Term 3 Week 4/5 in Pōhutukawa

Science

For science this term we are conducting simple experiments, looking at physical and chemical changes, changing a substance into another substance and the physical properties of a material. Katie is discovering the mysteries of Ooblek, Gayle is looking at popcorn, Nick has a focus of fizzing and foaming and Tracy is turning milk into ice cream. The children have had one session of science so far, and are looking forward to rotating around all of the teachers so that they get to experience a number of experiments.

Passions
Our passions this term have given the children opportunities to learn lots of practical skills, along with the key competencies of thinking, using language, symbols, and texts, managing self, relating to others, and participating and contributing. We are very grateful to the wonderful adults who have been popping along on a Friday to help us out. Cooking and sewing is definitely much easier with smaller groups being supervised by an adult. It's fabulous to see so much collaboration going on between the students, as working together harmoniously is such an important skill to develop.

Gymnastics
Our gymnastics unit comes to an end this week. The children have enjoyed the sessions, setting themselves personal goals and using the gym equipment. We have seen a large increase in confidence for many of the students, and again it has heartwarming watching the groups support each other both physically and emotionally.

Readathon
Readathon cards have been sent home and hopefully your child is all ready to go! The goal is for every child to read for at least 15 minutes a day, for 14 days consecutively. The sponsorship money goes towards our outdoor spaces. We thank the PTA very much for having this focus and for organising events which will eventually provide fantastic outdoor areas in which our tamariki will be able to play and learn.

Market Day
This term a major focus has been small business planning, leading up to our Market Day in week 10. The idea is that the students form a business group which develops a plan to sell a product or run an activity at a market day in the last week of the term. The money raised will be used to reduce the cost of Team Pōhutukawa's camp in term 4 and to offset the market day's expenses.
The students are right into their planning, and hopefully you have heard some talk at home about what your child is doing. Many are baking, others are making products and some have organised an activity with prizes. In their planning, along with coming up with a product or activity, the children  name their company, plan a shopping list, create a logo, packaging, advertising poster, stall title sign, and work out the price and profit.
To enable the students to make the products we supply all stationery and art supplies from school. We provide the groups with a budget and they give us a shopping list. We buy their supplies (from Countdown) and then the money is recouped from their profit. We have been approached by several families wanting to supply the ingredients/materials themselves for their children, so that they succeed with a maximum profit. The idea is that we supply the money to 'float' the groups, so that they learn about the business world, and so that parents are not out of pocket, as this money is a fundraiser for camp. If you would like to contribute to your child's group by supplying ingredients or materials from home (please don't feel like you have to) could you please send an email to your child's home group teacher, so that we know you have given permission for home ingredients/materials to be used.

tracy.inwood@beckenham.school.nz
gayle.mcnaughton@beckenham.school.nz
nick.bruce@beckenham.school.nz
katie.mcfarlane@beckenham.school.nz

Winter Sports
This is the last week of winter sports. We have had a great run of weather this term and it has been fabulous for the teams to head off to Hagley Park on a Friday afternoon. One more Friday of remembering a water bottle, boots, shin and mouth guards. Next week we will be collecting in the sports tops, so if they could be washed and returned to the teacher that handed them out, that would be awesome thanks.

Enrolment Intentions for current Year 6 students for 2019 School Year
If you have not filled in this form (and you are a parent of a year 6 student) we would be very grateful if you did, as this helps us to plan effectively for next year.
Enrolment Intentions for current Year 6 students for 2019 School Year

Christchurch Schools' Music Festival Information

Attention families of the Pōhutukawa Pitch Perfect Choir… our performance night for the Christchurch Schools’ Music Festival is Friday 26th October. Tickets are now on sale through Ticketek. Adult tickets cost $22.00 and school age children are $10.00.

Term 3 Week 2 in Pōhutukawa

Welcome back to the new term. We have had a mixed bag of weather so far. Now that we have hit August we only have one month left of winter, in theory, so bring on spring!

This term for physical education we have Canterbury Hockey delivering their Small Sticks programme to our whole school. For Pōhutukawa this means a half hour lesson for each home group on Tuesday, for the first five weeks of the term. It's great to have experts in, as it means that the teachers are learning new activities and skills too!

Our other physical education focus is gymnastics. We began this today and the students had a fabulous time using the apparatus and supporting each other at giving new things a go. The students rotated around eight activities - beam, vault with beat board, vault with mini tramp, skipping ropes, forward rolls, cartwheels, handstands and human pyramid.

After the amazing community effort of the mass planting, we have now opened up our Treemendous area for the children to play in, during break times on a Tuesday and Thursday (at this stage). Beach popped down to see what could happen there, and decided it was a pretty cool area to hang out in.

Our new writing topic of poetry was kicked off on Monday by a poetry reading motivation. This could have been quite a dry experience, however we had Jarred accompanying the teachers who were reading the poetry, by acting out the words in the poems using Jarred's very own style of sign language. Much hilarity ensued, and thus started the new writing topic. The students then made their own acrostic poem, using their name. Through Google Classroom, each child has their own Poetry Anthology Google Slideshow. As we learn about different poetry types, the children will be writing their own poems and publishing them in their anthology. At the end of the unit, each slideshow will be printed and made into a book. Today's poem was called the 5W poem, as each line described a part of a story - who, what, where, when and why. There were some excellent poems created throughout the hub.


Superman,  
cruising in the sky, at nearby Hidden Batcave,
close to midnight, trying to find Batman.

By Max Graham

Izzy,playing around,in her backyard,on a hot and sunny afternoon,so she could find her pets.

By Mahli Boreham

Nemo,Trying to get attention,
Lying in front of the couch on the soft grey carpet,While I am watching Britain's Got Talent,Because he wants food.

By Holly Rogers

On Friday we begin our next round of passion groups. On offer this term is coding, sewing, arts and crafts and cooking. We spend 45 minutes on a Friday, from 9-9:45am, in our passion groups. The students look forward to this time of the week, in order to participate in a variety of different activities, often selected because of interests the students have mentioned. Due to the hands on approach required for sewing, cooking and arts and crafts, we would love extra help on Friday mornings. If a family member is available for 45 minutes from 9-9:45am, and fancies joining in any of the activities we are offering this term (for 5 weeks), we would love to have you join us. Please email Tracy to offer your services if you can spare the time. We would also love any donations of material/fabric, needles, thread/cotton/embroidery cotton or wool. 

tracy.inwood@beckenham.school.nz

It has been a pleasure catching up with many of you on Tuesday night at learning conferences. We are very proud of the students who have had their learning conferences, showing that they are about to confidently talk about their learning, sharing goals and explaining how things happen in the Pōhutukawa hub. We look forward to seeing many more of you on Thursday, and remind you that school closes at 2pm to enable us to begin our learning conferences from 2:15pm.

Kind regards

Tracy, Katie, Gayle and Nick