Arts Finale - Final Details

Children will need:
* Full school uniform
* Packed lunch and drink (named)
* Warm jersey/jacket
* Sunhat if weather is like today!!
* Any medications or inhalers to Mrs Campbell first thing Thursday morning

Parent Helpers
Please meet Kohara at the Sound Garden at 10.55am
The class will go straight there after the bus arrives for our first performance
Please see Mrs Campbell for information sheet and phone list when you arrive there (or you can get it first thing in the morning from school if that's easier)
Main priority is keeping the children together as a group especially when moving between areas and assisting with taking children to the toilets as needed.

Important Information
If you are taking your child away from the Kohara group at any stage of the day you MUST let Mrs Campbell know as she is keeping the master list of our children.
Mrs O'Sullivan is on duty as stage manager of the Amphitheatre Area so will not be with Kohara for parts of the day.

Road crossings must be done at the supervised crossings - please role model this for the children.

Calendar Art

Here's a sneak preview of some of our calendar art this year. You can see more on display in town next week also.

Mufti Day/Odd Shoe Day - Friday 11 September

This Friday is mufti day and odd shoe day - mismatched shoes sounds like lots of fun!
Gold coin donation goes towards Camp Quality - helping children with cancer.

School Photos Tomorrow - Thursday 10th September!

We have our class and individual photos tomorrow - Thursday 10 September.
Children to wear red school t shirts and navy shorts for the boys or summer culottes for the girls.
No long sleeved tops to be worn underneath the school t shirts please.
Clean and tidy uniforms.

Week 8 (7-11 September)

School Photos
Class photos are this Thursday 10 September. Children must wear clean and tidy school uniform. Boys to be wearing navy shorts and a red Waimairi School top and girls preferably in the summer culottes with the red t shirt. Children must not be wearing any visible polyprops or thermal long sleeved tops under their school uniforms please. If girls are wearing tights - navy is preferred.

Mufti Day
This Friday 11 September there is a mufti day at school as well as an odd shoe day. Please bring a gold coin donation for Camp Quality. We look forward to seeing what crazy shoe combinations arrive in Kohara!

Classroom Release
Kohara children have either PE with Mr Lukes (Room 19) or Art with Mrs McHaffie (Room 18) on Thursday from 9-10.30am.

Staff Planning Day
Due to a staff planning day on Friday, Kohara will have Ms Kelk and Tania Stott relieving for the day.

Arts Finale in the City
Next Thursday we have our school pop up Arts Finale in the city. We look forward to seeing you all there. Programmes/timetables will be out next week and families are encouraged to make the most of the free double decker bus to travel in and out of town. The children will bus in with their classes on normal buses.

As part of this day Kohara will be sharing some of our Visual Art from this term which is linked to different myths and legends that we have been reading. We have also re-told the legends for writing and will be reading these on the day. Plus we have a waiata to share and our children will also be sharing some of our Junior Kapa Haka songs.

Recorder group - the children who learn recorder have the opportunity also to share Traffic Jam with an audience on the day and if children can please bring their recorders to school each day between now and next Thursday as we will be practising in class time for this.

We will also be looking for some parent helpers to assist us with supervision on the day - if you think you could help us out with this please let us know. Our class is in town for around three hours both sharing our work and viewing the work and performances of other classes.

This week and next week our class programme is not running quite as usual as we are working hard on our performances, getting our art ready and practising our parts. The children will have a poem each night for reading but please encourage your child to read their favourite books at home, practise spelling their weekly words or essential lists words (on previous blog posts), write rhyming words or high frequency words, practise their skip counting or basic addition and subtraction facts including doubles and halves....

PTA Fundraiser - The Big Event
Have you got your ticket for The Big Event? This is the PTA's main fundraiser for the year and looks set to be a fabulous night with a musical showcase for you to sit back and watch followed by a band and dance. The bar is open and supper is provided. Tickets are $30 each for Saturday 31 October - plus if you buy your ticket before the end of this term, you go in the draw to win your money back! Tracy and Monique will both be there dancing the night away - hope you will bring your partners and friends along and enjoy the night with us!

Week 7 (31 Aug-4 Sep)

Gosh it's crazy to think it's already Week 7!! This term is flying by!

Calendar Art
The children have been busy creating some gorgeous works of art for this years calendar art fundraiser run in conjunction with our PTA. Order forms go home this Friday and our art will be available for display from Friday onwards.

Staffing
Mrs Campbell returns full time from this week.

PTA Fundraiser: The Big Event
From Monday, tickets will be on sale for the PTA's major fundraiser of the year. They have revamped things this year and are holding a fabulous night with a musical showcase for the first part of the evening that you can relax and enjoy listening to before dusting off your dancing shoes for the second part of the evening where you can enjoy dancing to a great band (or continue relaxing with a few drinks and great company). Supper is provided and cash bar is also available. So what are you waiting for... get a group of friends together and enjoy a night out on Saturday 31 October.

Reading Returns
Thank you to our fabulous helpers who put away a huge pile of books for us over the last week or so - so appreciated, thank you!

Spelling Group
This week the spelling group will bring home their new words on Tuesday - we missed spelling testing last week due to the performance of Maui and the Sun.

Upcoming Dates
Thursday 3 September - Food wrap fundraiser orders due (baking paper, tin foil and glad wrap)

Thursday 10 September - School Photos

Thursday 17 September - The Arts Pop Up in the City

Library Day Friday

Poetry Folders for Friday

Kapa Haka Friday

Headlice!

Headlice are doing the rounds again - please check your child's hair as we have had several cases reported in Kohara.

Geometry Patterns

The children have been enjoying having a bit more space to work with the maths shapes since we changed the room around. The discussion and conversations while children work cooperatively on their shape pictures and patterns is just wonderful to listen to. We have been learning about symmetry. Can you spot some symmetrical patterns in the photos?

Singing Superstars

How fantastic to have such super singers in Kohara. We were treated to a fabulous sharing time of some singing projects which some of the children have been busy working on over the past few weeks. We focused on the connections that we made being in the audience. The look on the faces of those watching was so special. Thank you to Addison, Lauren, Josie and Stella for entertaining us and sharing your musical talents with us.

Check out the mesmerised audience!

Week 6 (24-28 August)

Welcome
Kohara would like to welcome Isla to our class. It is so lovely having Isla in Kohara and the other children have been really kind at welcoming her and showing her around. Isla and her family have returned to Christchurch from Scotland - welcome to Waimairi :)

Staffing
We are enjoying having Mrs Campbell back in class - the children were very excited to see her smiley face again last week. This week Mrs Campbell will continue to teach in the mornings and Ms Kelk is teaching in the afternoons.

Classroom Release
Room 19 children have Mr Lukes for PE on Tuesday morning from 9-10.30.

Reading Book Returns
HELP!!!! Our reading returns basket is overflowing! We would dearly love a volunteer or two to help us out with returning these to the book room please. Remember this can be done any time that suits you - no training needed, we are happy to show you what to do. Or if you have five minutes and can grab a small pile to ease the load, that would also be fabulous!

Staff Professional Development
This term Mrs O and Mrs Campbell are involved in a teacher inquiry into mathematics learning. As part of this inquiry, we will be attending a professional development opportunity on Thursday afternoon. Ms Kelk and Mrs Stoddart will be teaching in Kohara during this time.

Friday Performance
On Friday morning we will be attending a performance based around the legend Maui and the Sun. This ties in beautifully with our Arts focus this term on Maori Myths and Legends.

Spelling Group
Please remember your spelling notebooks on Friday - a number of children are not bringing these which mean they miss out on their testing and new words for the following week. Parents - we would appreciate your assistance in reminding children to do this.

Upcoming Dates
Thursday 3 September - Orders for Food Wrap/Baking Paper/Tin Foil close (PTA fundraiser)

Thursday 10 September - School Photos

Tuesday 15 September - PTA Meeting 7.30pm New members most welcome (meet in the library)

Thursday 17 September - Celebration/Arts Finale pop up day in the city

Week 5 (17-21 August)

Wow we are halfway through the term this week! What a scary thought!

Staffing
This week we look forward to Mrs Campbell returning part time in the mornings from Wednesday onwards. We would also like to thank Ms Kelk for supporting Tracy this week to ease back into things. We have really appreciated the way Ms Kelk has given up her other commitments to ensure minimum disruption for the children and we have loved having her in Kohara.

On Friday morning both Mrs Campbell and Mrs O are away visiting a school in Kaiapoi to observe maths as part of our Inquiry into Mathematics.

Welcome
This week Kohara welcomes Maisie into our room and she has already settled in quickly and our children have been fantastic at making Maisie feel welcome. Maisie and her family join us from North of London.

Library day Friday

Poetry folders needed for Friday please

Red Nose Day
On Friday 21st the school council is organising a Red Nose Day with donations going to Cure Kids. If children would like to take part they can bring 50c and get their nose painted red with face paint. Optional activity - children still wear uniform as usual.

Thank You
A huge thank you to all the parents who accompanied us on our trip on Friday. We appreciated your time to walk down with us. It was a great opportunity to see some artists in action and see a range of
artworks. Papanui High certainly has done talented children! We are now looking forward to getting
stuck in and creating our own over the next few weeks.

Thank you also to the parents who offered to help with our library visit also. It was a shame to cancel but the weather was bitterly cold and we wouldn't have enjoyed walking in those conditions!

Friday Trip

Please remember to pack a warm jacket and hat and do a weather dance for great weather!!

We are leaving school at 10.30am and returning by 12.30pm.
If those who returned forms to parent help could meet us in Kohara at 10.25am please :)

About The Weather by Layla'h

About The Weather

When the weather is cold the little rain bubbles are in the cloud and they pop. The sun is a hot star. The moon is blue. The craters are big too. Earth is blue for water and green for grass, in a rocketship it looks like that.

By Layla'h

The Library Comes To Us

Kohara enjoyed meeting Denise from Papanui Library. We heard the legend about Tane and the Stars which was a nice follow up to Matariki.

The children's favourite would have to be the story about how the whale got it's spout especially when the whale squirted the children with real water!!

Denise also brought along a korowai (cloak) that other children visiting the library had helped create and we had fun creating our own crayon prints to design a korowai for our class. 

Week 4 (10-14 August)

Library Visit
What a shame our Library trip had to be cancelled and even more so when the sun eventually decided to shine! However, it was bitterly cold and the last thing we wanted was to get stuck in the rain having to walk back. Luckily Denise from Papanui Library came to us instead and we enjoyed some Maori legends, some songs and the chance to have a go at some printmaking. These are going to be turned into a korowai, so stay tuned to see this in the coming days!

Papanui High School Visit
Fingers crossed the sun will shine for us on Friday - however we do have a back up postponement date of Friday 28th. Please send children with a warm jacket and hat (many turned up for the walk on Monday with no jacket!!!)

Classroom Release
Tuesday morning - Room 19 have PE with Mr Lukes

Library day: Friday Remember your books!

Poetry day: Friday Please bring poem folders to school. Many children are still not bringing these back to school.

Staffing Update
This week we continue to have Ms Kelk relieving in Kohara with Mrs Hull relieving on Friday.
Mrs Campbell says thank you for all the kind messages of support and has enjoyed reading letters and cards from the children.

LIBRARY TRIP CANCELLED

Due to the weather and the amount of coughs and colds around at the moment, we have decided to cancel the walk to the library today.

However, the lady from the library is going to visit us at school today instead which is fantastic as that means the children will still get some of our planned learning experiences.

Fingers crossed we get better weather on Friday for our next trip!

Library Trip: Monday 10th August

We will make the final call on our trip a bit later this morning and will advise parent helpers via text if it does not go ahead.

At this stage please pack a warm jacket and hat for the children.

Trip to Papanui High School

Next Friday 14th August is our class trip to look at Art at Papanui High School. Thank you to the large number of parents who have volunteered to accompany us - we now have plenty of helpers!!

We will leave school at 10.30am, returning by approximately 12.30pm.

Children will need a warm jersey and jacket on the day.

We look forward to an interesting visit :)

Visit to Papanui Library

We are looking forward to visiting the Papanui Library on Monday 10th August. Thank you to all our volunteers - we now have enough helpers.

We will leave school at 10.30am and walk to the library via the cycleway, returning to school by approximately 12.30pm.

In the event of bad weather, the trip will be cancelled as the library will be closing for repairs for a couple of months.

Can children please make sure they have a warm jersey and jacket at school to wear.

Meatballs by Honour

Meatballs

Yesterday after school me and my brother Niko and our Dad we helped Dad to make spaghetti and meatballs. We put in garlic, onions and breadcrumbs and this red sticky stuff. We made a lot of meatballs. We put the meatballs in the pan. When the meatballs were finished Dad put them in the sauce and Dad put the pasta in hot water in a pot.

By Honour