Monday 30 October 2017

Tuesday Last Day for Photo Orders

Photo orders are due by Tuesday (31 October). Payments can be made online or at the office.

Sunday 29 October 2017

Week 3 (30 Oct-3 Nov)

Welcome to Week 3 :)

Staffing
On Monday Mrs Campbell and Mrs O are visiting Hoon Hay School as part of our Maths Inquiry Project. Mrs Liz Lawrence and Mrs Anne McHaffie will be relieving in Kohara alongside Miss T.

On Thursday Mrs Campbell and Mrs O will be away at our final session for our Incredible Years Teaching course. Ms Jill Kelk and Ms Vanessa Reynolds will be relieving.

School Photo Orders
Tuesday is the last day for school photo orders. If you are ordering online, please remember to still send your envelope back to the office.

Halloween Disco
The Halloween Disco is this Tuesday night from 5.30-6.30pm for the Juniors. $2 entry and Halloween themed glow products are also available for purchasing. All children must be picked up by an adult INSIDE the hall at the end of the disco. Wear your spookiest costume (parents - why not join in the fun and dress up too!) Thanks to the PTA for organising this - it is always a lot of fun and the children love the chance to dress up for this one.

Bad Moms Movie Night
This is now Sold Out! The PTA are looking forward to catching up with everyone that brought tickets on Wednesday 8 November for a fun social night out with our Waimairi community.

Health & PE
We are working hard on learning to interact with new people in new settings and focusing on what we can do to make our interactions better. This week we have the third round of Health and PE activity rotations coming up on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning.

In our last activity group we discussed how eye contact is important when talking to someone or introducing yourself. There are lots of opportunities for practising this both at school or at home when talking to people. It is also really important to answer someone politely when they talk to you e.g. when someone says hello or good morning to you, or when someone asks you a question. Being able to do these things even when you are nervous are all part of interacting with others. Have a go at home or when out and about this week or even when coming into Kohara in the morning.

Library Day on Friday
Kapa Haka on Tuesday

Lunchtime Clubs
Monday: French club and Chess club
Tuesday: Craft/Sewing club
Thursday: Art club

Sunhats
Please remember your blue school sunhat so you can enjoy our outdoors this week especially as the weather forecast is looking wonderfully sunny. Much better than having to sit in the shade during break times!

Sunscreen - we have sunscreen available in our classroom for the children to use if needed.

Have a great week :)





Thursday 26 October 2017

Sunhats

If your child still doesn't have a blue school sunhat at school, can you please hunt these out over the weekend (rather than caps and non regulation hats). Wide brimmed blue hats can also be purchased at the Warehouse or Mainland Uniforms. It is really important as over this term, our children are often working outside in the sunshine during the day or outside for PE or fitness activities.

Hat cords also need to be checked please. The newer hat styles have a quick release connection - this should come undone easily in the event that the cord is caught or pulled. If this is broken, please do not tie the cords together as in the event of a child getting caught on playground equipment, this can pose a serious hazard. Feel free to see us if you are unsure.

Thanks to all the children who do have their hats at school - it is great to see you being sun smart :)

Visiting Author

Wow, what a fantastic session we had on Thursday with Juliette McIver. She was incredibly funny and entertaining and the children loved hearing her read several of her stories and singing along with her.

Juliette took the children through the writing process and it was great for the children to see the connections between what we do at school and the work of an author. Juliette shared how she likes to write her drafts on unlined paper as she likes to write all over the page, sometimes just generating lists of rhyming words, or doodling pictures related to the story. We laughed when Juliette showed us photos of her writing whilst doing yoga, working on the floor, or with her children climbing all over her. Just goes to show you can write anywhere at any time!

Juliette also uses maths - keeping a spreadsheet of the books she writes and the publishers she send her stories too and keeping track of the number of books she has had published or the stories that have been rejected. We loved her growth mindset and her positive attitude (I guess after 109 rejection letters over her career you have little choice!) Luckily, many of her stories have been published and today in class we enjoyed several of the Marmaduke Duck series - we loved the rhyme and the gorgeous pictures that the illustrator drew to match. A lot of her books are in our school library - Shiva was so inspired by her visit today, he went to the library in his lunchtime and borrowed two of her stories. The children might also like to keep an eye out for her books next time they visit the public libraries.

Another interesting connection was how Juliette gets feedback about her stories - she reads them to her own children to see whether they like them. It turns out that sometimes they don't! In Kohara we get feedback from sharing our writing with others. Often the other children have questions which tell us we need to add more detail to our writing. Editing and making changes to stories was also a really important part of the writing process and Juliette told us that sometimes even after the publishers say they like her stories, they still insist on her changing parts to improve them. Kohara kids do this too - sometimes we add describing words, fix our spelling using the writing charts, or add in missing words or parts of the stories.

I think after today, we could have a lot of future authors...

Friday Library Day

Please remember to send library books along to school for our class library session on Friday.

Monday 23 October 2017

Class Relay Action

A few pictures from our class relays - well done to Johnny, Freddy, Hannah and Zora for taking out first place and also to our other team of Ben, Shiva, Rosalie and Anika.




Mylo and Blake Cook Up A Storm!

Mylo and Blake enjoyed making pancakes for their project. Sadly there were none left for the teachers to try which means they must have been tasty!

Cooking is a great way to learn to follow instructions in a recipe, use maths to measure out ingredients (great to read fraction symbols for half and quarter) and to work collaboratively.

It looks like you were having fun working together Mylo and Blake.





Lucy's Lemonade

Lucy's latest project was making homemade lemonade. Lucy needed lemons, water and sugar.
Lucy taught Kohara a trick to making your lemons juicier - by rolling them firmly on the bench before cutting and squeezing them. Thanks for the tip Lucy!

Lucy also needed to use maths. We decided to halve the recipe as Lucy only had 5 lemons and the recipe needed 9 so then we had to halve all the quantities and ingredients!

Lucy had a taste test and decided it was delicious. Have a look below and see who else in Kohara was inspired to make their own lemonade in the weekend after seeing Lucy's success...






























































That's a lot of lemons Sophie... how did your lemonade turn out?

Week 2 (24-27 October)

Welcome to Week 2 :)
We hope you all enjoyed a fantastic long weekend with your children.
There will be a Tuesday Morning Meet Up this week.

Author Visit
This Thursday we are lucky enough to be able to attend a session with a children's author - Juliette McIvor who writes the series about Marmaduke Duck and The Frog Who Lost His Underpants! The children won't be bringing home a reading book for homework as we will be at this session instead (9.20-10.20am). We are looking forward to sharing some of her books with the children during the week.

Classroom Release Time
On Thursday the children will have CRT between 11-12.30pm. Room 18 have Art with Mrs McHaffie and Room 19 have PE with Mr Lukes.

Health &PE Rotations
This week our Year 0-2 mixed groups will be changing activities for our Thursday afternoon (1.45-2.45pm) and Friday morning (9.15-10.15am) sessions. Last week the children had fun meeting those in their activity groups - our focus is on how we can strengthen our interactions with others. For some of us, our learning was how to introduce ourselves to someone new. For others, it was learning to work cooperatively with different/new people in a new setting (and possibly with a unfamiliar teacher).

All the children had lots of fun practising their interaction skills whilst doing folk dancing, yoga, healthy eating, parachute activities, outdoor games, or poi. Perhaps ask your child who was a new person they worked with (child or teacher!)

Library
Library day is still Friday but we will go at 11am due to our Health & PE rotations in the morning. Please send books back anytime - the children can put them in the class library boxes.

Reading Book Returns
Thanks to our kind helpers this week for re shelving our class reading books especially as it was a big job after the holidays! If you are able to help out this week, we promise there won't be as many books to put away!!

School Photo Orders
These are due by Tuesday 31 October. You can pay online but order forms still need to be returned to the school office. See the photo pack that your child took home for details.

PTA News
Halloween Disco - the PTA are once again hosting their annual Halloween Disco on Tuesday 31 October in the school hall. A great alternative to trick or treating. Come along dressed in Halloween costumes. 5.30-6.30pm for juniors. $2 entry and Halloween themed glow products also available to purchase. Parents are welcome to get in the spirit and come along in costume too! Unfortunately we realise some children will have touch rugby instead but look forward to seeing those who can make it.

Bad Moms Movie
On Wednesday 8 November the PTA have booked a theatre for a screening of Bad Moms 2. This is not a fundraiser, but just a fun night out. Grab a group of other 'bad mums' and make a night of it. Tickets cost $8.50 each and need to be paid for this week via internet banking to:
A C Gilbert
02 - 0908 - 0245534 - 097
Please put your full name as reference and then email confirmation to agilbertnz@gmail.com once money has been paid. Any questions feel free to ask Anna Gilbert (Oli's mum).
Look forward to seeing you all there!

Whanau Hui
This is the final get together for the year for all those with an interest in Maori achievement and engagement. Please let class teachers know if you can make it on Friday 3 November from 5-7pm. Bring the whanau (children most welcome) and some kai (dinner) as this will also be a chance to have a social catch up.

Congratulations
The class relays last week at the Senior Athletic Sports were hotly contested and thanks to a photo finish, we are stoked to say Kohara's Team 1 took out the winning spot on the day - congratulations and well done to Johnny, Freddy, Hannah and Zora. Great effort also to our other team made up of Shiva, Rosalie, Anika and Ben. You did us proud!

Sunhats
All children should now have a navy wide brimmed school sunhat at school each day. Please ensure these are well named. Children without sunhats will be asked to play in the shade if they are not wearing their hats outside. Awesome to see most of Kohara already had their blue hats last week :)

Lunch Clubs
Tuesday: Craft/Sewing club
Thursday: Art club

Touch Rugby
Well done to our Kohara children who played their first game of touch rugby for the season last week.  There were many excited children afterwards - great to see our children getting out and being active. Good luck for this Tuesday's game.

Have a great week :)


Wednesday 18 October 2017

Small Boxes Needed

Kohara would love to take some of your recycling off your hands!! If you have any small boxes (cereal, tissue box or smaller sizes) we would love them for our box construction projects.

Thanks :)

Update on Athletic Sports

The senior Athletic Sports has been postponed to tomorrow as ground conditions at St James Park is not suitable. The weather forecast is looking warmer for tomorrow so fingers crossed Thursday will be much warmer for a picnic lunch down at the park.

Tuesday 17 October 2017

Headlice

Headlice are doing the rounds again. Please check your child's hair on a regular basis over the coming weeks. We are encouraging girls with long hair to wear it tied back, and have also reminded children to not share sunhats (and to make sure they check they have their own named sunhat on).

The following link has more information on headline including treatment options.
https://www.kidshealth.org.nz/head-lice

Tennis






















Last term we enjoyed our tennis session down at Waimairi Tennis Club and finally the weather played it's part! Here are a few pictures of the children in action.

Cardboard Cathedral Challenge



















We had great fun today with our cardboard cathedral block challenge using loads of cardboard tubes. There was a great deal of cooperation, problem solving and team work as the children negotiated the challenge of stacking the tubes and getting the right balance and roof shape. The oral language was fabulous and there was lots of connections made as they shared ideas about their visits to the real cardboard cathedral.


Senior Athletics

A reminder that we are joining the seniors at St James Park for lunch on Wednesday (18th October). Parents are welcome to join us down at the park. Junior children to wear normal uniform (those in the relay team please make sure you have suitable sports shoes).

After lunch we have two teams representing Kohara for the junior part of the school relays - there was steep competition for the 8 places! Good luck to Freddy, Johnny, Zora and Hannah (Team 1) and Shiva, Ben, Anika and Rosalie (Team 2) and our reserves Khori and Lochie S.

It is really important that all children have a named sunhat with them and a warm jersey/jacket in case the weather is cooler.

Art

Drawing and sketching are great for developing fine motor skills and using our observation skills. Many Kohara children love to use our sketching area to practice and refine our drawing techniques. This week Gemma used a teddy bear for inspiration in her art.




Sunday 15 October 2017

Bolt Visits Shantytown



Bolt had a fabulous time on holiday visiting a very cool place called Shantytown. It was made to look just like an old gold mining village. Bolt got to ride the steam train through the village down to the gold panning area where he got to have a go panning for gold just like in the olden days! He found a few specks of gold but sadly no big gold nuggets!

Bolt's favourite part was visiting the old jail cell and watching a hologram movie in the old theatre. He thought being a gold miner was lots of fun too! Can you count how many pieces of gold he found below?






Term 4 Week 1 (16-20 October)

Welcome back :)

Sunhats
Term 4 is a sunhat term!! Please ensure your child has a well named wide brimmed navy blue hat at school every day.

No Monday Meet Up this week

Athletics Day
The senior Athletics day is this Wednesday 18 October down at St James Park.
As usual the juniors will be walking down just before lunch to join the school at the park for a community lunch with whanau. You are welcome to join us there for lunch and a coffee cart will be there as well. After lunch the whole school will have class relay races with the juniors racing against each other. We will have two teams entered on the day and the remainder of the class will be supporting and cheering Kohara on. Class teachers will have an attendance roll with them so if you leave the park early with your child you must let Tracy or Monique know so we can note this on our roll please.

Health & PE Inquiry
This term for Health & PE we are mixing it up a bit. All our junior classes have been mixed up and will have the chance to visit different junior teachers for Health & PE activities over the term with two sessions each week with a different teacher. The focus is on relating to others in different settings. With activities like baking, folk dancing and poi, it should be lots of fun and a great way to meet others and get to work with new friends.

Our first two sessions are on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. Because our classroom release time falls on Thursday afternoon Mr Lukes and Mrs McHaffie will take over our junior groups for that session.

Spelling
Our weekly spelling words will be given out on Friday this week - keep an eye out for the notebooks coming home in schoolbags at the end of the week.

Library
Please return library books before Friday for our class visit. Books issued from before the holidays will now be due back.

PTA Meeting
The PTA is meeting this Tuesday 17 October at 7pm in the library if you'd like to come along. We love seeing new faces and anyone is most welcome. There are a few Kohara parents on the PTA so you are bound to see a familiar face or two!

Parent Help
Due to all the comings and goings this term, we won't be having regular weekly parent help this term but we will call on helpers from time to time to help out with specific activities/baking etc.

We would still love someone each week though to pop in and put our reading books away in the reading room, so if you are able to spare a few minutes please let us know by adding your name to the reading returns roster outside the classroom on the noticeboard (by the bag area).

Lunch Clubs
Monday: French Club 12.30pm or Chess Club 12.45pm
Tuesday: No Craft Club this week
Thursday: Art Club 12.45pm

Bolt and Squirtle
The children are loving having Bolt and Squirtle, our class toys, come and stay and we are enjoying listening to their adventures. Please ensure that the whale toys are returned to school the following day as the children get really disappointed if they miss out on having a turn. We wonder what they'll get up to with the children this term?

School Photos
These are due to arrive soon - we will send them home once we receive them.

Have a great week. We are looking forward to seeing everyone on Monday.




Thursday 5 October 2017

Bolt's Holiday Snaps

So far Bolt has been having a lovely holiday. He has enjoyed having time to get creative with lego as well as learning to play the drums. He is VERY LOUD!!!!

Bolt also helped Will and Jack spray some rocks ready to hide around parks over the next week. If you would like to go rock hunting in the holidays get Mum or Dad to check out Christchurch Rocks on Facebook - there are always lots of rocks being hidden around Christchurch. When you find one, you can keep it, re hide it or replace it with one you have painted. Some good places to start hunting are the Margaret Many playground, the Elephant Park in Bishopdale and the Botanical Gardens. Bolt is off to the West Coast next week so we might even taken some with us and hide them over there!

Hope you are all enjoying a happy holiday. Why not leave us a message below and let us now what you've been up to!




Gabriel the Singing Superstar

On Friday Gabriel treated Kohara to a fabulous performance of his favourite Bruno Mars song. Gabriel has been practising for quite a while and was very brave to get up on stage and sing in front of us all. We learned that Bruno Mars is Gabriel's favourite singer and that next year he is going to see him live in concert. Kohara enjoyed seeing Gabriel live in concert!!



Library Surprise!

During our library visit last week, we got a lovely surprise when we saw Nicola park outside the library with some rather cute little pigs in the back of her car. We all got to have a turn popping out to have a look and most of us even gave them a scratch on the back which they loved.

One of our reading groups had an interesting connection as they have been reading a story called Charlotte's Web which is all about a pig named Wilbur. These pigs were called Calamity Jane and Annie Oakley!




Connecting with Kahukura

We were lucky enough to be able to visit Kahukura's Art Gallery on the last day of term to see the sculptures and art they have been working on over the term. We made lots of connections with our Kohara projects and have taken away lots of interesting and new techniques that we can now try.

Here are some of our favourite pieces we saw.