Kōwhai News Term 1 Week 11

Kia ora koutou,

What an amazing term we have had! The Kōwhai team are extremely proud of the hard work and effort that each of our students have put into their learning, as well as the awesome things they have achieved!

For the holidays....some simple spelling word practise 

Heart words are frequent words that we read or write. These are not words we can 'sound out' (e.g., c-a-t = cat) or use known spelling patterns for, but they are ones we learn by memory.

Click here to view our Heart Word list. Feel free to practise reading and writing these at home. You could read the words, make flash cards or ask your child to spell aloud or write them. We focus on stages 1-4 until the children are really confident and fluent with these. After that, they can also work on the stage 4+ words.

Science - Forensic Unit

All of Kōwhai have had a blast with our Science unit this term. Our focus has been forensics and the students participated in a 'Who did it?' type of scenario as they worked their way through a series of lessons about different aspects of forensic science.

One of the staff members had been brainwashed by a corporation called "Evil" and it was the students' responsibility to figure out who this staff member was and to save them before it was too late. The students received secret video messages and had to find hidden packages in different locations around the school and used these to test chemicals, explore footprints, learn about fingerprints, understand the properties of different fibres and materials, and crack codes. It was so much fun.

For those who missed out on our final lessons..... Reihana was the staff member who was brainwashed and we were successful in saving her!

Making a Difference

During the past few weeks, some of our students have been working hard to make a difference 'Nā mātou he rerekē te ao' by picking up rubbish around our school. When we make sure that rubbish ends up in the bin and we collect rubbish that we see floating around, we are not only ensuring that we have a clean and tidy school, we are protecting our environment. 

Kapa Haka and Te Reo Māori

Next term, we will be commencing our 'opt-in' Kapa Haka sessions. The students who were interested in participating in Kapa Haka have expressed their interest this week and signed up. All students will be part of te reo lessons and those who have chosen not to be part of Kapa Haka will do extra te reo Māori during this time. 

Feel free to chat to your child's homegroup teacher if you would like more information about this.

Communication

A reminder to all our whānau that the homegroup teachers are always happy to be contacted throughout the year if there is anything you would like to share or discuss about your child. The home/school relationship is important and communication plays a large part in this. So please see your child's homegroup teacher in the first instance.

Notice, Think, Wonder - Have you got your maths eyes?

As a warm-up to some of our maths lessons, students are looking at every day images and discussing what they notice, think and wonder about the picture. They are then coming up with different mathematical ideas that are evident in the picture or ideas that they would love to explore further. 

Above are two photos that some groups have looked at.

Holiday challenge - if you are keen, take a picture (or multiple pictures) of some maths that you have seen in your day-to-day activities and ask yourself 'What do you notice? Think? Wonder? Where is the maths?'

Feel free to send your photos to krystal.hunt@beckenham.school.nz with the subject line 'Notice, Think, Wonder.' Krystal would love to see what you have come up with!

Have a great holiday! From team Kōwhai