Koru Team News: Term 3, Week 4 (16/08/2024)

Posted on by

 Kia ora e te whānau,

Wow time is really flying by!! As we come into Week 4 of Term 3, we would like to say a massive well done to our Koru tamariki for a positive transition back into the term over these last few weeks, as well as to our new tamariki who have successfully started school! We welcome Gray and Hannah who have started during the last two weeks! We are so excited to have you and your whānau in our Koru team! 

Reminders:

  • Staff Only Day: On Monday 26th August, staff will be having a Staff Only Day. School will be closed on this day. 
  • Kiss and Drop: As we have more children starting in the Koru team, our hub can start to feel a little overwhelming at drop off times. Please ensure you are "kissing and dropping" your child off at the door, rather than entering the hub with them. This will help set your child up for a calm, quiet and successful transition in the morning. We also have separate doors for home groups to use when entering in the morning, as well as separate lunchbox/drink bottle shelves. Thank you for your support with this! 
  • Literacy folders: We have our small Literacy group times throughout the day from Monday to Thursday. Please ensure the Literacy folders are at school for these days. We know during the week it can be a busy time, and trying to fit in Literacy practice can be tricky! We are more than happy for you to keep your child's Literacy folder over the weekend, to give your child more time to practice! Please make sure the Literacy Folders are back on the Monday, so that your child's Literacy teacher has these ready for group time. 
  • Lunchboxes: Please ensure your child is only bringing water to school (no juice or other drinks). We would also love if we can refrain from having lollies/candy in your child's lunchboxes as well. It is 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 also be amazing if you could 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 in this!

Literacy:

This weeks blog post is on Literacy! At Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto, we follow a Structured Literacy approach. Sounds are broken into stages, and these stages have heart words and books that align with each stage. As children move up through the stages, they will receive different letter sounds, heart words and Pip and Tim books that use the sounds currently being learnt. Below are some photos of the wonderful Literacy learning that is taking place:























How can you help your child at home?

The emphasis in teaching spelling is to focus on the sound, as opposed to the letter name. Making the phoneme (sound) - grapheme (letter shape) connection is the first step in literacy learning.

Ensure that both you and your child are saying the ‘pure’ sound without an ‘uh’ sound on the end, for example, ‘lllll’ rather than ‘luh’. Please refer to this Youtube clip, The Sounds of New Zealand English, for more information on the sound that matches each of the letters.

Here are some ideas about ways you might use the letter cards/heart words at home with your child: 

Speed Sounds: use the cards as flash cards - your child can look at each letter card and say the sound it represents. See if your child can do this at speed.

‘I Spy’: You can play games such as ‘I Spy’, using the letter sound (not the name).

Stepping Stones: Place the cards on the floor with the letter facing up, as if they are stepping stones across the river. Explain to your child that they have to cross the ‘river’ without falling in the water. Your child steps on each card and says the corresponding sound.

Fish or Memory: You could make up a matching set of letter cards, and use both sets to play Fish or Memory together, by placing both sets of cards face down on the table or floor. Each player has to be able to say the sound, if they are to keep a matching pair of cards.

Writing the graphemes: you might make the letter sound and ask your child to write the matching grapheme (support your child as much as is needed with this activity)


Cyber Safety

The HDCA for Parents and Whānau

The Harmful Digital Communications Act (or HDCA for short) is an act passed by the Government back in 2015 to help people dealing with serious or repeated harmful digital communications. It covers anything digital like text, emails or social media content.


The most useful thing for parents to understand about the HDCA is the way the 10 communication principles define what is good or bad behaviour online.


If you’re ever concerned about your young person (or you just want to brush up on your knowledge!) visit Netsafe’s Guide to the HDCA. 



It's NZ Maths Week this week!

We have a Maths Fanily Whānau Evening coming up soon. Information below:




We hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and stay warm!


Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,
Georgia, Stacey, Elizabeth and Nicola

stacey.mclachlan@beckenham.school.nz
georgia.mckenna@beckenham.school.nz
elizabethgail.drummond@beckenham.school.nz
nicola.reddecliffe@beckenham.school.nz

Kōwhai News Term 3 Week 4

Posted on by
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 by

 

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 by





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 by

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