Time is flying!! We are nearing the end of the year. It is the time of the year when everyone is getting tired. We have seen lots of super tired kids on the mat at the end of the day!!
This is our last K.I.T. notice for the year! Can we just say it has been an absolute pleasure to teach your children this year and we feel very lucky to be their first teachers in their school journey! We are always so impressed and amazed by the progress they make while they are in Kōwhai. For those of you who are staying with us next year we look forward to seeing you back at the beginning of next year ready for another great year in Kōwhai! For those of you leaving us thank you for all of your support throughout your time with us and know that you are always welcome to pop back and say hi anytime. We know all of the learners going on to Ti Kouka will look after Mrs Herring for us!! Prizegiving We have an end of year prizegiving coming up where we will be handing out a few certificates and singing a few songs. It will be held at the West Melton Community Centre for Years 1-4 at 11:00 - 12:00 if you would like to come along and hear our beautiful singing! Literacy We will be spending next week on assessment so there will be no home learning. At the end of the week if you would like some ideas of things to work on over the holidays for your child, come and see us and we can give you some ideas. Last Day The last day of school will be on Thursday 17 December. School will finish at 12:00. Add it to your diary!! Transistion Week Next week your child (ren) will be transitioning into their 2021 communities. You will be notified of the pod teacher in a letter included with the End of Year Report on Monday. Transition visits will be at the following times: Monday 11.20 - 12.30, Wednesday 1.30 - 3.00, Thursday 9.00 - 11.00. If you would like to visit the community and meet the teachers, please pop along on Wednesday from 3.00 - 3.30. Reminders Please return any library books or reading books that you may have laying around your house! Also please return any Walk-a-thon sponsorship money as soon as possible. Farewell to Mrs Bowen A big thank you to Mrs Bowen who has been teaching in Kōwhai for Term 3 and 4 to be our extra teacher to support our numbers. It has been great to have an extra adult in our class and we love all of the really cool ideas and activities she brings to Kōwhai. We will surely see her around the place next year!! Mrs Dunlop We wish Mrs Dunlop all the best for early in the new year when her and her husband are expecting their first baby. We look forward to having lots of baby cuddles and hope that she will come and visit us lots! Have an amazing and safe Christmas holiday everyone and we hope you get to spend some time together as a family! Kōwhai Teachers - Thelma, Nicole, Sonja, Jo and Janette [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
0 Comments
Wow, it's hard to believe that it is the end of week 6 today, the term is flying by very quickly!
Welcome Since our last KIT note we have welcomed Finn, Ethan, Kora and their whanau to Kowhai. We are really happy to have you as part of our community. Athletics This afternoon we had our own mini athletics. We hope you enjoyed watching your children participate as much as they enjoyed taking part in all the activities and having lots of fun. Walk-a-thon On Friday 27 November (Postponement date is Monday 30th November), we will be participating in the whole-school walk-a-thon from 11.30-12.30pm. The aim of the walk-a-thon is to raise funds for school reading materials. Your child was sent home with a letter explaining the event and a sponsorship form last week. Show week spectacular This was a great success and we hope that the children shared many of the activities with you eg, the whanau jump jam competition, watching the Kapa Haka, choir and hip-hop groups perform as well as the final of West Melton’s Got Talent. I think a lot of Kowhai children will be prepared to take part next year. Lastly, the main event; Pet Day. It was awesome to see so many parents and extended whanau come along to this event. Thank you, for your support in making sure that your child(ren) had entries in some of the creative sections. We were very impressed with the quality of their work. Missing Items Unfortunately, we continue to have a few wee magpies in our classroom that like to take shiny things. Can you please keep an eye on your child’s bag to see if any extra things appear and return them to Kowhai! Thanks for your help with this! Sergeant Neal popped in today to have a chat with the children about making sure they are doing the right thing at the right time to help alleviate this situation. Linked to this, can you please also ensure that your child(ren) is not bringing toys, jewellery etc to school as it is very upsetting when they get lost (or even taken), or broken. We wish good luck to all the children who are performing in the ballet, Alice and Wonderland this weekend especially Holly and Poppy who have a soloist role. Lastly, we wish Mrs B good luck for her event at the Queenstown marathon. I believe she is in the new hybrid walk/run event. If you’re going down there and you see her, you’ll be able to ask her about it. Take care everyone, thank you, for your ongoing support and have an awesome weekend! Kōwhai Teachers - Thelma, Nicole, Sonja, Jo and Janette [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] This term is already flying by. It is a massive term as well with lots on!
Today we have the school disco, we hope that everyone who is going has a great time. Show week spectacular Next week we are having a show week spectacular. A programme should have gone home yesterday with the oldest or only child in the family. This gives you an outline of what is happening during the week. Parents and Grandparents are invited to come along and watch the Jump Jam competition on Monday or the many performances on Tuesday or for the Pet Day Extravaganza on Thursday. On Thursday there will be chances to view the pets and craft entries from 9:00 - 12:30 and then if you would like to stay on you are welcome to stay for a shared lunch afterwards. If you are bringing along a pet you would have received a notice about what they will be judged on. Every child is asked to bring along one or two craft entries on the morning of Thursday and then they will go straight to the Wharenui where you will find the Kowhai table and label your child’s entry. (all the information around this went out in the last school newsletter) The Friends of West Melton will be there on the day selling ice blocks, they have also organised a coffee cart for the adults and are taking pre-orders for chips and mini hotdogs. The forms for the pre-orders went out with the children this week and are due back to school on Tuesday. DON’T FORGET TO WEAR YOUR WHANAU COLOURS ON MONDAY!! Athletics On Friday 20th November, we will be having our Junior Athletics. Ti Kouka and Manuka will be in the morning and Kowhai will have theirs in the afternoon. There will be more information to follow. Teacher Only Day Just a reminder that school will be closed on Show Day and then on the following Monday (16 Nov) for Teacher Only Day. Busy Bumbles are running a programme for the day if you need child care and details for this were in the last newsletter. Sun hats Just a reminder that sun hats are compulsory for term 4. Missing Items We seem to have a few wee magpies in our classroom that like to take shiny things. Can you please keep an eye on your child’s bag to see if any extra things appear and return them to Kowhai! Thanks for your help with this! Spare clothes We have had some children who have had some “accidents” at school and we have now run out of spare shorts and undies. If we have loaned some out to you can you please return them to us or if you have any spare that you can donate to us we would really appreciate them. Have a great weekend Kōwhai Teachers - Thelma, Nicole, Sonja, Janette and Jo [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Welcome back everyone. Wow these two weeks have gone fast already! This term is a really busy term with lots on! Last week the school sent out a newsletter with some important dates of things coming up. It might be helpful to look through these dates and add any important things to your diary!
This term we have welcomed Daniel, Grace, Skylar, Hamish, Finan, Jax, Asher and Harry. We are so happy to have you with us. Uniform Just a wee reminder to please make sure that all of your uniform items are named. If the items are named it makes it way easier for us to get them back to you. Also school hats are compulsory in term 4 and we have a very strict policy that if children do not have a hat they must play in the shade. Ako Conversations It has been great to see everyone for ako conversations over the last two weeks. It is always lovely to meet together to discuss your children and their learning. School Photos These are coming up in Week 4 so make sure your child has the correct uniform on and is practising their big smiles!! Pet Day Keep working on your pet diaries ready for Pet Day. There will be a notice coming out about the craft side of pet day. Children will be required to enter at least one category. Teacher Only Day Just a reminder that there is a Teacher Only Day coming up on the Monday after show weekend where the school will be closed for instruction. Have a great long weekend! Thelma, Nicole, Sonja, Janette and Jo Kōwhai Teachers [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Well we made it! The end of Term 3!
This week we welcome Frankie to our community. We are so pleased you are here. We know how tired all of the children are this week and how ready they are for the holidays! (and maybe the teachers too!) We hope that you all have a relaxing holiday and get to spend lots of time together. Today we say farewell to Mrs Robertson from the University of Canterbury who has been working alongside Mrs B. It has been great having Mrs Robertson with us and we are really going to miss her. We wish her all of the best in her future teaching career. Spring Challenge A big good luck to all of the amazing (and slightly crazy) mums out there that are taking part in the Spring Challenge Adventure race on the weekend! With a special shout out to our own Mrs Beaumont who is also taking part!! We wish her all the best and look forward to hearing all about it when we get back to school. Little Garden Promotion We are super excited about our sprouting Little Garden sets in the class and look forward to watching them grow. Pet Day Just a reminder about Pet Day which is coming up. Entry forms should all be in and pet diaries have been handed out, If you haven't received one there will be chances to get them from the office early next term. Just a short and sweet note from us today as we know you want to get started on your holidays straight away!! Have a great break and see you all back safely next term. Thelma, Nicole, Sonja, Janette and Jo Kōwhai Teachers [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Welcome to Week 8! Week 8!! Can you believe it's already Week 8!!!
We have been super busy in Kōwhai with our amazing Literacy and Maths and last week we launched our little garden league project where we are going to be growing the seeds from the Little Garden promotion from New World. We were lucky enough to be sent a whole bunch of free seedlings and we have planted them today. Literacy We are really impressed with how hard everyone is working on their Literacy and thank you for all of your hard work at home. Just a reminder that Monday - Thursday nights every week there will be follow up activities to complete. These could be sound practice, letter formation, speed reading words, dictated sentences, heart words to learn or pieces of text to read. We really notice the difference in the children that complete the follow up activities and the ones that don't. When children reinforce their learning at home they are strengthening their neural pathways and therefore strengthening their memory and making their learning easier. We are really proud of our Literacy programme and you may have seen it mentioned in the news recently. It is great to know that we are teaching literacy based on the Science of Reading and helping lead a change in the way that Literacy is taught in New Zealand schools. Maths We have been working really hard on our maths in class. The things we have been working on are addition and subtraction through real life problems and learning about the days of the week, months of the year and seasons. We often get asked how parents can help at home. There are heaps of things that you can do to reinforce our maths learning. The most important thing is to never say that you are not good at maths. We are working really hard on creating positive maths mindsets with a strong sense of self-belief. If they hear you say you are not good at maths they might start to take this on as well. (Even if you didn't like maths at school - pretend you loved it and were amazing at it!!) Also lots of number recognition to 20, then to 50, then to 100. This could be on letterboxes, recipes, board games, in the car, or any where around home. Playing dice games with children is a great way to help them recognise patterns and teaching them how to add and count on. We talk a lot in class about how maths is everywhere in our world (not just on a worksheet or in our maths books!) if could be as simple as pointing out anytime you use maths in your everyday life or even if you use it through your work! (This then shows the children that maths is everywhere and just doesn't happen between morning tea and lunch!!) Sense of belonging We are so lucky to have such a wide range of families in our community and we would like to celebrate where we all come from. We have a New Zealand map, a world map and an iwi map that we would like to put up in Kōwhai that celebrates all of the cool places we feel connected to. Over the next week we will send out a form for you to fill in that highlights all of the places in the world (including New Zealand) that you have a family connection to so that we can add it to our display. Resources for the Mud Kitchen If you have any old metal pots and pans or baking dishes that you are looking to get rid of we would love them for our mud kitchen. Thanks so much! Cardboard boxes If you have any spare cardboard boxes from your pantry that would normally go into the recycling we would love to please have them for our construction box! Pet Day Pet day is returning this year which is super exciting! There will be information coming our from the school around this so please keep an eye our for this!! That is all for now! Have an amazing weekend!! Thelma, Nicole, Sonja, Janette and Jo Kōwhai Teachers [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Kia Ora,
Welcome to Week 6. We are over half-way through the term. This week we welcome Sophie, Holly, Harrison, Henry, Amity and Jack. We are so pleased you are here. We are also super lucky to have Mrs Pania Robertson joining us from the University of Canterbury. She will be with us until the end of the term working with our learners, helping Mrs B and learning how to be a teacher. If you see her around our community feel free to come and say hi. On Monday our new teacher Mrs Janette Bowen starts with us as our 5th teacher. She will be supporting our learners during play and taking small groups during learning time. She will work until lunchtime until the end of the term (Monday - Thursday) and then in term 4 will work full days (Monday - Thursday). We are looking forward to having her as part of our team and we are lucky to have someone who already knows our learners so well. Daffodil Day Man how cool did we look in our yellow today. Thank you for all of your generous donations for a wonderful cause. Seesaw Thanks to those of you who have already signed up for this. The kids love knowing that you might get to see what they are doing during the day and it gives you a great place to start a conversation about what they did at school. There should be a QR code sheet in their bags if you haven't seen it yet! IF you were already signed up under the family app then feel free to just ignore this or pass it on to another family member that might want to see it. School Calendar On our school website there is a link to our school calendar where you will find upcoming dates. This is a great place to keep checking or like the school Facebook page which also provides lots of great information. Level 2 Thanks for your ongoing support with drop off and pick ups at the gate during level 2. Fingers crossed we aren't here for too much longer. On a positive note, the children are growing in independence by coming in by themselves. Have a great weekend! Thelma, Nicole, Sonja and Jo Kōwhai Teachers [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Kia Ora
Hey everyone, man the time is flying past. This week we welcome Cian, we are so pleased you are here. Literacy Over the last two days we have been doing some Literacy testing and we have been so impressed by how much improvement the learners have made. Thank you for all of the work you have been doing at home, this has really shown in our assessment. Today we have sent home a list of the heart words at the level they are working on to be stuck into their home learning books. Please help your children learn to read and write these words fluently. We have also sent home a 100s board and a 1-20 number strip just to help with your counting at home! Level 2 Thanks for your patience as we navigate our way through the new protocols. Any information can be found on our website and is emailed out to you from the school. The school will be sending out a survey about the different levels and how this will affect you, once you see it can you please fill it out. Goal sheets These were sent out last week for you to look over and to help you remember what was discussed. Seesaw If you haven't already signed up for Seesaw please follow the directions below. Click on the link below and then you will be able to choose your child from the list. You can do this from your computer or your phone. If you use your phone once you are logged in it will ask you if you want to download the app. (Seesaw family app) BUCKENHAM POD https://app.seesaw.me/s/122-367-752 BEAUMONT POD https://app.seesaw.me/s/047-932-437 DUNLOP POD https://app.seesaw.me/s/137-448-176 HERRING POD https://app.seesaw.me/s/478-528-713 If you have any issues please come and see your pod teacher and we can help you through it! Keep up the great work and keep safe. Thelma, Nicole, Sonja and Jo Kōwhai Teachers [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Welcome back to everyone for Term 3. This term we welcome Findlay, Mila, Harry, Ella, Gabby, Sophie and Georgia we are so pleased you are here.
It was lovely to catch up with you all at our Ako conversations. It was great to set some new goals for the term and celebrate what has been going well. Literacy Thanks so much for all of the families that have been following up our class literacy programme at home. We can really see the difference in the children that are consolidating their learning at home. Keep up the great work. It might be a great time to check in to see if their home learning book needs replacing. These can be purchased at the school office. Seesaw If you haven't already signed up for Seesaw please follow the directions below. Click on the link below and then you will be able to choose your child from the list. You can do this from your computer or your phone. If you use your phone once you are logged in it will ask you if you want to download the app. (Seesaw family app) BUCKENHAM POD https://app.seesaw.me/s/122-367-752 BEAUMONT POD https://app.seesaw.me/s/047-932-437 DUNLOP POD https://app.seesaw.me/s/137-448-176 HERRING POD https://app.seesaw.me/s/478-528-713 If you have any issues please come and see your pod teacher and we can help you through it! Holiday snaps We hope you all had an amazing break. It would be great it you could please send a long a photo of what you got up to these holidays so we can add it to a wall display. This will be a great chance for us to do some shared writing and let the children share their adventures with their peers! Framed photo If you haven't already can you please send a long a framed photo of your child for our mantlepiece. It will be returned at the end of the year. We feel that it makes our classroom feel a little more like home. We hope you all have a great weekend Thelma, Nicole, Sonja and Jo Kōwhai Teachers [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Kia Ora
This week we welcome Grace to our community. We are so pleased to have you here. Wow, we have finally made it to Week 12!! This has been an unusual term and a long term. It has been so lovely to have the children back at school but it is definitely feeling like time for a holiday!! We hope that you all have a lovely break and that the sun manages to be out for at least some of the two weeks!! Literacy over the holidays We will be sending the home literacy books home over the holidays with a couple of activities. It would be really great if you could please have a look through these and work on them with your child. We have really noticed what a difference it has made to those learners who follow the learning up at home. It helps with the retention of the sounds and words that they learn during the day. Snapshot reports On Thursday we sent home the mid year snapshot report. (Check your child's reading packet if it hasn't yet made it to you.) This is an indication of where your child is at in relation to the New Zealand Curriculum. It was sent home with lots of information explaining what it all means. At the Ako Conversations (early next term) we can explain these further and give you some more detailed feedback on where you child is working and where they are heading. Ako Conversations At the beginning of next term we will be having our next round of Ako Conversations. This is where we meet together with you and your child to share what has been going well and set some goals for the term ahead. We look forward to seeing you and your child during the 15 minutes time slot. The dates and times are as follows:
Code: pkf8v Bookings will close on Monday 20 July at 3 pm Seesaw Thank you to those parents who have already signed up for Seesaw under the family app. Here are the details below: Click on the link below and then you will be able to choose your child from the list. You can do this from your computer or your phone. If you use your phone once you are logged in it will ask you if you want to download the app. (Seesaw family app) BUCKENHAM POD https://app.seesaw.me/s/122-367-752 BEAUMONT POD https://app.seesaw.me/s/047-932-437 DUNLOP POD https://app.seesaw.me/s/137-448-176 HERRING POD https://app.seesaw.me/s/478-528-713 If you have any issues please come and see your pod teacher and we can help you through it! Holiday snaps We hope you all have an amazing break and we look forward to hearing all about it when you return for Term 3. It would be great it you could please send a long a photo of what you get up to these holidays so we can add it to a wall display. This will be a great chance for us to do some shared writing and let the children share their adventures with their peers! Stay safe everyone Thelma, Nicole, Sonja and Jo Kōwhai Teachers [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] |
K.I.T. noticesK.I.T. notices are published every second Friday. They contain information that we hope will help to keep you up-to-date with what is happening in our learning community as well as the wider school. Please feel free to comment on each week's post with any news items or community notices of your own, or to ask any questions you may have! Archives
December 2020
Categories |