Week 1 (1-5 May)

Welcome back to Term 2. We hope the children have had a fabulous holiday and are well rested and ready for another busy term of learning. There will also be a paper newsletter coming home on Monday with our Term update.

Education Review Office
This week we welcome the Education Review Office who are visiting Waimairi School as part of their regular review cycle.

Monday Meet Up/Science Ignition
On Monday we will be meeting in Kohara to start our Science learning/ignition before heading to a very slimy Monday Meet Up a bit later at 9.10am.

Staffing
We will be attending a professional development session on Tuesday between 10-11.30am. Bindy O'Callaghan and Nicholas Williams will be releasing us in Kohara during this time.

Kapa Haka
Junior Kapa Haka continues as usual this term on Tuesdays at 1.30pm.

Library Day
Please ensure children have their books for returning on Fridays.

Term 2 Inquiry
This term is our Science term and we look forward to exploring the science of Forces this term.
If you or anyone you know has a background/job as a scientist, we would love to hear from you. It would be fabulous if our children could have the chance to hear from a real scientist!

Reading
A reminder that all children need a named reading folder at school every day - these are kept in tote trays. Please encourage your child to put their folders there before school each morning.

PTA News
Help with Mystery Bottle Wrapping
The PTA have many mystery bottles at the office which need wrapping for their upcoming Quiz Night. If you have a few spare minutes and would like to pop in and wrap a few your time and help would be most appreciated (wrapping paper supplied).

Quiz Night
The Quiz night is on Friday 19th May. Have you got your team of 4-6 players organised? Tickets on sale now from the office, $60 per team. Dress up optional for those who are keen to be in to win the Best Dressed Team Award (but no pressure if you don't want to dress up either!) Plenty of time to book a babysitter and rally up your friends or extended family.

Have a great week :)

ANZAC Day

Bolt is celebrating ANZAC Day with some yummy ANZAC Biscuits. Mrs O and her family went along to the Papanui ANZAC service - and how cool to see some Kohara kids taking part in the parade. We spotted lots of familiar faces from Waimairi there too. What a lovely way to honour our history and remember all those who fought for what we have today.

Bolt Goes to the Theatre

Bolt was very excited about going to see Cinderella In Space at the Court Theatre. He also got a surprise to see Mrs Cummack from Te Puna there. 

Bolt in his seat waiting for the show to start.

Here is Bolt hanging out with Cinderella after the show. He loved meeting her!

Squirtle in Mapua

 "Who are you looking for Squirtle?? Bolt's in Christchurch you know"  I said to  Squirtle as he gazed out to sea in Mapua. 

Bolt Meets the Wizards!

Wow look who Bolt met today! The Christchurch Wizard and his wizard in training had a stern word to Bolt about being a good whale and behaving himself at school. Bolt was really excited to meet real wizards.

Where is Bolt?

Bolt always loves to find water to play in! Do you recognise where he is today?

Clue: A famous New Zealand author (why not check out her books at your local library!)

Bolt the Baker

Bolt has been busy baking on his holidays. Today he decided that he would like to try making chocolate chip cookies. Luckily he promised to share them with Mrs O and her family as they look pretty tasty! Bolt hopes you are all having fun on your holidays - maybe you are doing some baking with your family too? It's a great way to practise using maths - finding fractions and measuring ingredients. Bolt will also have to share his cookies out - I wonder how he'll share his 50 cookies between Mrs O, Mr O, Will, Jack and himself? Any ideas how he could do that? Why not leave us a comment below to help Bolt with working this out.

Squirtle the Stowaway

When I arrived in Nelson I unpacked the groceries I'd bought from home and who was in there but Squirtle the Sneaky Stowaway! How did he get there? Now what will we do with him?????

Happy Easter from Bolt and Squirtle

Mmmmm Bolt and Squirtle are enjoying their bunny poop! We hope Orca whales are allowed to eat chocolate! Actually we hope it is chocolate and not really bunny poop!

OUT OF SCHOOL

GOOD MORNING

KOARA WILL BE OUT OF SCHOOL BRIEFLY AT 11.45AM TO DELIVER EASTER CARDS TO OUR NEIGHBOURS.

MONIQUE AND TRACY

Happy Easter

Wishing you all a happy Easter and a relaxing term break for the children. We look forward to hearing their holiday adventures when they return.

Keep an eye out on the blog over the holidays to see what Bolt and Squirtle get up to!!

Football Festival Cancelled

Unfortunately the bad weather has meant we have had to cancel the Football Festival for tomorrow. Hopefully we will look to reschedule this for later in the year.

Library Day Thursday

Please send the library books along tomorrow as we have library on Thursday this week.

Week 11 (10-13 April)

Welcome to Week 11 :)

Social Studies Inquiry Afternoon
You are warmly invited to pop in on Tuesday afternoon anytime between 12 and 3pm to have a look around the classrooms and see how different classes have been inquiring into being responsible citizens. In Kohara we have been focusing mainly on our responsibilities within the classroom as this has tied in well with the beginning of the year and adapting to a new classroom and new routines. We have some wall displays and a short movie trailer to share with you.
You are also welcome to bring a picnic lunch along and join your child for lunch.
* Please note:
Room 18 will be out at PE from 12-12.30pm (see notice below) and Mrs O will be at a Case Conference between 12-12.30pm so there will be a reliever teaching the Room 19 children during this time and Room 18 will be out with Mr Lukes.
The junior children will also be in the hall from 1.30-2pm on Tuesday afternoon at Kapa Haka.
The best time to find us in our room to show you our Social Studies learning will be between 2-3pm but you are still welcome to pop along from 12pm - you just might need to hunt us down, join us for Kapa Haka or take the opportunity to visit other rooms and see their Inquiry learning!

Classroom Release on Tuesday
Room 18 children will have PE with Mr Lukes on Tuesday between 11-12.30pm.
*If you are visiting as part of our Inquiry afternoon, feel free to locate them either on the field or in the hall and see our responsible learners in action!

End of Term
The school term finishes on Thursday at 3pm due to Good Friday being the start of the holidays.

Thank You
A huge thank you to all our wonderful Kohara parents who have helped this term with baking projects and putting our reading books away, and also to Elizabeth (Lucy's Mum) who comes in each week to help out with a phonics programme. We appreciate your time so many thanks from both of us.

Reading
Due to both Easter and ANZAC day falling in the holidays, we will be enjoying a week of poetry based around these two celebrations so the children will need to have their poetry folders at school every day - these need to be returned to the green containers each morning please.

Many of our reading groups are working on developing fluency in their reading so reading poems is a great way to do this given the natural rhyme and pace of a poem. See if your child can recognise words that rhyme within their poems - can they think of other rhyming words. You can also re-read other favourite poems from over the term.

If you (or your child) would like some extra reading books to have over the term break, just let us know and we can organise some for you :)

Library
We have booked a library session on Thursday for the children so they can have some new library books to enjoy over the break. So please ensure library books are returned during the week to our class library boxes.

Football Festival
Kohara will be taking part in the Mainland Football Festival on Thursday between 10-10.30am. Children will need suitable running shoes/sneakers. Fingers crossed the weather stays dry for us this time!

Happy Holidays!
We would like to wish you all a happy holiday and Easter break. We look forward to seeing the children refreshed and ready for learning on Monday 1 May.

Library Day Friday

Please return library books so the children can get new books issued for over the holidays.

Football Festival Postponed

Due to the conditions of the grounds with all the rain, we have postponed the Mainland Football festival session. It will now take place on Thursday 13 April (next week).

Blog Comments

Thanks to everyone who is leaving comments for the children on their blog posts. It's a bit like getting mail - the children love having the comments read out!

Louis and Alex - Birthday Cake Makers

Louis and Alex had a great idea to help celebrate upcoming birthdays in their family. Louis wanted to bake a birthday cake for his brother and Alex wanted to make a cake for his sister, so they decided to make it a joint project. Their focus was on following a recipe and icing and decorating it to make it look special. The cake looks very special - we hope that Leon and Elia love it!

Alex's photo still to come :)

Football Festival

Weather and grounds permitting, Kohara will be taking part in a football festival session on Friday this week run by Mainland Football. Please make sure your child has their school jersey and suitable running shoes for this.

The festival is aimed at giving all kids a go at football in a fun, non threatening atmosphere and being introduced to handy tips and the rules of the game.

Disco this Friday

The PTA are hosting our first school disco of the year this Friday 7 April.
Juniors from 6-7pm. $2 entry and glow products available to buy.
Come and mingle while your child enjoys showing off their best dance moves.

Writing Challenge

How many words can your child write in 10 minutes?

Set your child a challenge using a timer for ten minutes and get them to write all the words they can in that time. Concentrate on the small words they use everyday, names of people they know and words that rhyme with little words they know. You can prompt them...

Can you write I, a, is, to, today, day, the, is, me, we, he, in, on...
Can you write all the names of your family (mum, dad, sisters and brothers names, Gran etc)
Can you write at, and other words that rhyme with at (cat, hat, bat, sat, pat, flat, brat, that...)
Can you write words that rhyme with - in, got, get, and, look...
Can you write words with different endings (look, looks, looking, looked, play, plays, played, playing)
Can you write number words (one, two, three...)
Can you write colour or animal words (hen, dog, pig, red, green...)
Can you write other words you know...

How many can they do?

Did you know, that regular practise of writing like this can lead to considerable improvement of the number of words your child can spell. Why not set a monthly challenge and see if your child can beat their score for the previous month! It doesn't matter how many they can do to start with, over time they will be proud to see their score improve.

We love to celebrate your child's successes - so remember to share their proud moments with us:)

Lucy's Penguin

How cute is Lucy's penguin!!! Lucy has been busy sewing this project as a gift for her Mum who used to fundraise for the Yellow Eyed Penguins. It looks like a very friendly penguin - the detail on the face and body make it look just like a real penguin. Lucy has worked really hard to get her stitching small and neat. Ka pai Lucy.

Welcome

Welcome to Jill Kelk on Thursday and Bindy O'Callaghan on Friday as Mrs Campbell will be out of class working on our teacher inquiry into Mathematics teaching and learning.

No Reading Homework Wednesday

Shhhhh... TOP SECRET!!!!!!

Kohara are working on a top secret project which will be revealed to you next Tuesday at our end of term inquiry celebration. We hope you can pop in for a visit sometime between 12 noon and 3pm on Tuesday 11th April to see how Kohara have been learning to be responsible citizens.

So no reading homework tonight.

Thursday Wet Weather

More rain is forecast for Thursday this week so please ensure children have a rain jacket at school in case of emergencies. Gumboots are also a great idea - children are most welcome to bring their slippers along to wear inside.

Thanks to those children who have been bringing along some board games to while away the inside wet day lunch times - these have proven to be most useful.

Wednesday is Mufti Day

Don't forget to wear mufti on Wednesday and bring a bottle along (wrapped or unwrapped is fine!)

Addison the Artist

Addison is a very busy Kohara Kid! She decided her next project would be an art project and she found an idea she liked in one of our ideas books. The first picture Addison drew was using only white crayon and then putting dye over it. For her second picture she used coloured crayons and then dyed it. Then Addison compared the two pictures to see what she thought looked better. She decided that the colourful one was better because it was brighter and more colourful and this made it easier to see.

Cayden's Car

Wow look at this fancy looking car that camden made. First he sewed it using a template to trace around. It was pretty tricky learning how to make the stitches but he showed lots of perseverance. Then Cayden thought about other details a car needed - like wheels and a steering wheel. What other details can you notice?

Luca the Gardener

Luca was inspired to do a gardening project. We found some lovely looking wild flower seeds and a pot and Kahukura kindly gave us some soil to use. Luca planted her seeds and has been very responsible watering them each day and keeping an eye on them. Look what has happened since she planted them!!!

Luca wrote instructions for people who would like to know how to do this...

1. Get a pot and fill the pot with soil.

2. Make a hole in the soil and put the seeds in the hole.

3. Water it and give it lots of sunshine and a little bit of shade.

4. Wait for it to grow.

By Luca

Week 10 (3-7 April)

Welcome to Week 10!

Classroom Release
Room 19 have Art with Mrs McHaffie on Monday 9-10.30am.

Tuesday Kapa Haka

Library day
Please pack the books for returning on Friday. Books can be returned back to class in our library containers any time during the week.

Mufti Day
This Wednesday please wear mufti and bring a mystery bottle along for the upcoming PTA Quiz night. It can be anything in a bottle as long as it is unopened. You can send it wrapped or unwrapped.

Disco
This Friday is the junior disco from 6-7pm. $2 entry. Glow products available for purchase.
Children must be collected from inside the hall.

Cross Country
Well done to the Kohara children for your efforts at Cross Country last week. We heard it was a great day and you enjoyed trying your best and having a go.

Enjoy your week :)