Good morning! Today is the day, Pōhutukawa Market Day!

We will be selling tickets outside each hub from 8:30 am this morning. Tickets are 50c each, and all items will be selling for between 50c and $5.00 per item. These tickets are used to buy items for sale during market day. We suggest the children write their name on the back of their tickets, in case the tickets become dropped or lost. Bringing the exact change to school would be very helpful, as we will not have a lot of change for large notes.

Market day will run from about 11:45 am to 12:40 pm. We will invite the New Entrants over first, and then the rest of the school.

This learning has been a small business inquiry and fundraising venture. The profits made will be going towards the Pōhutukawa camp in Term 4 to Living Springs.

Thank you to all of our school community for your support.

Winter Sports

Winter sports finished last week, and we would like to say an enormous thank you to the parents who have helped us out by coaching teams. Thank you to Brett, Anna, Belinda and Kerryn for giving up your time to help us with our tamariki. Without your help we wouldn't have been able to enter the maximum number of teams in the Hagley Park competition. If your child played in a winter sports team, could you please send the washed uniform back to school, to be returned to the green bin in the Kauri hub.


Named clothing and lunch boxes

We constantly have a stream of left behind sweat shirts, polar fleeces and lunch containers. The teachers are getting very good at matching lost items with bewildered children! To help the children identify their belongings it would be very helpful if they were clearly labelled with their names.


Readathon

This week has been book week and we have had a number of special events going on. The book fair has been running in the Green Room before and after school every day this week, and we have seen a number of children excitedly bringing in new books to share. The teachers have gone to a different class after morning tea and read a picture book. The children and teachers have enjoyed a change of scenery! Hopefully the children have been hitting their target of reading for 30 minutes a night. Research tells us that regular reading improves comprehension, increases vocabulary and is good for the imagination! It's also fun! Thank you for your support of your children with their reading at home. Readathon cards and money are due back to school on Friday 7 September. Book week  culminated in a dress up day! How exciting. Some children were unrecognizable in their book character costumes. There must have been some early risers on Friday! What a fabulous effort was made by so many children!






Cultural Festival

Te Whānau Mahi Tahi is off on Monday afternoon to Horncastle Arena for a rehearsal. Their performance at the Christchurch Primary Schools Cultural Festival is on Monday night and we know that they will wow the audience with their passion and beautiful singing. Kia kaha!

Writing

The teachers are in the process of printing off the fabulous poetry anthologies which the majority of the students finished last week. The students are very proud of what they have achieved and are surprised at how many different poetry types there are. We are making each student their own book by printing off their slideshow in colour, inserting a protective cover and binding it with a spine. This will mean the children will be able to take their anthology home to keep. To help us cover this cost we are asking for a donation of $3, which will be listed on your school account. If you are particularly impressed with your child's anthology (and we're sure you will be!), you may want to consider using an online publisher like Snapfish to publish the anthology in a professional way. What a great Christmas present for relatives!

We are beginning speech writing on Monday. The students have three choices of speech to write. They can entertain (tell a story), inform (teach us about something) or persuade (get us to agree with their point of view). It would be great if there was some discussion about topics at the dinner table to ignite your child.

Pitch Perfect Choir

The Pohutukawa Pitch Perfect choir will be attending the Christchurch Schools’ Music Festival massed rehearsal on the morning of Monday 10 September. We will be back at school by lunchtime. The choir has worked very hard to learn a repertoire of songs, and we are very much looking forward to performing at The Horncastle Arena on the evening of  Friday 26 October. Tickets can be purchased through Ticketek.

Science

For science this term we are conducting simple experiments, looking at physical and chemical changes, changing a substance into another substance and the physical properties of a material. Katie is discovering the mysteries of Ooblek, Gayle is looking at popcorn, Nick has a focus of fizzing and foaming and Tracy is turning milk into ice cream. The children have had one session of science so far, and are looking forward to rotating around all of the teachers so that they get to experience a number of experiments.



Passions
Our passions this term have given the children opportunities to learn lots of practical skills, along with the key competencies of thinking, using language, symbols, and texts, managing self, relating to others, and participating and contributing. We are very grateful to the wonderful adults who have been popping along on a Friday to help us out. Cooking and sewing is definitely much easier with smaller groups being supervised by an adult. It's fabulous to see so much collaboration going on between the students, as working together harmoniously is such an important skill to develop.


















Gymnastics
Our gymnastics unit comes to an end this week. The children have enjoyed the sessions, setting themselves personal goals and using the gym equipment. We have seen a large increase in confidence for many of the students, and again it has heartwarming watching the groups support each other both physically and emotionally.











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 at least 15 minutes a day, for 14 days consecutively. The sponsorship money goes towards our outdoor spaces. We thank the PTA very much for having this focus and for organising events which will eventually provide fantastic outdoor areas in which our tamariki will be able to play and learn.

Market Day
This term a major focus has been small business planning, leading up to our Market Day in week 10. The idea is that the students form a business group which develops a plan to sell a product or run an activity at a market day in the last week of the term. The money raised will be used to reduce the cost of Team Pōhutukawa's camp in term 4 and to offset the market day's expenses.
The students are right into their planning, and hopefully you have heard some talk at home about what your child is doing. Many are baking, others are making products and some have organised an activity with prizes. In their planning, along with coming up with a product or activity, the children  name their company, plan a shopping list, create a logo, packaging, advertising poster, stall title sign, and work out the price and profit.
To enable the students to make the products we supply all stationery and art supplies from school. We provide the groups with a budget and they give us a shopping list. We buy their supplies (from Countdown) and then the money is recouped from their profit. We have been approached by several families wanting to supply the ingredients/materials themselves for their children, so that they succeed with a maximum profit. The idea is that we supply the money to 'float' the groups, so that they learn about the business world, and so that parents are not out of pocket, as this money is a fundraiser for camp. If you would like to contribute to your child's group by supplying ingredients or materials from home (please don't feel like you have to) could you please send an email to your child's home group teacher, so that we know you have given permission for home ingredients/materials to be used.


tracy.inwood@beckenham.school.nz
gayle.mcnaughton@beckenham.school.nz
nick.bruce@beckenham.school.nz
katie.mcfarlane@beckenham.school.nz

Winter Sports
This is the last week of winter sports. We have had a great run of weather this term and it has been fabulous for the teams to head off to Hagley Park on a Friday afternoon. One more Friday of remembering a water bottle, boots, shin and mouth guards. Next week we will be collecting in the sports tops, so if they could be washed and returned to the teacher that handed them out, that would be awesome thanks.

Enrolment Intentions for current Year 6 students for 2019 School Year
If you have not filled in this form (and you are a parent of a year 6 student) we would be very grateful if you did, as this helps us to plan effectively for next year.
Enrolment Intentions for current Year 6 students for 2019 School Year