Koru News Term 2 Week 5

Kia ora whānau,

We have had another very busy fortnight, with the children engaging in a range of learning experiences. 

We have explored Space during our Learning Through Play, with the children building spacecraft using a variety of equipment including boxes and tubes. We also followed the Space theme in our Maths, as each child worked with a friend to make up groups of ten astronauts. Each time a group of ten astronauts was formed, they were then able to climb aboard the spacecraft, and some children were even able to make up ten groups of ten astronauts, all of whom were then able to leave the spacecraft, and enter the space station. The children practised their skip counting in tens, and also learnt a great deal about place value as they worked out the number of astronauts in their space craft and added on those who were still waiting to enter the space craft.

The children have also been introduced to a new Maths game called 'Move and Prove'. In this game, they are given a statement, which might or might not be true. Children have worked out that they need to:

  • think
  • decide
  • listen
  • talk
  • be able to say why they think what they think (we have used the words 'justify' and 'justification' when discussing the 'prove' part of the game).
This week we have been exploring Colour to support our Art Gallery excursion. We have used our shared writing time to think and write about particular colours in poetic ways, for example, 'We think black is like a moonless, starless night'. It's been lovely hearing and writing about the children's thoughts on different colours, and this will continue in the week ahead, as they think about the colours blue and green.

Many thanks once again to those parents who were able to lend their support when we visited the Art Gallery. Your help was absolutely invaluable, and we appreciated your presence very much indeed. We do hope you had fun. The children were buzzing with excitement, and it was lovely to hear from Bianca and her support team at the Gallery about how impressed they were with the children's behaviour, thinking and manners! Well done, children! We are very proud of you. Please ask your children to share some of their thinking about Ralph Hotere's art with you.

We hope you enjoy this selection of photos from the past fortnight...

Our big buddies supporting us on a Friday afternoon





Beautiful concentration here!

Having a great time together in the Gallery classroom.

Very happy to be visiting the Art Gallery.

One excited boy with his Dad on the bus!

Love that focus.

Beautiful use of colour.

Showing 'We Care'.

More lovely focus.

We look forward to finishing our art works and displaying them at school.

Great concentration.

This is going to be wonderful when finished.

Gorgeous attention to detail here.

Great work here too.

Carefully taking the tape from the black background paper.

Practising writing our Heart Words.

Providing friends and teachers with a small concert performance.

Viewing and discussing one of Ralph's works, Black Phoenix.

One of Ralph's works on narrow corrugated iron.

Noticing the way the work changes as you move past it.

Listening carefully for sounds in words.

Showing 'We Care' about our learning.

Getting ready to slide the sounds together.

Just a reminder, everyone, that tomorrow, Tuesday, is a Staff Only Day here at school, so we hope that you are all having a wonderful long weekend, and look forward to seeing the children back at school on Wednesday.

Ngā mihi mahana,
Koru team teachers

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