Koru Term 1: Weeks 5 & 6

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Kia ora whanau!


Bounce and Skip
Some of you may have had the pleasure of meeting our class friends, Bounce and Skip. These two monkeys are experts at handwriting and have been teaching us how to strengthen our hands, fingers and core so that we can become neater, quicker writers. We are now experts at these exercises so please ask us to show you. The more we practice, the stronger we become! 

Writing by hand engages the brain in learning and especially activates the “reading circuits” of the brain. Using the results of modern brain imaging techniques, research suggests that writing by hand plays a substantial role in the visual recognition and learning of letters, a foundation for both reading and writing. Through studies using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to probe how the brain processes stimuli in real time, researchers have demonstrated that there is a distinct system in the human brain that is recruited during reading that is also recruited during writing. The reading network develops as a function of handwriting (printing) experience. Handwriting (printing), and not keyboarding, leads to adult-like neural processing in the visual system of the preschool child. Findings like these suggest that self-generated action, in the form of printing letters by hand, is a crucial component in setting up brain systems for reading acquisition.

One of the things Bounce and Skip has been teaching us this week is how to correctly pick up and hold a pencil. Below is a graphic we are using that we encourage to look at together at home to. Is your pencil grip up to scratch?  This way of holding the pencil is comfortable and allows children to write fast and legibly.




School Fair Art Auction Pieces

Dorinda's Home base has been enjoying creating our piece for the School Fair Art Auction - we love wondering who will be successful in buying it! Here is our writing about our butterflies.


  • My butterfly is really cool and I love the colours. It has cool wings. HETTIE
  • My butterfly is colourful. It is going to be on a canvas. How much do you want it to be? It is going to be beautiful. I love my colours of my butterflies. It even has mixed colours. FINN
  • My butterfly is a Monarch. The money is going to be $10. My Mum is going to buy it and I will make a magic potion so it can be real. QUINN
  • We painted our butterflies for the School Fair because the school wants to make money. My butterfly has black spots. He is really colourful. I like my butterfly. OLLIE
  • Our Butterflies. My butterfly is blue. It's got silver and green and black and it's pretty. ARCHIE
  • My butterfly is a rainbow colour. I like that it is really colourful. GEORGIA 
  • I love how my butterfly is coloured and I really like the colour of the canvas. I really like the book pages at the bottom. KJ
  • The butterflies like playing with their friends. JONTAI
  • I want my butterfly to fly off the page. ZEKE
  • i made this butterfly. I love my colours. They are blue, pink and silver. I love Bounce and Skip too because they are cute. CAMMIE
  • I am a butterfly and I can fly. JAKE
  • I like my butterfly and I want it to fly off the sky. KARDA
  • We painted our butterflies for the School Fair. My butterfly is black and red. I did it those colours because red is for Christmas and black is for Halloween and I love both of them. BREE
  • This is my butterfly. He is a Monarch. He has black rain drops on his wings and he is blue and red. He has a big smile. Annabelle
  • Our butterflies are awesome. I love our butterflies. They are super. STELLA
  • I made a butterfly. It has flashes on it and it has cool patterns on it. I love it. It is a Monarch. I think it is nice. It has blue around the edges. JACK
  • Do you know why I like butterflies? It is because they can fly and my butterfly's colours are black, red and blue. CORTANA
  • Our butterflies are lovely and we like the butterflies so much. We like to see them. GABRIELLA
  • I like butterflies. My butterfly has black and dark blue on the wings and black spots and red on the head. KAWA
  • We did class butterflies for our School Fair. Mine has some gold, blue and red and orange colours with black dots. I feel great about my butterfly. AYLA
  • My butterfly is like candy. She needs water to drink. Her name is Twinkerbelle. I like butterflies because they are really beautiful. IRIA-MARIA
  • I love my butterfly. it is black and golden, blue, pink, light blue and a tiny bit of white. I love the colours. CHELSEA

Kristika's home base tamariki developed their pride and sense of belonging through creating their own piece of Koru art.  These were all put together like a puzzle and 'mod podged' into place.
We discussed the meaning of what is 'koru' and how we as team Koru are the like the young koru of Beckenham Te Kura o Pūroto school. 

Discovery - Play Based Learning

Koru have been inspired by our Year 7 leaders in making obstacle courses all week. Some great ideas, co-operation and leadership came out of our sessions. We also had child-led art workshops, maze drawing and lego construction Enjoy these photos. 














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