News from the Koru team Week 9

 Kia ora whānau,

We trust this finds you all having had a wonderful and relaxing Easter break, whether it be at home or away.

It was wonderful that so many of you were able to attend the Structured Literacy meetings for parents last week, run by our Resource Teacher of Literacy, Caroline Morritt. It's great to see that, hopefully, this meeting may be repeated early next term, for those families who weren't able to attend last Tuesday. It will be well worth attending if you haven't yet done so.

Our weeks in the Koru team have continued to be very busy indeed, with wonderful learning taking place in some many different areas: Literacy and Numeracy, as well as many other curriculum areas, during our Learning Through Play. Learning Through Play naturally supports the practising of our school kete values of 'We Care', 'We Get There Together', 'We Love Learning', 'We Love Challenge' and 'We Make a Difference'.

Over the last few weeks, we:

• have continued our focus on learning the first 8 letter sounds, along with learning to blend and segment using these sounds
• have been focusing on teamwork during our Learning Through Play
• have also been focusing on construction with our 'Three Billy Goats Gruff' and 'Three Little Pigs' Learning Through Play themes
• have been working on our Skip and Bounce pen and pencil grip
• have been spending time with our big buddies from the Kauri team on Friday afternoons
• have attended our first whole school House Games for this year.

Playing schools: a Structured Literacy lesson in progress!

Practising how to pick up a pen correctly (the Skip and Bounce way!)

"Pinch, pinch, pinch, pick it up, lay it back."

"Is there space for Curly Caterpillar to creep up between my pinching fingers?"

"Is my 'pillow finger' in the right place? Are my 'resting fingers' tucked away?"

Building a secret hideaway for the teddies.

Joining a house of bricks to the hut in the distance: what persistence!

Teamwork - well done, boys. You worked very well together on this project.

What a great construction, complete with bedroom and bathroom.

The teamwork continues...

A stairway up to the railway tracks.

An animal wonderland!

Fun with Digitech.

A carefully-balanced bridge, complete with 'water' flowing below.

A variety of resources needed here for this 'set up'.

More fun with Digitech, with some of our preschool visitors.

Another amazing construction, and... could that be you, Skip or Bounce, carefully balancing aloft?

Oh, it's you, Skip! 

What a fantastic construction, using the magnetic shapes.

Another wonderful example of teamwork - very well done, team!

The beebot's perspective.

Great balancing skills here!

Well done!

Uh-oh!!

Playing a game of 'Jump', using the letter sounds, following a Structured Literacy lesson. 

Practising correct letter formation.

Playing 'Jump' as a team.

Beautiful letter formation.

More beautiful letter formation!

Counting words in a sentence.

Segmenting and blending consonant, vowel, consonant words.

More letter formation practice.

What amazing focus!

More fantastic focus.

And still more - what wonderful concentration!

We love Structured Literacy!

Our Kauri team buddies reading to us.

Reading a library book to Skip and Bounce.

Playing Octopus at House Games last Thursday.

Will this runner be tagged?

Stretch out wide!

We had loads of fun playing games with the other children who are in the same house at school.

Can you help?

We are getting rather low, once again, on our supply of construction materials. If you have any small boxes or interesting bits and pieces which you think may be suitable, we would really appreciate these in the hub. If you're unsure of suitability, please check with one of the team to see if it would be useful.

Once again, we hope you have enjoyed a very happy Easter break, and we look forward to seeing you all again tomorrow.

Ngā mihi mahana,

Jo, Nicola, Stacey and Elizabeth