Kōwhai News Term 3 Week 2

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

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.






Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto Quiz Night

Quiz Night Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto

Every Year the Kauri hub have a week-long camp, usually this is in Term 1 but due to Covid 19 it was postponed to Term 4.  We are off to Dunedin and Waihola, our programme is packed with learning about wildlife, history, a sports morning at Carisbrook School and more. We will be travelling by bus, leaving at 9am on Monday and returning late on the Friday afternoon.

To help with the cost the Yr 7/8 hub raise funds to reduce the cost for every student.
Our biggest fundraiser this year is a quiz night. We are very lucky to have secured the exceptionally talented and witty Jarred Skelton to be our Quiz master for the night.

Supper and nibbles are provided with a cash / eftpos bar, Raffle tickets will be on sale and our main prize is a 15" Haro flightline Mountain bike worth $530.

There is a maximum of 6 persons per team and the cost is $10 per person.

Payment is through the schools online account : 12 3148 0131 641 00 (ref Quiz and Name) or at reception with cash or eftpos.

This is the only Adult only event in the school calendar this year, it will be a sell out event so please get in early to guarantee a table / seat.

Click on the link below to book your tickets.