News Update from Koru, Term 3 Week 2

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









Posted in Koru.