Kia ora koutou, Kōwhai whanau! Welcome back to school for Term 3 - it has been lovely to see everybody back fresh and rested from their holidays, and ready to go for another exciting term! A very warm welcome to our new learners who have started at West Melton school: Connor, Eliza, Ema and Morgan. And to Blaze and Phoenix who are new to West Melton, having moved from schools in Timaru. And of course, an extra big welcome to Mrs Rachael Fearn joining Kōwhai as our roll-growth teacher! Welcome to our new parents as well - please have a look through our previous K.I.T. notices to see what usually happens in Kōwhai, and have a look at our other pages to find out more about what we think. Feel free to use the 'comment' function below to ask any questions. :o) Book week Thank you all for your time and considerable effort in dressing and preparing your children for today's book parade. The children looked incredible, and were all very proud of their costumes! We spent the day discussing book characters and writing and illustrating our own books, plays, and comic strips. We expect this learning will continue into next week, and look forward to sharing some amazing stories with you. Have a look at our photos below, and at the other photos we've added to Seesaw over the day. Seesaw (skip this bit if you've already signed up!)
We have started using Seesaw, so we can easily share and communicate your child's learning at school. Seesaw is private, so posts about your child will only be seen by you (except for group or whole class posts). Signing up to Seesaw allows you to receive updates in real time, and to respond to your child's posts with a message (lots of children enjoy this interactive feature, and the feedback from home). To access your child's profile, click here. Choose your child's name from the list, and create your own account. You will need to wait for a Kōwhai teacher to approve your association with a child before you can see any content. If you have previously used Seesaw with another child, you do not need to create another account - simply click 'sign in'. Individual posts can be shared with Grandparents etc at your discretion. If you would like some help with this, or some more information, contact Christina ([email protected]). Student conference booklets Our thanks to you all for making the time to come along to student conferences, and for your positive feedback. It was lovely to see how proud the children were when they shared their learning with you, and how easily they spoke about what they were able to do, and what they were good at. As mentioned last term, please take the time to fill out the final page (back page) of the student conference booklet, with two stars (reasons you are proud of your child), and a wish (something you would like them to work on). Once this has been done, please send the book back to school and we will photocopy the last page before returning it to you to keep! Parent help If you would like to come in and help at any stage in our learning community, we'd love an extra pair of hands! There are usually reading books to be returned in the morning if you were only able to help before school, or you could stay and join in the play if you were able to stay after 9.00. In the past we've had some help with baking with small groups, if that was something you wanted to do again. We'd love somebody to volunteer to supervise the wood-working table, or to watch some outdoor play. We've got a keen group of 'bug studiers' at the moment, so if you can cope with creepy-crawlies that would be wonderful! Of course - there's always indoor play as well. If you know another language to share with our children, or just want to read a story or play a board game, we'd love to hear from you! Leave a comment below, or check in with your child's pod teacher if you can help. (We'd also love some play dough - if you had time over the weekend to whip some up, that would be brilliant.) Library Our library day has changed to Thursday this term. Of course, in the busy-ness of getting back into school routines, we completely missed Thursday (and Friday for K.I.T. notices). Oops. We'll try again next week (there's another parent help opportunity! If you'd like to help out with taking small groups to the library on Thursday mornings, we'd love to hear from you!) The library is open at lunchtimes if your child desperately wanted to change their books, and got sick of their teachers forgetting! Phew! Think that's everything. Thanks for your patience while you waited for this to be written. Have an awesome weekend, and we'll see you all Monday. Hei te Rāhina, Thelma, Sonja, Jo, Rachael & Christina kowhai@westmelton,school.nz
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Kia ora koutou, Kōwhai whanau!
Just like that the term is finished and we're half-way through the school year. Wow! Our thanks to all of you for taking the time to come to student-led conferences over the last two days. We hope you are as proud of your children as we are - there has been some amazing learning on display! Conference booklets You will have taken home your child's conference booklet to have another look through and read with your child at home. Please take the time to discuss the ideas on the final page, and to write some brief notes for us. If you have any questions about learning, or things you need us to know - record these in the first section. We're not anticipating lots of questions here, especially as we've just met to discuss learning! :o) The last section is for your 'two stars and a wish'. The stars are for you to record two things that you are proud of your child for. This might be related to their learning, a social aspect, or something about their effort or attitude. The 'wish' (smiley face) is where you record a goal for the next six months - what would you (and your child) like to work on next? What do you think the next priority is? We'll be asking for these conference booklets to come back to school in Term 3 so that we can see your thoughts and ideas. This helps us to 'close the loop' between home and school - ensuring we have strong partnerships, and leading to enhanced learning for our Kōwhai kids. Seesaw From our KIT notices, and in your conference booklets, you will see we have been using Seesaw regularly. If you have missed signing up for Seesaw, this is the information you need! To access your child's profile, click here. Choose your child's name from the list, and create your own account. You will need to wait for a Kōwhai teacher to approve your association with a child before you can see any content. If you have previously used Seesaw with another child, you do not need to create another account - simply click 'sign in'. If you have previously used Seesaw (even for the same child, in a previous year), you will need to click the link above and choose your child's name from the list. Individual posts can be shared with Grandparents etc at your discretion. If you would like some help with this, or some more information, contact Christina ([email protected]). Toilets, heaters, and other tales of woe You may have noticed our learning conferences had a delayed start. This was due to a large amount of smoke in Kōwhai which triggered the smoke alarms and led to four fire crews arriving at school. The smoke cleared (literally) just in time for the plumber to arrive to unblock the blocked toilets and drains. Unfortunately this was not an easy job, and led to Thursday interviews needing to be conducted in the admin area! Both incidents were caused by things being 'deposited' where they shouldn't be - plastic counters in the heater, and handtowels, wet wipes, food, paper, pencils (and other unidentifiable objects - ick) in the toilets. We'll be monitoring toilet use more closely in Term 3 to try and prevent a repeat of this episode. We'd love it if you could please reinforce 'proper' use of toilets with your child. Perhaps remind them if necessary that toilets are only for natural waste (and a small amount of toilet paper), and remind them that they need to keep school toilets tidy for other people to use as well. This is also a good time to remind parents - please do not send wet wipes to school with your child, as they can not be flushed. #awkwardconversations Book week In week one of next term we will be celebrating Book Week - with the aim of fostering a love of reading. The week will be full of all sorts of exciting book-related adventures, so make sure you ask your child about what they have done each day, and check your seesaw for updates. On Friday we will be holding a book character parade for the whole school - you might want to spend some time over the holidays helping your child to create a suitable costume for this. We are encouraging children to choose a 'story' character, rather than a 'movie' or 'TV' character. New playground Over the holidays a new playground is being installed on the grass area outside our learning community. This area will be fenced off (for safety reasons) while the playground is installed. Our thanks to each of you (and your amazing children) for another fantastic term. Have a great break, and we look forward to hearing about all your adventures when school starts back, Ngā mihi nui, 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
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