Monthly Archives: July 2020

News Update from Koru, Term 3 Week 2

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Kia ora e te whanau,

What a wonderful start back to school we've all had. The children have settled beautifully into their routines and our new hub setups. 
We're really impressed with the way in which the children are saying their goodbyes, entering the learning spaces, managing their belongings and settling into their Learning Through Play. Thank you so much for your support with this. Having the children able to say goodbye at the door has certainly helped with that smooth transition and start to the day.
It's wonderful watching how independent the children are becoming with their morning jobs and developing responsibility and self-management.

The Three Little Pigs:
Our Learning Through Play 'theme' for the past two weeks has been The Three Little Pigs. The children have been very creative: building, performing, retelling (with a twist!), writing and puppet-making. Here are just a few photos of some of the activities they have been engaged in.

Demonstrating cooperation and teamwork: We Get There Together

Showing creativity and imagination by working collaboratively on our challenge

Heading from the house of sticks to the house of bricks...

...safe at last!

Problem solving and collaboration, in order to extend the project.
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Next week, our Learning Through Play focus is going to be Vehicles. It would be great if you were to talk with your child about the different types of transportation that there are, and what they're for. You might like to have a go at constructing a vehicle together. It might be fun to discuss and design some sort of magical, mysterious, fun, wacky, creative vehicle together!

Measurement - Maths and The Gingerbread Man:
We read The Gingerbread Man together and used the ideas in the story to develop our thinking in relation to Measurement. Some of the words we used are: long, longer, short, shorter, tall, taller.
Some of the activities we:
  • we cut and ordered by height a gingerbread family of five
  • we used mathematical language to describe their heights in order
  • we designed, planned, built and modified our bridges in order to rescue the gingerbread man from his fate in the fairy tale
  • we described our bridges again using mathematical language
  • we collected objects from around our learning spaces to estimate and compare the height of each item against the gingerbread man
  • we discussed the importance of measuring from a baseline in order to accurately measure the heights of the gingerbread man and these items.
We each worked together with a buddy to meet a challenge.
















Readathon:
The Readathon is coming up. This is a chance for your child to work on their reading mileage. Please see the school newsletter for details. Your child's Readathon card has come home in their school bag today.

We hope you all have a lovely relaxing weekend and we look forward to seeing the children back, bright and perky, next week!

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,
Jo, Sophie, Sari, Stacey and Elizabeth









Kahikatea Year 1-3 Newsletter Term 3 Week 2

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Welcome Back!
We are back into our school routines and are loving the support you are providing to your child/children during drop off and pick up times. We will continue to have one of our teachers at the main entrance on Sandwich Road to meet you and your child/children every morning. 
Teachers are in meetings 4x a week and these generally start at 3.15pm. If you do need to share information or catch up with your child/children's teacher do email them and you can make a time to meet if needed. 
katie.mcfarlane@beckenham.school.nz
charlotte.verity@beckenham.school.nz
jules.may@beckenham.school.nz
amber.donovan@beckenham.school.nz
lisa.griffith@beckenham.school.nz

Sydenham Cricket Club Visit
On Thursday 30th July our friends from Sydenham Cricket came to give our tamariki the opportunity to learn some batting and fielding skills. Information has been sent home should your child wish to learn more or join a team. 










Ukelele & Recorder for Year 3 Students in Kahikatea
On Tuesday our Year 3 children are joining the Year 3/4 students in Kowhai to learn recorder or ukulele (they will have the opportunity to learn both). Thanks to the Kowhai teachers for supporting our tamariki at this time. If your child would like to bring their own recorder, then you can find these for about $13-$15 dollars from the music store Rockshop, or you could have a look at The Warehouse as well.
If you do choose to bring your own recorder in, please make sure it is clearly named.





Discovery/Learning Through Play
We are still very grateful to receive donations of boxes. Our discovery time is now in the afternoon and our students are encouraged to explore new learning independently or in collaboration with their peers or with a teacher. 
We are looking for: 
Any old jars (jam, relish or otherwise!) anyone cares to donate...sturdy plastic containers like vegemite jars are also great. 












Readathon
This Friday your child/children will be bringing home their Readathon card. The final return date for this is 21st August, NOT 14th August. Apologies for this error. 
Thank you for you support of this important event. 


Hillview Cross Country 
During Level 3 the decision was made that our school was not going to attend the inter-school event. We have now been informed that they are going ahead with the event on the 4th of August. Our tamariki will not be attending, but if you would like your child to attend as an individual then please contact your child's teacher and they will pass the relevant information on to you.  You will need to make your own arrangements if your decide to attend.  










Kōwhai News Term 3 Week 2

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Kia ora whānau,

We have had a great start to Term 3. The children (and teachers) have all come back refreshed and excited for the term.

We are continuing to have one of our teachers at the flagpole in the morning to greet students and parents as well as teachers being in the hub in the mornings. Teachers have meetings 3-4 days a week which start at 3:15. If you do need to share information or catch up with your child's teacher for a meeting then please email them to arrange a time. 


In Class Music 
This term we are starting our music teaching for the year. Nick and Rowe's class will be taking ukulele lessons on a Tuesday afternoon  with Roger and Laura and Tracey's will be taking recorder lessons with Josie. We will swap these around in Week 7 of this term and continue till the middle of Term 4. We are making sure the recorders are cleaned in a hot dishwasher after each session.

If your child would like to bring their own recorder, then you can find these for about $13-$15 dollars from the music store Rockshop, or you could have a look at The Warehouse as well.
If you do choose to bring your own recorder in, please make sure it is clearly named.

We will not bring in our own ukulele as these need to be individually tuned each week by our ukulele teacher Roger.

Reading
We have such fabulous readers in Kōwhai! Please help remind your child to bring in their reading folder every day, and write in their reading log all the books they read. We have some children who are up to 50 books already which is amazing. Your child can choose to bring their own book to school to read during our independent reading times if they would like. 

We are also still looking for some parents to help us with reading with students and putting books away so please contact Laura laura.williamson@beckenham.school.nz if you would like to do this. 

Readathon
This Friday your child/children will be bringing home their Readathon card. The final return date for this is 21st August, NOT 14th August. Apologies for this error. 
Thank you for you support of this important event. 

Headphones
A reminder that if your child would like to bring in their own headphones then please do. They will need to be named and it will be the students responsibility to look after them. 

Hillview Cross Country
During Level 3 the decision was made that our school was not going to attend the Hillview Cross Country inter-school event this year. We have now been informed that they are going ahead with the event on the 4th of August. Our tamariki will not be attending, but if you would like your child to take attend as an individual then please contact your class teacher and they will pass the relevant information they have onto you. You will need to make your own arrangements if you decide to attend. 

Maths Focus 
We have been focusing on addition and subtraction recently in our Mathematics learning. Below are some examples of how students may solve these problems. To solve these problems children need a good base knowledge of basic facts i.e adding to 10. Please continue to practice basic facts at home to support this. 




Discovery Learning 
This week we have introduced woodwork and gardening into our Discovery Learning. The children have enjoyed learning how to make their own watering can and how to use the woodwork tools in a safe way. 








Have a great weekend! 
The Kōwhai Team - Laura, Nick, Tracey and Rowe




Kauri Whānau Weekly Update: Term 3 Week 2

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It was great to see a good number of families at school on Monday evening to meet with Joe Eccleton, principal of Cashmere High School. A reminder that applications to Cashmere High are due in on this Friday, July 30. 

Readathon

We were super organised and got most of our Readathon cards out early this week. If you haven't seen the red Readathon card yet, please ask your child where it is. 14 consecutive days of reading then begins. The idea is to read for a set period of time each day. Parents sign the card after each reading session. Please also collect some sponsors on the back of the card. Cards and money then come back to the school office between Aug 17 and 21. Please get behind this school fundraiser. It is an excellent way to get that reading habit established and / or rewarded. 

Speeches

Term 3 is always speech writing time for Year 7 & 8. This year it is story-telling speeches. We have just started writing these. The children have until Friday August 7th to finish writing their story-speech. These will be presented to literacy groups at the end of the following week. We are in the process on arranging judges for the hub final - so the date for that will be coming out soon. The winning Year 7 and Year 8 speeches will go through to the South Zone Competition on September 21st. 

Camp Fundraising


Celebrations

A huge congratulations to our Senior Girls' Basketball team who competed at the Canterbury Year 7 & 8 Tournament on Monday. The girls consistently gave of their best on court - in skill, effort and sportsmanship. They came second in their pool and were placed 4th overall. 



Our ShowQuest passion group spent Tuesday morning 'on location' filming their dance. It was a great insight into the life of a dancer / actor - 3 hours for 6 minutes of film in freezing cold conditions. The dancers and film crew did an awesome job. Next step - editing. We are looking forward to being able to share the final result later in the term. A big thanks to Jason and Nicola for accompanying the group.