Koru News: 10/05/2024 Term 2 Week 2

Kia ora e te Whānau,

Welcome back to Term 2! We would also like to warmly welcome Korra, Hailey, Vincent, Archie, Elsa, Sadie, Manaia, Aurora, Marnie, Angus and Alma who have started school this term. We have got a busy term ahead of us with lots of exciting things to look forward to. Below are lots of dates and events for Term 2, there will be more information closer to the time for these.

We are so proud to see the children showing We Love Challenge by carrying their own bags; putting their lunch box and drink bottles on the shelves; putting their Literacy folders in the group boxes and then settling down quietly into a game or activity each morning! 

We thank all the Whānau for the quick and calm 'good byes' in the morning. As we get more children starting school, sometimes we notice it feeling very overwhelming and busy with so many people in the Hub before school, it is really helpful when you say goodbye and leave your child with us, leaving them to have some fun with their new school friends.

Our Koru children have all been allocated a 'House' to belong to: Fisher, Heathcote, Tennyson and Waimea. Children from the same family/whānau are put into the same house. Each house has its own 'chant' and tamariki learn this, so they can participate in the house chant at sports and special events, and in Celebration Assemblies, if it is their house that has won the House Points for that fortnight! You can find the House Chants here, and other are also videos that you can share with your child to help them learn their house chant. Mā tātou katoa te waka e hoe! We Get There Together!

Friendship List: If you would like your name and contact details to be added to our Koru Team Friendship List, please email Georgia by Wednesday the 15th of May. Georgia will update the list and share it with you. If your name is already on the list, please don't worry about contacting Georgia again.

Lunchboxes: A few reminders about your child's lunchboxes:

• Please ensure your child is only bringing water to school (no juice or other drinks)
• It is also important to help teach your child how to open and close their lunch boxes, so they can do this independently at the start and end of eating times
• It would be great if you could also either pre-cut or teach your child how to open packets in their lunchboxes (for example potato sticks, chip bags, twisty yoghurt pouches, muesli bars etc.)

Thank you for your help and co-operation with this!

On Wednesday, we had Ben Kennedy, a volcano expert, come and talk to the tamariki in the Koru team. Ben works at the University of Canterbury and is absolutely passionate about his chosen subject! He showed us his 'pet' rock collection, which represented the lava from various types of volcanic eruptions. We passed the rocks around and were able to see and feel many differences between each of them. Ben taught the children about words such as magma, lava, extinct, dormant and active. 

We then all went outside where Ben's student, Jonathan, set up two different experiments for us: one to demonstrate the slow progress that lava makes as it flows down a mountainside and the second, to demonstrate what happens when there is more gas present and lava 'bombs' are created and then shoot up and out of the volcano, often landing some distance from the volcano itself. 

Here are some pictures to show what we have been up to for our first couple of weeks this term, during Learning Through Play and Kinetic Letters with Bounce and Skip.

We hope you have a fabulous weekend and look forward to seeing you all on Monday.

Ngā mihi nui,

Stacey, Georgia, and Elizabeth