Library Competition

The School library is currently holding a colouring in competition to decorate letters so that Fran can make a fabulous sign to let people know where the library is! Fran realised there is no sign that tells you this. You can pop along any morning tea or lunchtime, grab a letter and decorate and colour away.

Music Hour

There is a meeting at morning tea time on Wednesday in the hall for all the children involved in the Music Hour on Wednesday night. Hopefully all permission slips have been returned if your child is performing at this event. Any late returns to the office asap please.

Mrs Campbell and Mrs O wish all our Kohara children who are performing the best of luck. Unfortunately we are attending a professional development seminar so won't be unable to come along and watch you but we know you will do a wonderful job sharing your musical talents with your audience. Good luck!

Samoan Language Week

Addison has been taking a workshop for Kohara to learn some Samoan words.

Talofa-Hello

Tofa-Goodbye

Faafaata-Thank you

Aiga-Family

Malo-Well done.

Newspapers Wanted

Kohara would love any spare newspapers for our art area please.

Update: Thank you we now have a good supply again :)

Week 5 (29 May - 2 June)

Welcome to Week 5 :)

Reading Book Returns
Thank you to our fabulous parents who have given up their time recently to shelve our reading books. Your time is much appreciated so thank you. The reading roster is on the noticeboard outside Kohara in the bag area so if you can spare a few minutes over the term we'd love you to add your name to the roster.

Staffing
This Thursday we are away on our Incredible Years Teachers course so Tania Stott and Jill Kelk will be relieving in Kohara.

Science Inquiry
We are enjoying learning about how things move and talking about different kinds of force. We have also been learning about objects being stationary. Over the last few weeks we have found out that bey blades and fidget spinners all use force to make them move (such as pushing and pulling). On Friday we had a game of tug of war so we could put our learning into action - and we found out that the strongest force won! By pulling on the rope the hardest, they were able to pull the other team over the line. This week we are looking forward to investigating car ramps with Awatea's mum Mel who is coming in to share some science with us.

Library Day is Friday
Thanks to everyone who is remembering to send books back to school in time for our weekly visit on a Friday. This forms part of our class reading programme - it is important that children read for pleasure, as well as reading to learn.

Poetry Folders
Please continue to encourage the children to return these to the green poetry boxes before school.

Maths
Some of our Kohara children have been investigating 'numbers all around us'. Once we started looking for numbers, we found them everywhere! We have started a display in Kohara of different places we have found numbers - in the library, in the playground, in games, on signs, in handwriting, on rubbish bins, on clocks and watches to name a few. We'd love to hear some of the places you can find numbers - feel free to leave us a comment on this post and let us know where you have found some! Or send us a photo :)

PTA News
Thanks to the Kohara parents who have offered to help at the Christchurch Marathon this Sunday as part of our PTA fundraising opportunity. We will both see you there bright and early on Sunday!

The PTA also have a wonderful new Facebook page so if you are on Facebook, please take a moment to check it out and 'like' it so you can stay updated on all the wonderful things our PTA is doing on behalf of our Waimairi children. Be sure to check out the winning costumes from the recent Quiz night - see if you can recognise the very talented Bridget (Freddy's Mum)!

Have a great week.

MANAAKITANGA IN KOHARA FROM SALLY O'REGAN

When we came back from the library this morning we had a large box waiting for us. Sally, the kind sneeze fairy, had left these boxes of tissues for us to use in the class during the sneeze season. A GREAT BIG THANK YOU Sally.

Court Theatre Performance

On Monday 12 June, as part of our Matariki celebrations, we are delighted to welcome back to school the Court Theatre for a special performance - Matatihi. 

Matatihi - Maia’s journey of bravery will expose children to stories and characters routed in the Canterbury rohe, taking the audience on a journey to discover Te waka o Aoraki; local mountains, lakes, pounamu and legendary creatures. This show will inspire young people to be bold, to be proud of what makes them different and to carve their own path in the world. Matatihi - Maia’s journey of bravery is an action-packed, fierce story of bravery told through live music, puppetry, kapahaka, song, story-telling and Te Reo Māori language.   

A $5.00 contribution for each child will be added to your school accounts for this event.

Week 4 (22-26 May)

Welcome to Week 4 :)

Classroom Release
This week the Kohara children have PE (Room 19) or Art (Room 18) on Tuesday afternoon with Mr Lukes and Mrs McHaffie. The children will bring home a poem for reading on Tuesday. Remember to enjoy browsing previous poems as well - rhyme is a great way of building phonological awareness which is important in both reading and writing.

Whanau Hui
Our next whanau hui is to be held this week on Wednesday 24 May at 7.30pm in the school library for all those with an interest in Maori engagement and achievement at Waimairi School. The hui will also include planning for our upcoming hangi/Matariki celebrations. All welcome.

Marathon Volunteers
Thank you to the Kohara parents who offered to help at the Chch Marathon fundraising opportunity for the PTA on Sunday 4 June. Monique will be in touch this week with more details for you.

Quiz Night
Wow! What an awesome night on Friday at the PTA Quiz night - so fabulous to see such a big turn out from our Kohara parents. I hope you enjoyed your evening. There were certainly lots of laughs at our table even if we didn't take out any of the top prizes! Thank you all for supporting our Waimairi children - the proceeds from quiz night and other PTA fundraisers go directly back into school to fund a great variety of classroom and school wide wants and needs so we certainly appreciate your support.

Court Theatre Visit
We have the Court Theatre coming to perform a show for us on Monday 12 June at school. A $5 contribution for the show will be added to term accounts.

French club Monday lunchtimes. 12.30pm in He Tangata, children to take their lunch with them.

Sewing/Craft Club Tuesday lunchtimes from 12.45pm in Room 21.

Art Club Thursday lunchtimes from 12.45pm in Room 21

Kapa Haka on Tuesday afternoon

Library Day Friday

Have a great week :)

Library Day Friday

Please send the library books back to school in your child's library bag ready for our class visit on Friday.

No Guitar Lessons Next Week

For children who learn the guitar - there will be no guitar lessons next week as Graeme is away. Lessons will resume as normal the week after.

Autumn Leaves by Leon

Autumn Leaves.

It is autumn. I love autumn.
Autumn is when all the leaves fall down.
When you stand in the leaves they crunch.

By Leon

Archie's Lighthouse

Archie has designed a fabulous lighthouse which even features a real working light on the top. This will be very handy to guide his toy ships into the harbour! Archie used tin cans to create the tall shape which he carefully disguised with his colourful painting, then added the verandah using cardboard and finally he added drawing details of the windows and a door. Archie found it helpful to use pictures of lighthouses to give him ideas for the details - what good thinking Archie!

Lauren's Chair

Lauren has designed a very cool and colourful chair for her teddy bear. She did a great job persevering with her woodwork skills especially with hammering the nails in as they proved to be rather tricky. Lauren came up with a great solution for the chair legs as they were a bit wobbly so she added square wood on the side to make a stronger base. Now it's just right for her teddy to use.

PTA Meeting - Tuesday 16th May

If you've ever thought about joining the PTA - tonight (Tuesday 16 May) is the night!!!

Come along and join our Kohara crew of Mrs O, Mike (Gemma's Dad), Jen (Mylo's Mum), Sheryl (Hannah's Mum), and Anna (Oli's Mum) and enjoy getting to know our friendly bunch of PTA helpers. We meet at 7.30pm in the school library. Other than a monthly meeting, your level of commitment is completely up to you, there is no pressure to help at events - each person just commits as much as suits them and their family. It's not all work either - we have plenty of laughs and a few social occasions along the way.

Hope to see you there :)

Week 3 (15-19 May)

Welcome to Week 3 :)

URGENT - Help Needed
The PTA are still in need of 14 more helpers to assist at the Chch Marathon on the morning of Sunday 4 June (Queen's Birthday Weekend(. If you are able to help please let Monique know. Older children Year 8 and above are also able to help out on the day. The job entails filling water cups and handing them out to runners along with set up/clean up.

Quiz night
The Waimairi Quiz night is now SOLD OUT! Thanks to everyone who has supported the school by organising a team. This week the PTA are bringing you the opportunity to guess the lollies in the jar and other fundraisers that will be happening on the night so even if you're not attending , bring a few coins along this week when dropping the kids off or picking them up, and you can be in to win as well. Look out for the friendly PTA ladies before and after school.

Classroom Release
This week Kohara have Classroom release on Thursday afternoon. Room 18 have Art with Mrs McHaffie and Room 19 have PE with Mr Lukes.

Parent Help
Thanks to our wonderful parents who have offered to help out in Kohara this term and to those who came along to the helpers meeting last Wednesday. It was great to start off our parent help roster last week and we look forward to having you in Kohara this term. Your help is much appreciated.

Science - Forces
Last we Kohara started exploring pushing and pulling forces. We have learned that force is needed to make things move. We have discovered many things in our everyday lives that use pushing and pulling forces to move, like pushing a recycling bin, pulling sellotape, pushing your scooter or a fidget spinner, pulling a beyblade cord or pulling a rope. What other examples of pushing and pulling forces can you find at home?

Craft Club Tuesday lunchtime

Kapa Haka Tuesday

French Club Monday lunchtime

Library day on Friday

Have a great week :)

Reading Book Roster

The reading book roster has (finally) been put up on the notice board outside Kohara. We do have a bit of a back log. Sorry! We will be happy to help with the first put away. We really value your help with this job as it not only helps us but all the teachers in the school as the books are then available for their class.

Go Noodle

We are having so much fun keeping fit with Go Noodle! Your child will no doubt be able to tell you all about it but if you would like to have a go, you can search Go Noodle and create your own log in and then your child can exercise away!

Today we did some relaxation with Maximo and we also really enjoyed the Marcarena the other day!!  We are pretty sure our Kohara parents would be able to have some fun with this one!

Baker Boys

Angus and Freddy had a marvellous time using their maths to measure the ingredients for their chocolate cake. Not only that, but they were practising using skills that will help them in everyday life - like washing and drying the dishes! They told us the cake was absolutely delicious so they must have measured the ingredients exactly right! Great work following the recipe in order too.

Week 2 (8-12 May)

Welcome to Week 2 :)

No Monday meet up this week.

Parent Help
Thank you to those who have offered to parent help this term - we look forward to seeing you from this week onwards. Your child should have taken a notice home on Friday for you with confirmed days and times.

Reading Homework
Children have reading homework each night - usually a reading book daily Monday to Thursday (unless there is Classroom Release and then it may be a poem) and a poem on Friday. Children should also be bringing home their library books on a Friday to enjoy with you over the weekend or following week. Reading is as much about reading for pleasure as it is reading for practice so don't forget to re-read favourite stories or poems, or enjoy your favourite books/magazines from home as well.

Some children also have high frequency words to practice reading (remember to only add one or two new words along with the ones they know so it's not too overwhelming for them).

Maths
We are currently exploring fractions (halves and quarters) for maths. Encourage your child to make connections with fractions in everyday life at home or when out and about. Examples might include cutting or sharing food in halves or quarters, half past or quarter past times, half a dollar is 50c, finding something on sale for half price, or when measuring and baking. We are also learning to recognise the symbols for half and quarter (handy for our baking projects).

Science
So far we have shared our ideas about what we think a Scientist is. We have found out that scientists gather data in many ways including using their skills of observation. We also found out that using your senses is a great way to gather data. We had to do this when we made our Kohara slime that we mixed up to pour on Mr Anderson at Meet up last week! We used words like gooey, wet, oozy, runny, cold, grey, stinky, lumpy and sticky to describe our slime. Remember, if you know a scientist who would be happy to talk to Kohara about their job, we would love to hear from you.

Quiz Night
Not long to go now until the Waimairi School Quiz night on Friday 19th May. The staff team is ready to take on the challenge of the parents - are you up for the challenge? Tickets available at the office now $60 a team of 4-6 people. Look forward to seeing you there!

Marathon Helpers
Thanks to those who have offered to help out at the Christchurch marathon on Sunday 4 June. We still need about 15 more volunteers for the morning to help at the water stations. If you are able to assist, please let Monique know.

Staffing
This week we welcome Jill Kelk and Tania Stott back in Kohara on Thursday as we will be away at our Incredible Years Teachers course.

Library Day is Friday

Kapa Haka on Tuesday

French Club - Monday lunchtime

Craft/Sewing Club - Tuesday lunchtimes

Have a great week :)

Friday Library Day

Please send library book and library bags along for returning on Friday.

Also no new poem for Friday home reading - we are re-reading and sharing old favourites. Our Thursday poem was a great link to our Science topic too - using our senses is a way we can gather data just like a Scientist. We will be discussing this in class more on Friday.

A thank you from a neighbour

A big thank you to Waimairi School from a neighbour who really appreciated receiving an Easter Card made by Angus of Room 18/19. Those of us who live on our own and far from family found this gesture very pleasing and thank you for it. Best Wishes  'A neighbour'. 

Christchurch Marathon Helpers Needed

Our Waimairi PTA is once again volunteering to run two drinks stations at the upcoming Christchurch Marathon on Sunday 4 June (Queen's Birthday weekend). We are looking for 25-30 volunteers to help out for a few hours in the morning (early start of 7-7.30ish). This is a great way to build our sense of community and it was lots of fun last year and a great money earner for our PTA. The money earned helps go towards funding many of the fabulous things your children enjoy at school like baking, sewing, or discovery time supplies, sports gear, classroom resources and many more wonderful things for our learners.

If you, or any members of your extended family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, older teenagers etc) are able to help please let Monique know names and email contacts. You can email me at monique.osullivan@waimairi.school.nz

Thanks :)

Quiz Night

Have you got a team together for our upcoming Quiz Night? This is such a fun night out and tickets are available NOW from the school office. Grab some mates or fellow parents and make a team of between 4-6 players. $60 per team.

Cash bar operating.
Mystery bottle auction.
Fundraising table - great prizes to win (you can also buy tickets for these in the week leading up to the Quiz night if you are not going to be there)
Prize for the best dressed them (any theme or idea - but dress up is purely optional!)
Bottle toss - always a crowd pleaser!
And back by popular demand... Steve Tansey as our Quiz Master!!

If you'd like to be in a team but don't have enough people for a team, please let Monique know and she will try and find you a team of fabulous people to join.