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Kōwhai News Term 3 Week 4

Posted on 16 August, 202416 August, 2024 by Tracey Maloney

Kia ora e te whanau,

How lovely has it been to see the sunshine these last few days! We hope you've had the opportunity to enjoy the sunshine and warmer weather these last few days.

Maths Week

This week our tamariki have been enjoyed a wide range of maths challenges to celebrate International Maths Week 2024. The children have been having lots of fun working together to solve these challenges. The theme this year is Playing with Maths, also encouraging creativity with many children coming up with a maths joke or two. Perhaps they are sharing these at home with you too!

Parents Maths Evening

There is an opportunity to attend a range of hands-on workshops which will help you to extend or support your child in maths. This will be held on Thursday 29th August. We would love to see you come and join in the maths fun at our kura!

Willowbank

Later on this Term 3, the Kōwhai hub are planning to travel to Willowbank for a school visit. We are planning to travel by bus on Friday 20th September to spend the day learning about all of the amazing animals there. We are need of parent help for this visit so if you are able to help out on the day, please email your child's homegroup teacher. Your support would be greatly appreciated and can go a long way towards helping to make this a successful for all our akonga.

Calendar Art

The children have been very busy working on completing their Calendar Art. The theme for this year is Zentagle Name Art. They are very close to completing these and are all so very proud of their efforts. Order forms will be made available very soon. This is a great fundraiser for PTA so it would be great if you could support this. Thanking you in advance.

Kauri Whānau Update: Term 3, Week 2

Posted on 4 August, 202418 August, 2024 by https://www.beckenham.school.nz/index.php/category/kauri

Kauri Whānau Update: Term 3, Week 2

IN THIS POST:

Passions
Parent survey
Maths evening
Ski Day
Cantamath Projects

Passions:

Passions have kicked off to a flying start this term with an array of choices, something for everyone.

The debaters are having a blast, lots of laughs as we learn the art of debating. We have been learning about the structure of a debate (who speaks when), ettiquette (not talking over one another) and have debated some light hearted topics as a starting point. On Friday we ran two debates: the first was Cats vs dogs, the second Beckenham Te Kura needs longer break times. The affirmative teams took out the win both times. As we progress we will tackle some more serious topics and learn how to research and present our arguments more confidently. I can see there are some budding politicians and lawyers in our midst already!

Parent Survey:

Thanks to the parents who have filled this in already. If you have a chance to, we would love some feedback. Click HERE to share your ideas around learning in the Kauri hub!

Maths Parent Evening:

We are hosting a Maths workshop for all parents of Y1-8 at kura on Thursday, 29th August (5:30 pm – 7:30 pm).

Ski Trip:

Our Mount Hutt ski day is fast approaching!

Please fill in THIS form, so that we can ensure all children are adequately prepared for a great day up the mountain. Our schools package with Mt Hutt includes a 90 minute lesson (at the child's level), lift pass, ski, boot, pole and helmet hire. Many thanks to the PTA for covering the cost of the buses. The rest of the costs of this trip are covered by your school donation and our cheese roll fundraising. Most of our children will be skiing. Only those who have snowboarded for several days can snowboard. This is because it takes several days to get going on a snowboard, whereas significant progress can be made with skiing in one day.

Cantamath Projects:

These should be well underway, these are home based projects. We have heard of many great ideas and there is a buzz of excitement around this. Please email your childs' homegroup teacher if you have any questions.

Pōhutukawa Update, Term 3 Week 2

Posted on 2 August, 20242 August, 2024 by Steve Cooke

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

How lovely to see the sun this afternoon! We seem to have raced through the first 2 weeks of Term 3, and it has been great to see tamariki back at school in a positive mood, after a well-deserved break. While we have had to deal with some grotty weather after returning to school, the students have managed really well and settled into the new term nicely. Please read on for some team news, updates, and some upcoming events to put on your calendar.

Olympic Games

This term we are studying Social Sciences by learning about the Olympics and Paralympics, and more specifically the Evolution of the Olympic Movement. It has been great to launch our Paris 2024 Olympic learning site (which you can access via your tamariki's school account) on which the students can access a plethora of information and learning activities. This week we have looked briefly at the events, the countries, the mascot, and the history of the Games. We’re looking forward to learning a lot more over the next few weeks, following the progress of our athletes, and celebrating their resilience and perseverance! We love challenge, nau mai te wero.

Road Patrollers

For our Year 6's, being a member of the Road Patrol is one of the key ways they can show leadership in our senior school. It is also a wonderful way to hone time-management skills, and perform a valuable service for both our kura and the community; rain, hail or shine! It was great to have our Year 5 patrollers out completing their training with Constable Meg last week, and they are now on patrol before and after school until the end of the year. Thank you for your support in ensuring they are aware of their days on patrol.

Update on Rae, and welcome to Mikyla

As you may know, Rae Marsh is away on medical leave. After receiving a hip replacement last week, Rae is very happy to be home now and is working hard to be independent and walking again! While Rae rehabilitates, we welcome Mikyla Campbell to the teaching team. Mikyla has slotted seamlessly into our Pōhutukawa whānau and she has made some fantastic connections with the tamariki already. Please feel free to contact Mikyla at any time should you need to. She is looking forward to getting to know the tamariki and their whānau more over the coming weeks.

South Zone Basketball Tournament

Last Thursday some of our keen basketball players competed in the South Zone Basketball tournament held at Hillview Christian School. While the results didn’t go our way, it was an excellent opportunity to pit our skills against some of the best Year 5-6 basketball players in the area. The team represented our kura, school with pride and embodied our school values of We Love Challenge and We Get There Together wonderfully. Well done, team!

'Cool' Curriculum Classes

CCC classes continue with some changes for Term 3. Gayle is continuing to teach Visual Arts this term with some exciting Olympic-themed Calendar Art to look forward to - watch this space! Mikyla is covering Digital Technology and continuing with Coding. Steve is teaching Health with a look at our Wellbeing/Hauora and Social and Emotional coaching, and Megan is teaching the students financial literacy through the Banqer programme. There is always a lot of learning over the term in CCC, so we encourage you to keep chatting at home about what we cover in these courses. He taonga te ako, the treasure is learning.

Maths Family Whānau Evening

Thursday, 29th August (5:30 pm – 7:30 pm)

We invite ALL our Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto families (NE-Y8) to join us for a hands on workshop that will help you to support and extend your child with
Mathematics. This workshop will be facilitated by Rob Proffitt-White. His workshops are hands on, fun an The workshop will explore: d engaging.
• The mathematical practices all students must master
• What skills and processes are needed in high school
• Ways to help with number facts and mental computation
• Games to encourage mathematical discussions (You will get to play some of these on the night).

Please see the attached flyer for more information.

Year 7-8 Open Evening for Year 6 whānau

We would love to see you at our Kauri Open Evening. This is happening in the Kauri hub from 7-8pm on Wednesday 14th August. The evening is a chance for you and your child/ren to explore the hub and hear about how the team works.

To help with planning, please fill in the Google form LINKED HERE if you are planning to attend.

Head Lice

We are continuing to see cases of head lice at school. We have attached some helpful information about head lice - please read this if you are unsure of how to detect and treat headlice. Thank you for your vigilance around this.

Kōwhai News Term 3 Week 2

Posted on 2 August, 20242 August, 2024 by Anna Reid

Kia ora Kōwhai whānau,

What a fabulous start to Term 3! We have a busy term ahead.

Below are some things that are happening within our team.

Maths

We are having a focus on fractions, measurement, addition, subtraction, and multiplication.

Here's a Notice, Think, Wonder (What do you notice? What do you think? What do you wonder? Where is the maths?) picture prompt linked to fractions:

Writing

For writing this term, we begin with persuasive texts and then move into descriptive writing later in the term. Some literacy groups have been exploring persuasive picture books (I Wanna Iguana and Dear Mrs LaRue).

Parents beware, your child may write you a persuasive letter with reasons why you should get them a new pet, or allow them to extend their bedtime! We have been blown away with the creative ideas from our tamariki.

Inquiry Lessons

Our inquiry focus this term is Social Sciences and we are going to be researching a country of choice and making a presentation to share.

Willowbank

In week 9,we will be having a trip to Willowbank. This will be linked to our inquiry focus on cultures from around the world as we will be learning about different animals from around the world as part of the trip.

Calendar Art

We are all very busy working on our beautiful calendar art pictures! This year the Kōwhai Team have decided to create Zentangle Name Art for the calendars. We can't wait for you to see them all.

Recorder Lessons

This term we are continuing with our recorder lessons with Josie, these will continue until week 6 when Josie goes on maternity leave. The students have learned how to play songs that use the music notes A, B, G and E. Hot Cross Buns is a favourite!

Cricket

We were fortunate to have a group from Canterbury Cricket come and run a session with us in week 1. We had an amazing time and the children learned some cool skills. Below are some photos from the session, as well as some flyers with information about how your child can get involved in cricket outside of school.

Cyber Safety

Random Chat Online

How do random chat websites work? And what are the risks for tamariki using them?

Random chat websites, like Chatroulette, pair users randomly through text or webcam conversations. The appeal

is getting to talk to someone new that the user would never meet. But these websites are designed for adults and

often allow nudity and other inappropriate content from users.

If you’re concerned that your young person might be exposed to these sites or you want to introduce parental controls, you can find out more on Netsafe’s Random Chat Websites page.

Regards,

Team Kōwhai

Kahikatea News Term 3 Week 2

Posted on 2 August, 20242 August, 2024 by Quynh Nguyen

Kia ora e te whānau,

What a lovely two weeks back of Term 3. We have noticed that the children are positively growing in physical and social-emotional skills. We have loved seeing the smiley faces and the "Good morning!". If you have any concerns or questions, please make sure to speak with your child's homegroup teacher.

Timetable

We have made some changes to the timetable this term to meet the needs of our tamariki, this means giving us more time to incorporate wellbeing activities in the morning (such as mindfulness, yoga, body percussion, etc.) without taking away learning time. The children have adjusted super quickly and smoothly to the new timetable and enjoyed having a "sneaky snack" after the fitness break in the morning. Ka mau te wehi - Awesome work!

Hillview Cross Country Challenge

A massive thank you to the parent helpers who supported the Hillview Cross Country event, your help made a huge difference to us. We are very proud of the children as they participated amazingly at the event.

Calendar Art

Just a quick heads-up that we are underway with creating our Calendar Art, and you may receive an email later this term about ordering products with your child's art printed on them. More details to come.

Lunchbox food

We really appreciate the fresh fruit and vegetables that have been coming to school in the tamariki's lunchboxes. This makes a difference to their intake of nutrients essential for a healthy body.