Kia ora whānau,
It has a been a busy week in the Kōwhai team!
Top Team
We have organised another Top Team event for our Kōwhai children this year which is very exciting! Weather permitting, the event will take place on Friday 1st March in the afternoon and the children will be taking part in all sorts of fun activities. Just a heads up that there will be some water activities involved so please make sure your child has a change of clothes (including shoes) in their bag and a towel to dry off after the event. Thank you for your support with this.
We also require 11 parent helpers for this event to ensure it runs successfully. You would need to arrive at school before the Top Team briefing at 1:10pm and the event will finish around 2:55pm. It will involve running an activity station, explaining the activity to the children and generally overseeing it. If you are keen to help, please let your child's homegroup teacher know and we will get back to you as soon as we can.
Literacy and Maths
Next week, we will be starting our literacy and maths interchange programmes. We have organised the children into new literacy and maths classes. The children will go to their literacy teacher for literacy lessons and their maths teacher for maths lessons every day. They will still be with their homegroup teacher at the start of the day and after lunch.
As part of their literacy programme, the children will generally take one or two books home each week. Students working in Stage 1 - Stage 7.5 of the structured literacy programme will take home at least one structured literacy book (e.g., a Pip and Tim book) home each week to read to you. Students who are working beyond Stage 7.5 are expected to independently read chapter books (or similarly advanced books) of their own choice at home. Each literacy class visits the school library every week to issue new books.
For more detailed information about our home learning literacy activities, please click here.
Minecraft 3D Printing
Some of the children have recently been learning about using Minecraft for 3D printing. They have designed and constructed a model of a character, toy or scene in Minecraft and are now in the process of 3D printing their creations. As a final step, the children will paint their printed models.
Designing a character in Minecraft
Preparing the character for 3D printing
The 3D printer is printing the character
We have also been creating Minecraft self-portraits using grid paper which has been a lot of fun!
Skipping
During Discovery, some of our students have discovered a passion for skipping. Here's a video that shows some really cool tricks that people can do when they are skipping. Whilst our skill level isn't quite at this stage yet - we are aiming high! 'Just keep skipping!'
Discovery
Here are some photos of the children's learning during discovery:
