Koru Team News: Term 2, Week 1

Kia ora, e te whanau,

We hope you are all happy and healthy and had a lovely holiday break! It was such a treat to see all of those wide and happy smiles back at school this week. We would likte to give an especially warm welcome to Florence, Xavier, Daniel, Aurora, Harper, Violet, Khloe, Elijah and Jackson, who have all started school this week. What a wonderful job they are all doing settling in! We also welcome Keira who is going to be having her first day at school tomorrow. We hope you have a fantastic day (and days to come), Keira. Ka pai, tamariki!

All of our tamariki have happily returned to the routines of school, and are enthusiastically embracing their learning. They have been excelling in their Literacy and Maths lessons, and are putting lots of energy and enthusiasm into engaging with our 'obstacle course' theme. Creative thinking has been running wild with the different challenges the tamariki have been setting for one another!

Learning At Home: our Learning At Home site remains up and running, if you need or want to access this. Here is the link. There are lots of different activities that you can access, including a variety of Maths activities, a wide range of Literacy activities, a range of picture books read for the tamariki by our Koru teachers, and some fun wellbeing and Te Reo Māori activities to enjoy too. 

Kete Certificates: congratulations to both Xanthe and Zac, for displaying our school values and for receiving kete certificates this week. Xanthe received her certificate for showing 'We Love Learning' and Zac received his certificate for showing 'We Make a Difference'. Ka pai, korua!!

Sustainability: This year, our school-wide focus is Sustainability. Throughout Term 1, in the Koru team, our particular focus was on making and sustaining friendships, and this focus will continue throughout the year, as new children continue to enter our team. This term, we are going to be adding to this aspect of Sustainability, and including a focus on the environment. With this in mind, we are wondering if you have items we might be able to use in our Koru 'fairy garden' bed which is in the raised box outside the school hall. For this garden, we are looking for items such as:

  • Little plants (flowering plants, hardy, little succulents and herbs)
  • Stones, painted or plain
  • Little hollows and tunnels
  • Shells 
  • ...and any other items which you think might sit well in this little garden area

Obstacle Courses: obstacle courses are great fun and the children are thoroughly enjoying the challenge of creating fun and exciting courses, using the equipment in different and interesting ways, as you will see in the photos below! 

Friendship List: In our Koru hub, we have a friendship list to which you can add your contact details, so that other families and parents can contact you to organise playdates. If you would like to be on this list, or are unsure whether you actually are on this list, please email your child's Home Group teacher, including both the email and contact cellphone number you would like to have added to the list. 

We trust that you will all have a lovely week ahead with your families and we cannot wait to see all those smiling faces back at school tomorrow!

Photo Gallery:

Showing We Care

Don't you just love a good book?

Nose in a book!

First visit back to the Library, Term 2 :)


Emjoying a story together


Beautiful writing

Showing lovely focus at Structured Literacy time

More lovely focus being displayed here

Enjoying kai time

A happy smile for the camera!

Another beautiful smile!

Yum, yum - what's for lunch today?

Loving kai time!

Showing We Care.

Lining up, ready for our boundaries walk.

Using some very cool equipment as part of our obstacle course.

Negotiating this challenging part of the obstacle course.

Junp, jump, jump!

Wow! Truly impressive jumping required to make it over the elastic. Well done :)

Skilful balancing needed on the balance board. 

More impressive balancing.

... and yet more clever balancing.

Playing our own made up Memory game.

Now... where was that other '8'?

Playing with our new beautiful castle.

In the Family Corner, playing with the lovely new food, pots and pans.

Creative use of the high jump poles!

Great work with the magnetic numerals.

Including newbies in a game of Duck, Duck, Goose.

Our Structured Literacy group time.

Who is this character on the back of the card which has the sound, /a/?

What sound does this letter make?

It's Ally the Alligator's favourite sound!

Refreshing our memories about the first 8 letter sounds and their matching characters.

Finding out about the boundaries in the courtyard area.

What does the yellow line across the path mean and why is it here?

Exploring in Treemendous.

It's a shower of leaves!

Digitech unplugged: Kidbots (programmers sitting around the outside and the child as the 'bot' in the centre)

Creating the obstacles and then plotting the pathway.

We love our new sandpit (and how wonderful that it has a roof).

Family Corner: fun with a friend.

Are we ready, team?

Friends playing collaboratively together.

Trying our very best at handwriting time.

Working together as we learn about 'teen' numbers.

Would you like to try some?

We love Literacy!

We hope you enjoyed our photo gallery!

Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,
The Koru Teachers: Elizabeth, Georgia, Nicola, Stacey, Jeanette and Amy. 

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