Kia ora koutou Kowhai parents & caregivers,
It's the end of a short but busy week in the Kowhai team! An extra special welcome to Brooke who started school with us on Tuesday. It was lovely to see so many of you at our Teddy Bears' picnic on Wednesday. The teddy bears were all very well behaved, and we do hope to invite them back to school on another occasion! Parent help We would love some parent help during the day! Thanks to those who have already offered this. If you are able to help please have a chat with your child's pod teacher. We are thinking this help could involve: woodwork (construction) table, baking with a group of children, reading a story, taking a group of children to the sandpit, or to weed a garden or to visit the hens. You could play a boardgame, have a tea party, make some playdough (please!) or shop at our local (pretend) store. Of course, we're open to offers, so if you have another idea in mind, let us know! A big thank you to Cam (Tegan's Dad) who came and helped out during the week with the woodwork - "Tool time with Cam" was a big hit! New parent get together On the 23rd of February the Friends of West Melton School are hosting an afternoon tea for new families at school. All new families should have received an email invitation during the week with more information. If you did not receive an invitation, please see your child's pod teacher for details, and check with the office that we have your email address on file. Spare clothing If you have 'spare' uniform items or underwear at home, we would appreciate donations that can be used following 'wee' accidents. :o) Please see your pod teacher if you can help out here. Thanks! Blog We've updated our blog this week to show you some of the things we've been learning about while we play. Make sure you have a look, and feel free to comment on our blog post - we'll be sharing your comments and feedback (on the blog) with the children! Lost sweatshirts, socks, drink bottles, hats, polar fleeces... Please make sure all clothing is named clearly with your child's name. We are trying hard to match children with various items that float around our learning community, and endeavour to put any items found at the end of the day near the appropriate pod spot for collection the following morning. We are hopeful that the rest of our bag hooks will be available for use soon, and expect this will help children to keep track of their own belongings. Library day Our regular library time is Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon. Please return library books to school in your child's reading packet. Reading packets can be placed in the plastic pod group box by your child's pod spot (meeting place) and we will return books to the library from here. Reading, writing, arithmetic... Next week we begin the more formal aspects of our programme. Throughout the day teachers will be withdrawing small groups for specific instruction in reading and writing (literacy) and maths. Your child will bring home a reading book to share with you most nights of the week, and a poem to share once a week. Please record details of your child's reading in their yellow 'Kluwell' reading log. We have spent this past week assessing all children in reading and maths. We are still fine-tuning instructional groups, and expect there to be some movement (both up and down) over the next week or so. There will be more information in future K.I.T. notices about how you can support learning at home for your child. School fete Don't forget the school fete is coming up on the 2nd of April! There is a Facebook page to 'like' (West Melton Fete) so you can keep up to date with all the latest news and requests for help. There's also a dedicated website (http://westmeltonfete.co.nz/) so you can check details of stalls (wow - it's an impressive list!) and timings for the day. Make sure you keep this date free and plan to invite your friends and family along too - the Friends of West Melton School have been working hard to prepare a fantastic event for us all! If you would like to volunteer to help with anything related to the fete, please contact Hannah Fifield on [email protected]. Celebration of learning Our school-wide celebrations of learning (assemblies) are held three times each term. Our first celebration of learning for 2017 will be held next Friday at 9.00. If it is fine the whole school will meet on the court for a time of sharing. You are more than welcome to attend and celebrate the start of the year with us! Getting to know each other As promised last week, today we finally sent home a sheet for you to discuss and complete with your child to help us learn about some of your home culture. Please write your child's name at the top of the form, We would appreciate it if you could return this by Friday of next week, please. Scholastic book club orders Today we also sent home order forms for Scholastic book clubs. If you would like to order any books, please check the back of the order form for ordering options (note there is the option of online ordering). If you are ordering through school (cash or credit card payments), order forms need to be returned to school by February 13th. That's all for this week! Thanks for your messages of support and on-going interest in our programme. Have a lovely weekend - enjoy the sunshine! Thelma, Nicole, Jo, Christina, Louise & Natalie kowhai@westmelton,school.nz
8 Comments
Megan
10/2/2017 09:45:44 pm
Re: Blog section (noted above) under 'Teachers thoughts' and the attachment.
Reply
Kowhai team
11/2/2017 01:40:38 pm
Yip - that's the right attachment! 'Preschool' in this case referring to ages 4-6, as many countries don't start 'school' until the age of 6. We've got a few articles on starting age too, but thought it was a bit early in the year to share those! :o)
Reply
Lexie
11/2/2017 02:29:19 pm
Could you please post a link to the blog.
Reply
Kowhai team
11/2/2017 02:56:56 pm
Hi Lexie - if you scroll to the top of the page you should see two links in the kowhai flower picture (in white text) 'our blog' and 'teaching thoughts'.
Reply
Lexie
13/2/2017 04:40:32 pm
Thank you!
Sarah
13/2/2017 09:03:20 am
Hi - just a thought - how about an information evening as I think lots of parents are feeling a little at sea with the new format. I guess knowing in advance what to expect would go a long way to eleviate worries.
Reply
Kowhai Team
13/2/2017 12:38:11 pm
Thanks for the suggestion Sarah - we've got our school-wide Powerful Connections meetings (meet the teacher) on the calendar for 28 February from 5.30 - 7.00pm. At this meeting teachers will discuss timetables as well as important aspects of their classroom programme. For us, this will include our play-based learning programme. Look forward to seeing you then!
Reply
Sarah
13/2/2017 05:24:45 pm
Sounds good! Leave a Reply. |
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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