Pōhutukawa Update, Term 1, Week 7

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

As the term races on it's time to catch up on what we've been up to in Pōhutukawa, and also let you know some information about a couple of upcoming events. Please read on!

'Taku Pepeha'
Our catchphrase for this term is "Whakapapa Helps Shape the Unique Identity of Who We Are". As part of our look into 'Identity' this year, we have been constructing pepeha in the afternoons. It has been wonderful to see the whānau engagement, and to learn about the students' whakapapa, genealogy. Thank you for sending through family photos, which the students may use in their presentation. Students have also been reciting and practicing their pepeha in order to record it and share their awesome te reo Māori skills with you. Kia kaha te reo Māori!

PB4L

Beckenham te Kura o Pūroto is a PB4L (Positive Behaviour for Learning) school. PB4L looks at behaviour and learning from a whole-of-school as well as an individual child perspective. Our particular team's PB4L focus for the start of the year is “being an upstander”. We have been discussing how we can show the values ‘We Make a Difference’ and ‘We Care’ by being upstanders. We have discussed with the students the different actions we can take to be an upstander (as opposed to a bystander) if we see someone being mistreated. We have linked the Slideshow ‘How to be an Upstander’ here, and encourage you to take a look so that you can continue these very important conversations at home, too. You could also read Oat the Goat (bilingual interactive online storybook), which teaches how to show acceptance, empathy, and tolerance by being an upstander. Mā tātou kātoa, te waka e hoe, we are all in the waka together.

Kapa Haka Performance this Friday

Our fabulous Kapa Haka rōpu have been working on a few items with Whaea Cath Milio, and have been called upon to perform this Friday at 10:00 am at our Celebration Assembly. As in years past, each team has a turn at performing at Celebration Assemblies during the year with the intention being to showcase what the learning has been, and to get used to performing in front of an audience. It would be wonderful to see you there. He taonga te ako.

Pioneer Basketball Year 5-8 Primary Winter Competition Registration of Interest

Please fill in the Form if your tamariki is interested in playing for Beckenham on a Wednesday (Year 6) or Thursday (Year 5) afternoon in the Pioneer Basketball Competition in Term 2 and 3.

Games are played at Pioneer Stadium, with schools and individuals from around Christchurch South. There is a cost involved and the team will require parental support to manage the team at the games. Please fill in this form before the end of the term (April 12) to indicate your child/ren's intention to play. https://forms.gle/4xHt41FrUmHYEiiBA

This year Pioneer have changed the competition to differentiate between Year5 and Year 6. Once we have collected the responses we will be in touch if we have enough players for a team for each Year level.

For more information about the competition please visit http://www.pioneerbasketballclub.co.nz/Pioneer-Competitions/primary-winter-yr-5-8 

Kauri Whānau Update: Term 1, Week 7

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IN THIS POST:

  • PALS Training
  • Cheese Rolls
  • Inquiry
  • Donations/Trips


PALS Training:
On Tuesday, 12 children took part in some leadership training at Cowles Stadium. The children were taught a range of new games and how to teach them to others. The course got the children problem-solving and thinking of ways that they could adapt each game on the fly should things not go to plan or if they needed to make the game harder or easier. Thank you to the whānau who provided transport to the stadium and to Sport Canterbury for running the event.


Cheese Rolls:
Please continue to order your cheese rolls and support the Kauri team in our fundraising efforts. This is the last week you can place your order and all proceeds go to our education outside of the classroom oppurtunities!





Inquiry-Identity:
This week the focus of our identity topic was looking into the 24 character traits of people. We learnt about each trait and what they meant. In homegroups we carried out a compliment circle, where students nomitated each other for certain character traits and explained how that persone deomstrated the particular trait. It was a very positive and uplifting experience. A reminder that if you are able to come and have a chat with our students about something you have achieved, experienced or been a part of that has contributed to your identity or whakapapa please contact us!




Donations/trips:
We are planning a few trips in Week 11, the last week of term and will need some parent helpers. Please stay tuned in the next couple of weeks to find out more. Thanks to all who have paid or are paying off school donations. We are relying on these payments and fundraising to be able to provide these oppurtunities for our Kauri students.

Koru News: 15/03/2024 Term 1 Week 7

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 Kia ora, e te whānau,

Wowzas! We are already at week 7! We have been very busy with all of our learning. Thank you to those who met with Georgia for your child's 6 week transition meetings this week. It has been so lovely to catch up and chat about your child's start to school. 

Parent Playground Helpers

Last year, we had a wonderful group of parents and caregivers who came along to school during lunch play to support our tamariki in the junior playground. We will be restarting this again from the beginning of Term 2. The benefits of being on the parent playground roster include being involved in the school day, and getting to know other parents and your child's friends. Please email Katie if you would like to offer your help for Term 2. 

katie.mcfarlane@beckenham.school.nz

Literacy

This week's Blog is about our Literacy learning. 

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. In our Literacy learning at the moment, we have been focusing on learning our stage 1 sounds and characters. We have been working on learning the characters' names and the sounds that go with them, as well as learning some heart words. 

Below are some Literacy videos, which will be really valuable to have a look at to help with your tamariki Literacy learning at home. The Speech Sounds of New Zealand English is a great video to watch and listen to how we pronounce our sounds. The Stage 1 video was created by a kaiako from school, Lisa, and talks about how we teach our sounds and heart words for Stage 1. The last video is about activities you can do at home to help support your child.  

Here are some photos of our Literacy learning:

Move it, say it boards

Practicing our letter formation

"What sound matches this character?"

Heart Word writing practice

Heart Word writing practice

Heart Words

If you have any questions about our Structured Literacy approach, please let us know.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend, see you Monday!

Ngā mihi nui,
Georgia, Stacey and Paul












Kahikatea News Term 1 Week 7

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Tēnā koutou katoa,

Weeks 6 and 7 of Term 1 have really seen the weather changing as we head into Autumn. There are a few bugs about and some tamariki are showing signs of tiredness. Much like our environment that has been flowering and fruiting all summer we are ready to slow down a little and nurture ourselves. 

We Care | Arohaina te tāngata me te taiao

Maths

Kahikatea is currently exploring pattern-making in mathematics. This has included patterns with skip counting, multiplication, identifying, and creating patterns. We have been on the lookout for ways in which maths is used in our daily lives, for example, in arts and crafts, nature and gardening, tattoos, wrapping paper, and design. 

NZ Maths Website
NZ Maths has some great maths activities for tamariki. This is the link for NZ Maths home kete. NZ Maths also has some great resources on number facts games that support our tamariki in their number knowledge. 

Literacy

Tamariki should all be bringing home their reading books regularly now. Most children are putting their literacy folders into their literacy teacher's container at the start of the day and packing them into their bags after literacy. We encourage tamariki to read and practice their sounds each night to increase fluency. We appreciate your support in their literacy journey. 

Te Reo Māori

We have been focusing on daily greetings in Te Reo Māori. Here's the link to Ata mārie- Good Morning waiata. We have been learning kupu (words) in Te Reo Māori as we work towards creating our own pepeha (introduction).

Netball

Our netball unit continues and we are seeing some great skills developing in catching, throwing, dodging, and jumping. 

Digital Technology in Kahikatea

Nick from the Kōwhai team has created some wonderful apps for our tamariki that align with learning in literacy and maths. The length of time in which children are on devices is usually 5-10 minutes and is supervised by an adult. We also use an app called ChatterPix - this app allows children to create characters and use an audio tool to give the characters a voice. If you have any concerns or queries, please contact your child's homegroup teacher.

Nuts at School

Just a reminder that we have children in our team who are allergic to nuts. One of these is life-threatening. Therefore, we are asking that nuts and nut-based products are not brought to school by your child. This includes all nuts.

Walk and Wheel to School

Thank you whānau for supporting this year's walk and wheel to school. It was a great opportunity for our kaiako to learn more about how your tamariki get to school.

Parent Playground Helpers

Last year, we had a wonderful group of parents and caregivers who came along to school during lunch play to support our tamariki in the junior playground. We will be restarting this again from the beginning of Term 2. The benefits of being on the parent playground roster include being involved in the school day, and getting to know other parents and your child's friends. Please email Katie if you would like to offer your help for Term 2. katie.mcfarlane@beckenham.school.nz

Visual Diary of Kahikatea 



















If you need to korero with your child's teacher please remember you can email us: 

sarah.angelo@beckenham.school.nz
ella.rainbow@beckenham.school.nz
quynh.nguyen@beckenham.school.nz
amber.donovan@beckenham.school.nz
lisa.collier@beckenham.school.nz

Arohanui, from Team Kahikatea 

Amber, Quynh, Lisa, Sarah, Ella & Katie 

Kōwhai News Term 1 Week 7

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Kia ora whānau,

Here is an update on what we have been doing over the past 2 weeks.

Reading/Library Folders

We would just like to remind you that in order to take reading books and library books home, your child will need to have a reading folder OR a library folder. This does mean that your child will need to keep their folder in their bag so they are able to take reading books home during the week, if needed.

Our library days are as follows:

Monday = Nick and Rowe's literacy groups

Tuesday = Anna M and Anna R's lteracy groups

Wednesday = Krystal's literacy group

Construction Boxes

We are needing more construction boxes for Discovery. The children just love making things, from houses to instruments and many other imaginative things besides. If you have any tissue boxes, cereal boxes, shoe boxes or any other cartons, please bring them to school as we would love to use them!

PB4L Focus

This week we are focusing on tidying and friendship.

For tidying, we are focusing on the following good tips:
- tidy as you go
- finish the job
- cooperate
- everything has its place, e.g., sandpit toys, sports equipment
- take care of our outside environment by, e.g., picking up rubbish

For friendship, we have been looking at what friendship means to us and how we can be a good friend.

Toys At School

An increasing number of children have been bringing toys to school this term. We would just like to emphasise that toys are NOT allowed at school. We would really appreciate it if you could be vigilant so that there aren't any toys going to school in your child's bag. They are a huge distraction and we also don't want them to get lost. Thank you so much for your support with this.

Parent Playground Helpers

Last year, we had a wonderful group of parents and caregivers who came along to school during lunch play to support our tamariki in the junior playground. We will be restarting this again from the beginning of Term 2. The benefits of being on the parent playground roster include being involved in the school day, and getting to know other parents and your child's friends. Please email Katie if you would like to offer your help for Term 2. katie.mcfarlane@beckenham.school.nz

Victoria Park

This week we had some amazing trips to Victoria Park where we learnt lots about the native plants and animals that can be found on the Banks Peninsula and how things have changed over the years with pests being introduced and settlers arriving. We experienced a bush walk, looking out for the native plants and animals that we could see and we learned about pests and how we can track them by identifying their tracks and poo which we found out is called 'scat'. We also looked at the different traps that are used to get rid of pests. It was a very informative experience whilst also being lots of fun! A huge thank you to all the parents who came along to help. We couldn't have done this without out you. Have a look at the photos below: