Kia ora koutou, Kowhai Parents and Caregivers! Phew - week four has just flown by, and we're all here scratching our heads and wondering where the week went, and how it went so fast! This week we started into more of our normal programmes, and it was nice to get some familiar routine and structures up and running. Welcome to Maiwand and Kobe who joined us this week - we hope you enjoy your time in the Kowhai Learning Community. We all had a great time today in our mufti clothes - there was lots of fun and laughter, and lots of money raised for those in Tonga who need it. Meet the team
Thelma Herring is our Leader of Learning (Team Leader) and has been teaching at West Melton school for thirteen years. Thelma has two adult daughters and worked in the Emergency Department at Christchurch Hospital before she trained as a teacher. Thelma is level headed and able to cope with any emergency!
Sonja Beaumont has joined us this year from Wellington, and has been teaching for sixteen years. Sonja has a daughter at West Melton school, and a son at the Cat's Pyjamas preschool. She is looking forward to joining the West Melton community when her house is finished later this year. Sonja leads our school-wide Jump Jam sessions, and is the newest member of the Friends of West Melton. Christina Sands has been teaching for twenty-two years (she started teaching when she was 8). Christina has three boys, two are at West Melton school, and her eldest has just started Rolleston College. Christina previously lectured at the University of Canterbury (there's a natural progression from tertiary education to New Entrant teaching). Christina is responsible for Digital Technology across the school, and is our staff representative on the Board of Trustees. Jo Buckenham has been teaching for fifteen years, and has previously worked at Banks Ave, Ilam and Pukekohe East Schools. Jo has three boys, two are at West Melton school, and Jo's youngest son is at the Learning Centre. Jo leads our Gifted and Talented programme across the school. Jo is a keen member of West Melton Physical training and an active member of the West Melton community. (She could be found most often at either Boot Camp or Two Fat Possums). So that's a wee bit about us! We realised when we added it up that collectively we've been teaching for over 65 years - no wonder we're so tired! ;o) Responsible Use Agreements Our apologies for not sending these home last week - they have come home today! Please take some time over the weekend to discuss the contents with your children, and to sign in the appropriate place. Please cut off the grey (signed) section, and return this part to school - keep the rest of the notice at home so you can refer to it during the year. We're not starting to use digital technologies yet, and when we do, this will be very closely monitored. We also have a digital citizenship programme that we will be implementing, and we will share details from this through the year. If you have any questions, please contact Christina ([email protected]) Swimming With the rain this week we noticed a dramatic drop in both air and water temperature, and so we didn't swim on Thursday. We intend to keep swimming on a Monday and Thursday afternoon, but will only go if the conditions are suitable (ie warm!). We will let you know if we need to stop our swimming programme due to the weather. Discovery Friday Today we talked about rain! We had lots of great questions, so we found out about the wettest place in New Zealand (and then the world), as well as the driest place! We talked about the water cycle (ask your child to show you how this works!) and we talked about different types of cloud formations and what they mean. We also talked about the different sizes of raindrops, and sung a spectacular rainy day song! We intend to video this next week, so watch this space... Parent help Thank you to those of you who have offered to help in our Learning Community. We've got ourselves a little bit muddled about which parents are helping and when, so can we ask you (please) to email your child's pod teacher with the days and times you were available to help (even if you've already been to school to help!) Mathletics Mathletics is an online maths programme, available through a paid subscription. You can find out more details about the programme here. Mathletics is an optional programme, and you can purchase a reduced subscription through the school shop to support learning at home. Play-based learning Next Tuesday evening we will be hosting a parent workshop on play-based learning. You are warmly invited to come along and find out what we do when we play, and how this aligns with the rest of our classroom programme and the New Zealand Curriculum. Details on time and place were in last week's school newsletter, or previous K.I.T. notices. Kia pai tō mutunga wiki (have a great weekend), Thelma, Sonja, Jo & Christina kowhai@westmelton,school.nz
0 Comments
Kia ora koutou, Kowhai Parents and Caregivers, It's the end of another busy week in the Kowhai Learning Community. We've managed to squash lots into this week - no wonder we're all a bit tired today! A special welcome to Ella who started school this week. We were super lucky this week as it was Kowhai's choice for the bell music across the school. We chose one of our favourite new songs - Three Little Birds. We really like the reminder in this song not to worry about things! Feel free to have a sing-a-long over the weekend with your family! This week we continued to build on our early routines and expectations, as we began the more formal learning parts of our programme. We look forward to continuing this next week as we settle into the year and our regular programme. Life Education This week each pod group has spent two sessions with Harold the Giraffe (Life Education), finding out about how each of us are Very Important People, and how we can 'boost' each other with kindness, rather than 'bug' each other. We expanded on these ideas with our Discovery Friday theme today, so you will find more information on today's poem, and by asking your child to tell you about what they did when they visited Harold. BYOB (Bring your own book) As discussed at our Powerful Connections Meeting, we are encouraging all children to bring a book from home to share with a buddy on a Friday. This might be a picture book or an early chapter book, and will be kept in your child's reading packet and read just after morning tea. Poetry books Please ensure poetry books are left in reading packets for the week. This means they can be used throughout the week as an independent reading option, and also means they will definitely be there when they are needed on a Friday morning! Powerful Connections Meeting Our sincere thanks to those parents who were able to attend Tuesday night's Powerful Connections Meeting (meet the teacher). We appreciate that it is often difficult to schedule and attend meetings in the early evening. We enjoyed the opportunity to explain our programme in a little more detail, and to answer your questions about what we do each day. For those of you who were not able to attend, we have endeavoured to 'catch' you at school pick-up or drop-off and give you the handout we distributed on Tuesday night. We've also linked to an electronic copy here, so you can refer back to this information as the year goes on! We'll be continuing to give this out to new parents as their children start school. Parent help As mentioned at the Powerful Connections Meeting, we'd love some help in our Learning Community. Our thanks to those parents who have already offered to help return reading books each week. There is probably room for one or two more helpers with this important job - it would help to spread the load and would be a great way to meet other parents! :o) We'd also love some play dough, and someone who is able to source a regular supply of (untreated) wood for our keen builders and hammerhands! If you are able to make some play dough over the weekend, or if you'd like to come in and make some first thing Monday with a small group of children, that would be fantastic - please comment below so we know to expect you! And if you're able to source some wood, material, wool or assorted cardboard (or if you pass the printers at Templeton and could pick up some off-cuts for us!), again, please comment below so we can start making some plans. Our thanks in advance for your support of our learning. Mufti Day Next Friday (February 23) there will be whole-school mufti day. Children may come in mufti of their choosing (with parental guidance, of course!) - there is no 'theme' for this mufti day. All children are asked to bring a gold coin (or coins) and to contribute to the coin trail that is planned for the front court. This Mufti Day will be a fundraiser for those in Tonga who have been affected this week by Cyclone Gita. If you have any questions, please comment below. A reminder that next Tuesday we have another Community information evening about the introduction of NPDL across our school (full details in last week's K.I.T. notice, or in the school newsletter); and that the following week we have an information evening about play-based learning. You are warmly invited to both of these evenings! Kia pai tō mutunga wiki (have a great weekend), Thelma, Sonja, Jo & Christina kowhai@westmelton,school.nz Kia ora koutou, Kowhai Parents and Caregivers,
Nau mai haere mai - welcome to the start of the 2018 school year! It's been wonderful to meet all the learners and their whanau over the last few days, and we look forward to working with each of you in what is shaping up to be an exciting year. We've had lots of children turn five and start school for the first time, and so we give a special welcome to West Melton school to: Jack, Charlie, Nova, Jade, Amy, Charlie, Chloe, Calvin, Lakyn, Isla, Tane, Will, Chelsea, Levi, Emily, Grace, Georgia, Leo, Jessica, and Ruby! We're expecting a further 10 children to start school over the next 10 weeks, so it won't always be this busy! It's been a busy start to the year! We're all feeling a bit tired and ready for a rest by the end of the day (and that's just the teachers!). We've spent a lot of time establishing our routines and expectations for behaviour. Your child might be able to tell you about our manaakitanga treaty that we wrote together on Monday and 'signed' with our handprints! We look forward to building on these expectations as we begin the more formal aspects of our programme over the next few weeks. We visited the school library on Wednesday afternoon, and all children were issued with library books to take home. These can be returned to school next Wednesday, and we will exchange them for new books! Communication from school Keeping in touch (K.I.T.) notices are sent home each Friday. They contain news from the week about what we've done in the Kowhai community, and notices about any events that are coming up. K.I.T. notices are always sent electronically, and you will receive an email from the office with a link to each week's notice. You can always check the archives on this page to re-read any old notices. Please feel free to comment if you have any questions or need anything clarified, or if you have any items of lost clothing that you need people to look out for! All school notices will be sent home on Fridays. Usually these will be electronic and via email, so please check that the school office has your correct email address. Whole-school newsletters are sent every three weeks, and you will also receive information from the Board of Trustees and Friends of West Melton School from time to time. Swimming We are currently swimming on a Monday and Thursday afternoon. Please ensure your child has named togs, towel and goggles with them. Please also check you have named all uniform items (they do look very similar!) ;o) If your child has grommets, or requires assistance with changing, please let your pod teacher know. We have a swimming ratio of 1 adult to 10 children, and would welcome any parents who are able to assist with supervision between 1.45 and 2.30. Our main focus is water confidence and fun, and we will continue to swim as long as the water temperature is 'welcoming'! Signing in From next week we would like children to 'sign in' with their pod teacher. Each child will need to write their name on a laminated sheet beside their photo - this will be very similar to what we did last year. This gives good practice at writing our names, and provides teachers with an easy visual of which children are at school. It's also a very helpful list in the unlikely event of an emergency. Thanks for your support as we establish these early routines! Stationery Our thanks to you all for sending your child's stationery along so promptly. Some children had stationery items from last year that are not required this year. We have sent these home in school bags. Please remove these from your child's bag, and feel free to use these at home to support learning. Coming up There are a few parent meetings coming up that you might be interested in attending. Parent meetings are held throughout the year on Tuesday evenings (yes, we are aware this clashes with touch, pilates, the TFP quiz, and Boot Camp), and generally run from 7.00 - 8.30. Usually these meetings are aimed at parents only (they're not for children), but we acknowledge that children may need to attend if you're unable to find a baby-sitter.
Please have a look around the rest of our Kowhai Learning Community website. Under the tab 'Discovery Friday' you'll find a snapshot of each Friday's wonderful adventures that might help to expand on our poem each week, or to generate discussion or further learning at home over the weekend. The children will be involved in writing these posts each Friday afternoon, so please feel free to comment on them! Thanks for all your support over the last few weeks. It's been a really positive start to the year, and we're looking forward to a fantastic year of learning and engagement! Kia pai tō mutunga wiki (have a great weekend), Thelma, Sonja, Jo & Christina kowhai@westmelton,school.nz |
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 |