Kahikatea Newsletter Term 3 Week 6

 Kia ora koutou,

We have had two fun and busy weeks since our last blog post. The Kahikatea children have been actively engaged in the various programmes on offer, and it has been wonderful to see everyone living our values of 'We Love Learning' and 'We Love Challenge' every day.

It has been fabulous to end the week with the sun shining! It really feels like Spring is just around the corner...hooray!

We miss seeing you in the mornings and afternoons, so we thought it would be nice to share a typical day in the life of a Kahikatea kid to give you insight into what we do each day.

8:55 - The bell rings and the children meet their homegroup teacher in their home space. During this time, the teacher does the roll and shares the daily notices. Sometimes we do a mindfulness activity to get our brains ready for learning. We do the Mystery Bag at this time too. The children are very good at asking open-ended questions to narrow down what could be inside the bag.

9:10 - Reading. We begin reading with a shared Big Book. During this time, teachers models what a good reader sounds like. The teacher prompts children to think about the structure of the text, the language used, the function of the surface features, and together we enjoy a shared story. After this, the teachers read with children in small groups, and when they are not with a teacher they are doing activities that link to the Big Book, practise spelling, select texts from their group boxes to read, and do other literacy-related activities.

10:00 - Handwriting. Our handwriting programme sees some children writing on whiteboards, while some write in books. Bounce and Skip pay careful attention during this time to spot children with great body posture, pencil grip, the correct formation of letters and their concentration and effort. 

10:20 - Morning Tea Snack

10:30 - Morning Tea Play

10:50 - The bell rings, and children return to their homespaces for phonics. Following this, we begin writing. This often involves shared writing, in which the teacher and the children co-construct a text. The teacher also records key words and ideas on the whiteboard for children to refer to. All children do a picture plan in their book to get them thinking about their story. Many children use alphabet, word and blend cards to support them in the crafting of their writing.

11:40 - Maths. We teach Maths collaboratively (Amber & Lisa / Katie & Charlotte). We begin each maths session with a warm-up/hot-spot to switch our brain into maths mode. Two days per week see children involved in small group instruction with a teacher and independent activities that support children with their next steps in mathematics. We have two inquiry days, where children work with a maths buddy to solve open-ended inquiry maths questions. We have a concept day once a week, where we focus in on one particular aspect of mathematics, for example, subtraction or fractions and do a range of activities related to this.

12:20 - Brain Break. This is a chance to move, drink, have a toilet stop and have a snack. Teachers usually read a novel or picture book to the children during this time.

12:40 - Lunch Play

1:20 - The bell rings and children line up to wash their hands with soap and water. They then meet their homegroup teacher in their home space to do the roll and have some quiet, supervised eating time together. After this, we collect our bags from the cubbies and pack our lunchboxes, drink bottles, jerseys and reading folders. 

2:00 - We meet in the pathway to hear our Discovery options for the afternoon. Popular choices often include construction, drawing, making, outside play, craft, drama, quiet reading and board games. This is a lovely time of the day for children to connect with their friends across the hub and spend time working together and immersing themselves in learning through play.

Dates to Note

Monday 31st August - Staff Only Day

Friday 4th September - Wacky Hair Day. This is to support the Child Cancer Foundation. Children can come to school in mufti and wear a wig, hat, or have wacky hair.

Looking Ahead: TERM 4

Next term we have three significant events booked: whole school athletics, water safety lessons and a trip to Rapaki Marae. At level 2 these events can take place, although our wholes school athletics at Level 2 would not include spectators.  

Sandy is planning to send out a parent/caregivers survey regarding these and other events (eg Year 5/6 camp) very soon. Please do look out for it. 

Kahikatea Newsletter, Term 3, Week 4

Level 2 in Team Kahikatea

Kia ora whānau, 

Thank you for keeping up with all the information coming at short notice to your inboxes. It is a changeable situation so we appreciate that you make time to remain aware of the information school is sharing. The school Facebook page is an excellent way to keep up to date. 

Our hand washing, sanitizing and surface cleaning routines will be stepped back up to the gold standard again, immediately.

Unless it is an emergency, we are asking everyone who is not staff, itinerant teachers or students to stay off site - this means a return to dropping off and picking up at the gate. We will have teachers at the gates to support children to transition into school.

If you do have to come on site for any reason, please visit the office FIRST and sign in using either our digital sign-in register or the paper register. Please ALSO use the national COVID Tracer App to register by scanning a QR code on one of our entry doors. If your child is unwell, please keep them at home.

Assembly will be cancelled, however BOOK CHARACTER DAY on Friday will still go ahead. If you have a meeting booked with a member of staff, they will be in contact with you to either reschedule this, or book it via a ZOOM.

As we did at Alert Level 2 last time, the CSM Outreach music lessons and band program will continue at school, with distancing as required.

Recent Highlights in Team Kahikatea

Wellbeing 

We have spent this week learning about some of the key elements of wellbeing, and practised some new strategies to help us stay well. Teachers used a beautiful range of new books purchased by Anne, our librarian. The books cover the following areas, and children enjoyed reading and then practising the following: 

* Mindfulness - a mindfulness grounding activity, with Charlotte & Lisa

* Yoga - learning some new animal and other poses with Amber and Lisa

* Emotions - discussing and drawing about different emotions with Katie

* Resilience and recovery with Jules

Readathon

We are thrilled to see so many of our tamariki reading everyday and supporting this fundraising event for our PTA. Forms and money are due next Friday 21st August. Thanks so much for your support!

Thanks to all of you who are supporting children with reading and completing their regular book logs. We've had an extra focus on this, with certificates and celebrations for number of books or nights a child reads. The children have shown greater engagement and eagerness to read, which is helping them cement their learning. 

Beckenham's 'Got Talent' Talent Quest 

We have some students who have shown "We Love Challenge" by putting themselves forward to audition a variety of acts for Beckenham's Got Talent. Please check with your children, they can tell you if they are planning to participate in this. 

Star Writing 

The Sea by Hannah 

The sea is very beautiful, but if we put rubbish in the sea the animals will die and they will run out of food. And plants will die too. Then the sea won't be so beautiful. And the worst thing is that animals will also get sick and we do not want that. So we need to save the earth. We are the ones to do it. Let's save the sea and have fun too. The earth can be cared for too. We can try to help the environment and to save our home and our land for you and me. Everyone can help by telling people to do small things and it will make a big difference and soon a lot of people will be helping too. Stop littering so that animals don't have to die and the planet will be in peace. We should tidy up the beaches and planet so that it will be easier to save our home and land for the Earth so that we are safe. We need to be kind to animals.

Discovery - We Get There Together!