Kōwhai News Term 1 Week 5

What a fantastic fortnight it has been! We now have literacy and maths groups up and running, and the tamariki have been amazing at flexibly and quickly joining their groups. Enjoy reading about our recent adventures and learning.

Things for Discovery 

Construction is a hit during Discovery time. Please send in old boxes, egg cartons and anything else that might be useful for us :-)

Wellbeing 

Friendships have been our Wellbeing topic over the last two weeks, along with a continued focus on interoception and our school-wide PB4L focus, respect. 

With friendships, we have talked about and role-played what makes a good friend and how to deal with problems with friends. Some tips include: 

  • Talk about it 
  • Use ‘ I ‘ statements (model this) and share your feelings
  • Listen actively 
  • Ask for the other person to share their thoughts or feelings
  • Think of some ways to solve the problem 
  • Get an adult to help if you can’t agree, or if your friend isn’t listening to you

Interoception 

Interoception means sensing internal signals from your body, like when you are hungry, when your heart is beating fast, or when you need the toilet. These are all necessary precursors to positive development and self-regulation and self-management. We use short, fun interoception activities to help everyone find a sense of calm in their bodies, and therefore be better managers of ourselves, our behaviours and our learning.

Maths 

After a fun two weeks of learning about 2D and 3D shapes and their attributes, we're now moving into place value and basic facts. You can help your child at home by:

  • having them read and order numbers, low to high 
  • playing games such as 'guess my number' where children ask if a mystery number is higher than or lower than
  • quick thinking addition and subtraction games like rolling and adding dice, 24, or other games
  • identifying how many tens and ones, or hundreds, tens and ones in a number
  • forward and backwards counting in 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s, from various start points

Also, log into the school intranet at home to play Nick's maths games...lots of fun and learning to be had!

Top Team 

A huge thanks to Anna Reid for organising this, and to parents who helped out on the day. You were amazing at encouraging and supporting the tamariki - tino pai tō mahi!























Discovery Photos 






Pōhutukawa Update, Term 1, Week 5

 



Ngā mihi e te whānau, warm greetings to you all,

5 weeks down and 5 to go in the term! We have had another busy, eventful week in the Pōhutukawa team. Reading groups have now started and everyone has been allocated a Reading teacher, which is the final piece of our regular daily routine. We encourage you to take some time to ask your tamariki to show you what they are now able to access through their Reading Google Classroom and Reading Site; a great way to keep the reading mileage up at home. Yesterday and today we practiced our emergency evacuation drill. We were very proud of the tamariki who were exemplary in how they left the Hub immediately in a calm, quiet manner. Tino pai rawa atu. Please read on for some updates and news from the past couple of weeks.

Swimming Sports

Congratulations to all of the participants who embraced our kete value 'We Love Challenge' and entered the Swimming Sports. The excitement was palpable in the team, and the tamariki should be proud of themselves for having the courage to step up and jump in to such a competitive event! We hope you enjoy some photos, and keep an eye out for a movie from the afternoon... coming soon. A special mention to those who have qualified for Zones next Friday. Nau mai te wero!

Wonder Project - Blast off!

As part of our concept of Innovation for 2023, this term our Inquiry topic is rocketry! Specifically, designing, building and launching a water rocket. The Wonder Project is Engineering New Zealand’s free programme for schools, designed to get young Kiwis excited about science, technology, engineering, and STEM.

This week students have been exploring what rockets need to get off the ground by watching informative videos, having discussions, and making gliders. We have also been learning about the health and safety rules for launches. We're looking forward to Monday with our Ambassadors to launch the first test flights and play with variables.

We are still in need of 1.5 litre plastic bottle and ice cream containers to use to build the rockets. If you are able to supply a bottle or a container for our project that would be "wonder"ful.

Living Springs Camp Parent Help

Planning is underway for Pōhutukawa's Term 2 camp at Living Springs (1 - 3 May).  If you are able to be a parent helper at the camp, please complete the online form by clicking here.  Responses will need to be collected by Wednesday, 8 March. We require the help of approximately 15 parents if the camp is to go ahead. If you are able to help, your role will involve direct supervision of groups of children (inside/outside activities, evening bunk room duty, setting tables, supporting children during the bushwalk into camp), serving meals, operating the dishwasher, helping with the cleaning of all areas used at the end of the stay. You will need to be able to stay the entire camp. As the cost of parent helpers is covered in the camp fee, we will only take the necessary number of parent helpers in order to minimise costs. If we have more volunteers than we need, we will select first based on the skills needed and then names will be drawn from a ballot.  Finally, if you are selected as a helper we'll require Police vetting and relevant health and emergency contact information from you.

We're looking forward to your responses! Ngā mihi mō tō tautoko, thanks so much for your support. Enjoy your weekend.

The Pōhutukawa Team