Koru Blog Term 3 Week 6

Gratitude
We have been discussing what gratitude looks like with the children recently. We frequently share something we are grateful for (friends, warm weather, our parents helping us get to school etc) during the roll. We have also been writing thank-you letters for our wonderful parent helpers . Gratitude is a key tool for resilience in our children. Why not discuss things you are grateful for around the dinner table at home?

From the staff team....thanks a million to all our parent helpers, especially the Friday gingerbread bakers, Ali, Nicola (Archie), Oliver's Mum, Cam (Ashlyn) and of course Nicole (Layla), Kate and Tanya who have spent hours laminating resources and putting books away. Your help is very very appreciated!! The kids love working with you.
  



We Get There Together

The children have been working on listening and working with their peers in line with our school value,  'We get there together.'
One activity we use to develop listening is 'talking buddies'. Children sit facing their buddy, and discuss a question starter given by the teacher e.g. What is your favourite place to go?
What superhero you would like to be?  What does respect mean? They practise listening to and responding to their peer, and then sharing their own thoughts.





Reading
As ever we are loving our books!  We are also using picture books as stimulus to help us in our own writing. We read the picture books , 'My Brilliant Dad,' and 'My Mum,' and then described our own family members, and favourite places. We are practising the key writing skills of:
* Saying our sentence
* Saying and hearing letter sounds and having a go at writing new words
* Using our knowing words (high frequency words)
* Re-reading our work as we go
* Adding fullstops and checking we have capitals at the start
* Adding 'wow' words to make our writing interesting
e.g. 'Inflatable world is totally awesome'
What can you do at home?
* Have a special notebook for your child to record the 'wow' words they read in picture books.
* Encourage your child to write and make cards for others
* Have a range of writing materials available e.g. pens, felts, pencils etc
* Offer fine motor tasks such as putting clothes pegs in a line; threading; building and dough work

   




Developing independence in our students

We encourage all our children to put their own belongings away in the morning on arrival at school. There are 3 things that we would like the children to do independently.
1. Put their backpack on the hook.
2.Take their fruit out for morning fruit break.
3.Put their reading folder away in the labelled reading container.

If the children become independent in these tasks it will help them as a learner and transfer into other learning areas at school. Our students will become confident in their ability to manage their belongings, themselves and ultimately their learning.
A key example of this would be the child who independently turns the pages in their reading book and points to the words in the text themselves.


Reminder
There are a few bugs going through the school at the moment. We are reminding children to wash their hands after going to the toilet and before eating. Please ensure that your child knows how to do this.




Kauri Whānau Update: Term 3 Week 6

So much to celebrate and lots of messages too. Please read these important messages carefully.

We have enjoyed being part of learning conversations with you and your child yesterday and are looking forward to more of this tomorrow, Thursday.

Speech Finals: 

A big congratulations to all of the speech finalists who shared their entertaining stories with us on Monday afternoon. We were lucky to have Daniel Pengelly, assistant artistic director from the Court Theatre as our guest judge. Next Monday evening starting at 6:30pm, Jordan and Oskar will represent Beckenham at the South Zone Speech Competition, being held at St Peters School on Fisher Ave. It would be lovely to see some of our children in the audience to support our fine speakers.




Cantamath:

Last Wednesday our Cantamath teams competed against 90 other schools, solving maths problems at Horncastle Arena. Those of us in the audience were worked into a frenzy of enthusiastic support, as we watched the runners put their thumbs up for correct answer after correct answer. The Year 7 team answered every question correctly within the 30 minutes, earning a golden ticket (displaying their 100 points) and coming in sixth place! And then it was Year 8s turn to stun us with their mathematical talent. They also earned a golden ticket and were placed 9th. Wow!



Cultural Festival:

Te Whānau Mahi Tahi take to the stage on Friday evening at Horncastle Arena as part of the cultural festival. We know they will will be stunning and wish them all the best for a fabulous performance.

Year 8 testing at Cashmere High School:

A reminder that due to swimming lessons, our Year 8s who are enrolled at Cashmere High School for 2017, have their testing morning on Thursday September 15th. They are to wear school uniform and return to school for the afternoon.

Swimming:

We are now into the swing of our swimming programme. Some adjustments have been made to groupings so that each child's needs are being met. It is great to see nearly all children making it to school on time to catch their buses. We need to see that 'nearly all' become 100%.

Year 7 Camp 2017 Fundraising:

In term 3 we have the opportunity to run the sausage sizzle on Thursdays from 4:30 - 6:30pm at the touch competition at Waltham Park. We did this last year and raised quite a bit of money for our camp. This will be a good way to fundraise for our 2017 camp, which will be in term 1 of next year at Wainui. We need a small team of parents who would be happy to help with these sausage sizzles. Please let Nicky know if you would be happy to be part of this team.

The next three and a half weeks:

Hopefully you have or will take the opportunity to look at the rebuild display in the hall during learning conferences. On Tuesday we spoke to the children about the current timeframe that we are working towards. The plan is that we will be busing to the Champion Street site from next term. We are in the process of finalising dates for visits to Champion Street this term and an information / question answering evening for parents. We will let you know once these dates have been set in concrete.

Writing movie reviews:

We started our new writing topic this week, with a drama based motivation. Tomorrow we will be watching a short movie and looking at an exemplar to learn about writing a review. On Monday we will be offering a choice of three movies for the children to view and take notes on in preparation for writing their movie review. The movies are:
Remember the Titans - An American football story with a strong focus on leadership. (PG)
Cool Runnings - The story of the Jamaican bobsled team at the winter Olympics, with themes of persistence and overcoming adversity. (PG)
El Dorado - A cartoon movie with messages about what makes a good friend and the importance of friendships. (PG)

Wheelchair Rugby:

Last Friday the opportunity arose to try out wheelchair rugby. What a blast we had! The children had lots of fun and are hungry for more.









Learning Conferences

Learning Conferences

As you are aware we have Learning Conferences this week. School will finish at 2pm on Tuesday 30th August and Thursday 1st September.

The children are really excited to share their learning with you. At the conference the children will work through a learning reflection booklet. They will discuss the following:
1. What they like doing at school.
2. Reading, Writing, Numeracy and Inquiry
 * What they are proud of.
 * What they need to work on.
 * What they would like help with at home.
3. They will share their learning using examples from books and demonstrate strategies.
4. They have also completed a School Value self assessment.

We will share relevant data with you throughout the conference or as needed. If you have any specific questions about your child's learning, please discuss this at the beginning of the conference so we can ensure your questions are answered.

We are really looking forward to seeing you all over the next couple of days and know there is a lot for us to celebrate!

Kowhai Team

Kahikatea Newsletter Week 5

Cricket 

We all had a great time playing cricket on Wednesday afternoon. We played a fun warm up game called 'Snowball' and then got into a real game. We had to hit two balls off their stands as hard as we could and then run around the wickets until the fielding team replaced both balls back in their starting position.



Amazing Asia

A range of cultural immersion activities have been occurring across the team. We have been making sushi, learning to count in Japanese, making friendship bracelets to celebrate Raksha Bandhan (Brother and Sister's Day), learning mandarin and playing the madal (a traditional drum from Nepal).






Sign Language Lessons

Hub 1 and 2 are lucky to be learning Sign Language each Thursday - the children not involved in Kapa Haka are learning about how to communicate without talking out loud. Thank you to Cheryl and Benazier from Van Ash for their knowledge and willingness to share their expertise.




Our Ideas About RESPECT

Levi - A group of friends
Isaac - being kind with our words
Blake - respect is caring for people
Arthur - being, like, nice to each other
Juri - caring about people
Ally - reading to someone can show respect
Charlotte - you being nice to other little students at school
Bobbi - looking after people
Claudia - take people to the sick bay when they are hurt
Stella - trusting people
Lakiehsa - shaking someones hands when you meet them
Alexandra - making new friends
Cian - handshaking and hugging and sharing can show respect
Tahere - by not breaking someone's things
Torun - shaking peoples hands
Louie - picking people up when they have fallen over
Luigi - sharing with other people, coming back to class with each other
Petal - sharing with other people
Taylor - Culture is something that deserves respect
Emma - When I go to the office I wait patiently and say "Excuse me."


We are enjoying learning about RESPECT and showing everybody what respect can look like and sounds like.

Library

The library is currently being packed into banana boxes to re-locate in the dental clinic over the next 2 weeks. So, there will be no issuing of books over this time. 
Great work, Anne! Have a look at the progress:


Stationery Request

We are asking that all children have an A4 plastic pocket folder in which they can store 'work in progress' in and 'finished work' from Discovery Stations. If you already have a folder at home please bring it school before the end of Week 6 (next Friday). If you do not have one, your child's teacher will organise it and add it to your account.