We are so excited to be back and we are very much looking forward to getting to know all your tamariki over the next few weeks. 

In the first two weeks, we are focusing on getting to know each other and establishing routines. We will mostly be based in our homegroups initially but we will also be mingling as a team during Discovery every morning.

Below are some photos of some of the activities we have been doing over the first two days: Everyone has been having lots of fun as they reunite with friends and get to know new ones.




































Kōwhai News Term 4 Week 9

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Kia ora e te whānau

Welcome to the Kōwhai team's week 9 blog. We are fast approaching the end of the school year and many of our students are counting down the sleeps until Christmas.

We have planned lots of fun activities to finish off the term, including 6 football sessions, and we all very much enjoyed watching Kauri's production of, 'Oh, the Places We Will Go', this week.

Football Sessions

Our tamariki have been lucky enough to have football lessons in these last two weeks of term. They have been delivered by Kōtuitui, who support bicultural and multicultural learnings through playing football and is a free program for schools. They provide outdoor football sessions for tamariki to enjoy irrespective of their football ability levels or previous experience. This is a new program as part of the FIFA Women’s 2023 World Cup legacy.

The children have all been enjoying these lessons, getting outside and having a good runaround as well as learning valuable ball skills and working together as a team. 





Science

As you will know, our students recently had a visit from Kerry, a representative from the Department of Conservation. Kerry taught the children lots of valuable information about kea. During the visit, the children participated in a tracking exercise where they used a device to locate a toy kea in the park. This hands-on experience allowed them to connect with nature and learn more about conservation work.
Students have been very busy making kea cards for Kerry as a thank you for such an exciting lesson. Below is a photo of us searching for the toy kea hidden in the trees. It was fitted with a transmitter!
There was much hilarity involved!



Kea Cards



Sketching

Over the last few weeks, we have been learning about sketching, going out into the park and to Treemendous to sketch nature. This week and next week, some of us are sketching fruit and having a little taste of all the different fruits afterwards. Yum! We have been sampling cherries, apples, pears, kiwi fruits, mandarins, strawberries, pineapples and even lemons. The children have been loving the experience! Below are some of the sketches the children created.









Farewell to Roger

Last week, we said farewell to Roger, our ukulele and guitar teacher who is leaving at the end of the year. We enticed him over to the hub where we sang him a song and presented him with a card from the children. He has been teaching the tamariki ukulele for most of the year and we will really miss him next year. Thank you, Roger, for all your hard work and dedication!



Farewell to Kathryn

We are also farewelling Kathryn, our literacy and maths teacher, who has been working hard with all our tamariki since term 2. We thank you so much, Kathryn, for your dedication to the children and we wish you all the best in your future pursuits!


Finally, we would like to thank you for all your support throughout the year. We couldn't do this without you! We have had an action-packed and fun-filled year with your tamariki and look forward to being reunited with some of you next year. We wish the year 4's all the best on their future adventures in Pōhutukawa and wish you all a wonderful and restful summer holiday.

Ka kite ano,

From the Kōwhai team

Kōwhai News Term 4 Week 7

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Kia ora e te whānau

Welcome to the Kōwhai team's week 7 blog.

Science

Recently, our students had a visit from Kerry, a representative from the Department of Conservation. Kerry taught the children lots of valuable information about kea. During the visit, the children participated in a tracking exercise where they used a device to locate a toy kea in the park. This hands-on experience allowed them to connect with nature and learn more about conservation work.




Measurement

In our mathematics lessons, we've been delving into the world of measurement. Students have been mastering the use of a ruler and exploring concepts of perimeter and area. These practical lessons not only enhance their mathematical skills but also provide a real-world context for understanding the importance of accurate measurements in various situations.


Instruction Writing

Another exciting aspect of our curriculum has been instruction writing. Students have been engaged in crafting clear and concise instructions in a variety of ways such as, writing programming instructions for Bee-Bots and creating delicious recipes!



Transition Visits

As part of our ongoing efforts to support students in their educational journey, Year 4 students have been making transition visits to the Pōhutukawa Team during their Learning Through Play sessions. These visits are designed to familiarise them with the environment and routines they will encounter next year. It's a positive way to ease the transition and ensure a smooth start to the upcoming academic year.





Have a great weekend!

The Kōwhai Team

Kōwhai News Term 4 Week 5

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Kia ora e te whānau, 


Welcome to the Kōwhai team's week 5 blog! 


Transition Plan for 2024

As we near the end of the year, students will no doubt be starting to think about classroom placement for 2024, particularly the Year 4’s who will be moving hubs. To support this transition for our Year 4 students, they will have a couple of opportunities to spend time with the Year 5 students and to meet some of the Year 5/6 teachers. This will involve two Kōwhai teachers taking the Year 4’s to Pōhutukawa for Discovery, while the Year 6’s will come to the Kōwhai hub to spend some tuakana/teina time with Year 3’s. The objective of this is to enable our Year 4 learners to re-establish connections with their Year 5 peers, familiarise themselves with the new hub, and ensure students have a positive transition.  

Inquiry: Ngā manu (birds)

Over the past two weeks, the Kōwhai children have begun learning about birds as part of our inquiry topic. Students have enjoyed learning more about some of New Zealand’s native birds and exploring some of their defining features. There was great conversation around the question, "What makes a bird a bird?", and lots of debate around whether penguins were birds! In the coming weeks, students will have the opportunity to observe birdlife within the Beckenham Te Kura environment and inquire into why these birds are suited to this particular habitat. 

Students have enjoyed looking at the candidates for bird of the century this week and some classes submitted their votes. If you are interested in learning more about this and having your say, follow this link. 

Art

Linking into our inquiry topic: Ngā manu, our art focus for the term is sketching, with a particular focus on the natural world. Students will have opportunities to explore sketching techniques and apply this to different contexts. They will be sketching things in nature, such as plants, birds and insects. We are looking forward to seeing their artistic growth.




Uniform

Over the past few weeks, we have noticed that some students have been wearing non-uniform clothes and footwear to school. While we understand that this is sometimes for a good reason, it is important that, where possible, students are following the dress code for Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto. For more information about school uniforms, please visit this link. Thank you for supporting your child to wear the correct uniform.


Being SunSmart

It has been great to see so many children remembering to wear their hats at school, especially with all these sunny days we have been experiencing. Please continue to make sure that your child has a hat at school every day and that it is clearly named. There is always the option of keeping hats at school, either in tote trays or in an allocated hat tub. We also encourage everyone to have sunscreen on. This can be applied before coming to school and we also have sunscreen at school if anyone needs to top up or they forget to put sunscreen on. Thank you so much for your support with this.


Discovery

Here are some pictures of what students have been up to during Discovery:









Have a lovely weekend, 

Ngā mihi nui