Kahikatea Team: February 2023

Saturday, 18 February 2023

Kahikatea News Term 1 Week 3

Kia ora e te whānau mā,

It has been lovely to see our children continuing to settle into the new school year! 'We Love Learning' has been a value that the teachers have noticed in action, with children enthusiastically approaching their learning. Nau mai te wero, bring on the challenge!

Hats

Students are required to wear hats outside in Terms 1 and 4. Please make sure that your child has a clearly named wide-brimmed or bucket hat. We recommend leaving hats at school in your child's home group hat tub. This helps minimise the possibility of losing or forgetting hats and it supports us in ensuring smooth transitions to breaks during the day.

Toys at School

We have noticed that some children are bringing toys (including soft toys) from home to school. We have reminded tamariki that their toys need to stay at home. We find that if children bring a toy from home it can become a distraction during learning, and sometimes these special items become lost or broken during the day. If your child needs extra support with settling into school, please speak to your child's home group teacher, and together, we will come up with a plan.

Celebration Assembly and Team Hui

We had the first Celebration Assembly and Team Hui of the year last Friday with many parents/caregivers joining us. Congratulations to Kahikatea children who received a Kete award or a certificate for showing our school values.

Sharing our Learning

We had some special visitors in the Kahikatea hub this week! It is butterfly season, so we were thrilled to get the chance to learn about the life cycle of butterflies this week when a learner brought their chrysalises in to share. Even more exciting were the obvious changes in the chrysalises throughout the day and then the appearance of butterflies.

Literacy at home

Your child's literacy teacher will send home resources to support your child's structured literacy learning at home by the end of this week. These resources align with your child's current structured literacy stage. As your child moves through the stages, these resources will be updated. Please keep an eye out for them in your child's reading folder and let your child's teacher know if you have any questions.

Maths

In Kahikatea so far this term, we have been working on an NZ Maths unit called ‘All about us’. We have explored:

Different ways to count groups of objects
Creating and interpreting picture graphs
Features of 2D shapes
The language of position
Ordering objects by mass (weight)
Creating sequential patterns

Here are some photos of some of the fabulous mathematical thinking that our tamariki have displayed...

That's all for now!

Team Kahikatea

quynh.nguyen@beckenham.school.nz

lisa.collier@beckenham.school.nz

krystal.hunt@beckenham.school.nz

amber.donovan@beckenham.school.nz

katie.mcfarlane@beckenham.school.nz

Saturday, 4 February 2023

Kahikatea News Term 1 Week 1 2023

Kia ora e te whānau,

Thank you for taking the time to attend Learning Conferences this week. The opportunity to touch base with each whānau prior to starting the new school year is invaluable. We really enjoyed hearing about each child's holiday break and share in their strengths and next steps.

We had a wonderful first two days back at school! The air conditioning kept us cool as the sun blazed outside. It was wonderful to connect with our home group learners and get to know each other as a team. What really stood out to us was the positivity in the hub. The children were excited to be back at school and keen to give new things a go!

Play Areas

We went on a boundary walk on Thursday to show children the areas that they can play in during break times. The following was also shared with children...

Nuts at School

The following information went out to whānau on Friday via Hero. Just in case you missed it, here it is again...

We are aware that the Kahikatea team have multiple students with nut allergies. One of these is life threatening. Therefore, we are asking that nuts and nut-based products are not brought to school by your child. Nut-based products include items like Nutella, peanut butter, muesli bars containing nuts etc.

The team is also aware that some children may have other dietary requirements. Please talk with your child’s Homegroup teacher if this is the case so that they are aware and we can create a specific plan to support your child if need be.

Our policy at school is that children only eat their own food and not share. Teachers are reminding children about this, along with reminders about handwashing and putting food wrappings in their lunch boxes to take home.

If you have any questions please contact your child's Homegroup teacher.

Thank you for your support as 'We Get There Together'.