Tēnā koutou whānau!
We are already over halfway through the term, wow! It is so exciting to be heading towards spring and warmer weather. We are looking forward to seeing more sunshine, getting outside and making the most of the longer days!
It has been a super busy couple of weeks in Kahikatea, filled with lots of exciting learning, special events and plenty of fun. Take a look at what we have been up to!
A Visit from Dr Dan
As part of our Inquiry learning about body systems, we were very lucky to have Dr Dan, Elsie’s dad, come in to chat to us about his amazing job as a neonatologist in the Christchurch Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
The tamariki were super engaged and loved learning about what Dr Dan does to care of babies. He brought along life-size dolls, real medical equipment, photos and videos, which gave us a fantastic insight into his important work.
A huge thank you to Dr Dan for taking the time to come and share his knowledge with us!
Shapes!
We have been learning all about 2D shapes in maths and will be moving on to 3D shapes next week.
We have been exploring the different parts that make up shapes, learning about polygons and non-polygons, and investigating what makes different shapes unique.
We also got to have a go with the geoboards, which were a huge hit! It was so cool to see how many different shapes we could create and how many sides we could give our shapes. We definitely got creative!
Here are some photos of our shape investigations!
Disco Time!
Last Friday, we had our school Disco and what a fun afternoon it was! We loved seeing all the colourful outfits, impressive dance moves and, of course, popcorn all over the floor!
There was lots of dancing, music, a limbo competition and even an outfit parade. Everyone had a fantastic time!
Fairytales!
Lots of our literacy classes have been exploring fairytales, and it has been a super engaging focus.
Talia and Sarah J’s classes even performed their very own role-play of The Three Little Pigs! We were so impressed by how quickly they worked together to put their performance together.
The tamariki did an amazing job showing ‘We Love Challenge’ and being brave enough to perform in front of the class. We didn’t realise we had so many talented actors and actresses in our hub!
Big Buddies
We try to catch up with our Big Buddies every few weeks for some fun activities and a chance to practise tuakana-teina, learning from and supporting one another.
Last Friday, which was also Disco day (hence all the colourful outfits!), we teamed up with our Big Buddies for a scavenger hunt around the school. We had to work together to find lots of different things, such as:
🔎 Something with the letter B
🔎 Something smaller than your hand
🔎 Something older than your Year 2 buddy
🔎 And lots of other tricky challenges!
It was so cool to see everyone working together, thinking carefully and helping each other along the way. There were some very creative answers and lots of great teamwork!
Life Education Van
We are very excited to welcome Harold the Giraffe and our Life Education teacher back to Beckenham from Monday 7 September – Thursday 17 September.
Each home group will have two sessions in the mobile classroom, with both lessons supporting our current Science and Inquiry learning about our bodies and body systems.
Session 1: Why is physical activity good for our bodies?
Session 2: What are body systems and how do they work?
We are looking forward to some fun and interactive learning with Harold!
We hope everyone has a lovely weekend, and fingers crossed we get some more sunshine to enjoy! ☀️
Ngā mihi,
Talia, Sarah S, Amber and Sarah J
