It is hard to believe that the end of the Term is now upon us. We have been so fortunate to have been blessed with such wonderful weather this term as this has enabled our tamariki to play outside.

Over the past couple of weeks, the children have been having a focus on the arts in the afternoons. This has seen the children exercising their creativity in many different ways including; pastel art based on Wassily Kandinsky's Circles, paintings depicting Diane Adam's contemporary work and shadow art using mixed media paint and paper. Children have also created their own characters out of salt dough, some based on characters from the famous series 'Moomins'. Children also had fun doing drama role plays and skits using journal stories and plays. What a fantastic term we have had! Some of the artwork is still displayed on the walls in the hub so please feel free to come to check it out.



Rocket Maths
This term, Kate and Dorinda have provided an extra maths session to boost the maths knowledge and ability of some of our students. This has involved the children in having 3 extra fun maths sessions each week. We have noticed a HUGE improvement in the confidence of some of these students when solving DMIC problems and stronger number knowledge.
If you would like to give your child extra maths basic facts practise, you can use this website as it has a lot of great drill activities.
Maths Playground is another great website with great games to develop maths skills.
If you have any questions about your child and maths, feel free to drop in and see one of us as we would be more than happy to help out!

Hillview Cross Country
We sent 12 children to the Hillview Cross Country on Tuesday. We were highly impressed with the wonderful behaviour that our students demonstrated. They all showed the school value, 'We Love Challenge'. It was great to see the children pushing themselves to achieve their personal best. Well done to all those who participated.



Next Term
Rowe is away for the first week next term, as she is having an exciting adventure white water rafting through the Grand Canyon. Dorinda will continue to teach in the hub in her absence.

Wearable Arts/ Innovative Inventions
We have a variety of fantastic learning planned for next term. The children will be involved in creating some cool wearable arts or innovative inventions as part of our inquiry learning. If you have some cool items that could be used for this (ducting pipes, foil, cellophane, clothing etc), feel free to bring the items in. There will be an evening show for you to view these creations in the latter half of the term.

Gymnastics
For PE, next term, the children will participate in a gymnastics unit here at school on a Thursday afternoon. For these sessions, the children do need to have bare feet. It would be advisable for the girls to not wear tights on this day. We hope to go to the school of gymnastics at the conclusion of this learning.



Music/Dance
Next term, the children will be participating in music and dance lessons each Tuesday afternoon. We are going to use the afternoons to develop a dance sequence to support our wearable art/ innovative inventions showcase. Josie Stanford, who is one of our itinerant music teachers is going to be conducting recorder lessons from week 5 for the children in our team. We are really excited to be able to provide this opportunity for our children. As she won't be able to teach all the children this term, she will continue her programme into Term 4, so all children have lessons with her.

Ear Buds
If your child has a set of earbuds that they can bring to school next term, that would be great. This will enable them to listen to the audio on the ipads or chromebooks.

That's all for now
Kōwhai teaching team

Sensory Spelling