It has been another busy fortnight at our kura! We hope you enjoy reading about our adventures and learning. Have a safe and happy holiday time and thank you for your ongoing support.

Handwriting 

All Kōwhai teachers have undertaken in-depth training on the Kinetic Letters handwriting programme, and we're now implementing this daily with our students. These sessions include: 

• core and upper body strength exercises
• finger dexterity exercises and pencil grip practise 
• letter formation, using the letter family groups 

Safe Play 

Playing outside games safely and kindly has been an area of learning for many ākonga of late. This includes choosing kind thoughts, kind actions and kind words. This has been the case with football, cricket and Four Square games. We are noticing and celebrating all the kindness we see...that is a key part of our school value, We Get There Together! 

Enjoy watching and discussing this video at home. 

Athletics 

We have LOVED our athletics practises which started this week! Groups will participate in training sessions for sprint/running, shot put, high jump, discus and long jump. Warming up and down with stretches are also important elements of our learning. Athletics will take place on 26 October 2022, weather conducive. We will advise further details as they come to hand. Please ensure your child has good running shoes at school every day. Thanks a million :-) 

Hats 

Hats will be back on our heads to protect us from the sun from the start of Term 4. Please hunt your child's hat out ready to go in their school bag. Sunscreen is also recommended and can be applied before school. 

Assembly 

Congratulations to our Kete certificate recipients and thanks to Harriet for her informative cultural presentation on France and our awesome presenters, Lily and Paige.

Swimming 

In weeks 3 and 4 next term, we will participate in water safety sessions at Pioneer Pool. We will be in touch early next term with further information and to seek parent helpers (thanks in advance to those who can assist!).

Discovery Photos

Some of our Discovery sessions have had a values focus, in line with a Student Council promotion of the school values. We have been noticing our ākonga demonstrating each value, and commenting or praising them accordingly. Recently, we had a We Love Challenge task which involved designing a boat, and options included:

• Make a boat to hold the most weight and still float 
• Build a boat that will move by itself 
• Create a boat entirely from natural material

Kia ora koutou /  Mālō e lelei

Happy Tongan Language Week!

Kōwhai Talent Quest

Some of our tamariki have been rehearsing for the Kōwhai Talent Quest which will be held sometime at the end of term. It will be a wonderful opportunity for them to perform and the most striking performances will have the chance to perform at one of our Junior Celebration Assemblies.

Ukulele/Recorder

We will be finishing our ukulele and recorder lessons next week. Kōwhai children have done exceptionally well to learn a new instrument with our wonderful music teachers, Roger and Josie.

Discovery

Last Thursday, we had an amazing open-air concert at Discovery. Check out the photos below:

We have also been putting out a compliment box for everyone to write kind messages to other people in our hub. Anna read some of them out during our team hui and we have seen a lot of lovely reactions. 

Maths

We have been learning about probability and chance over the last two weeks. Here is a cool game called The Sludger that you can play with your child and practise thinking about the likelihood of something happening.

Junior Celebration Assembly

Congratulations to those who received their Kete certificate and/or Citizen of the Week award at our assembly last week.

Cyber Safety

This week, we have started our Cyber Safety unit for Inquiry. The children have enjoyed learning about keeping our online identity and private information safe.

Te Whare Tapa Whā

This week, we have been exploring our school's new wellbeing definition with our students. It is based on Mason Durie’s Hauora model. The students have completed a word sort to learn more about the actions and behaviour that comprise each element of the definition. We have also created role plays of how we show the definition in our own lives. 

Rākau 

The children have been designing and creating rākau (sticks) to perform traditional Māori stick games. Here is a photo of some of their rākau designs.

Book Character Day

Amazing Dancers

Kia ora whānau, 

We have had a busy two weeks in the Kōwhai hub, and it has been lovely to finally see some sunshine and be able to get outside! 

Celebration Assembly

Last Friday, Izzy and Poppy hosted the Junior Celebration Assembly. Well done to our students who have received Kete awards and some Citizen of the Week awards at last week's assembly.  Charlie also gave a fantastic presentation all about Cambodia. Here are some photos of the assembly.

Rakau 

We are continuing to make our own rakau in our te reo sessions. If you have any old magazines at home, please send them in with your child. 

Here is a video of the song that we have been practising our rakau with. Perhaps you could have a go at home! 

Learning Through Play

Our tamariki have been making, creating and discovering many new things during Learning Through Play over the last few weeks. Here are some photos of their learning. 

We hope you have a lovely weekend. 

Ngā mihi, 

The Kōwhai Team 

Kia ora Kōwhai whānau,

Welcome back to Term 3! We have been getting straight into our learning and the children have settled in very quickly.

New Literacy Groups

This term, we have created new literacy groups which means that your child may have a different teacher for reading and writing. We have been delighted by the way the children have slotted into the new groupings so quickly and easily. For writing, our focus is now on recounts so the children are currently writing a recount about an event they have experienced. Feel free to ask them about it!

Calendar Art

Over the next few weeks, our afternoon focus is on creating Calendar Art. This year, we are looking at the artist, Piet Mondrian, learning about his life and his work as an artist. We have been learning about his transition into abstract art and that his particular style of using geometric shapes is called neoplasticism! This week, the children have been experimenting with drawing horizontal and vertical lines in order to create different geometric shapes. They have then been colouring these shapes, using only primary colours and black, leaving some of their shapes white. Below is an example of Mondrian's work:

Below is a photo of some of the children practising their art skills and also some of their practice examples:

Discovery

In Discovery, the children continue to work on their Stop Motion animations and they are also enjoying working with the Sphero balls, using an iPad to control the ball's movements. This week, we have also introduced a new activity, using the writing app, Little Story Creator. This involves writing a story on an iPad and creating your own pictures to go with it. The children have been learning how to use the app by trying it out and experimenting with the different features. Otherwise, the children continue to do construction, create their own top trump cards, make huts and also make up games to play outside (when the weather allows!).

Masks

We continue to encourage the children to wear masks so if your child has their own mask at home, please feel free to bring it to school. 

Welcome Assembly

Today we had a Junior Welcome Assembly as we are still not able to hold full school assemblies. Congratulations to the Kete certificate recipients!

Magazines

Finally, we are in need of lots of magazines as we are going to be making rākau for te reo Māori this term. If you have any old magazines lying around, we would love to have them. Thank you!

Have a wonderful weekend!

From the Kòwhai team