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.
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.