Week ten

Kia ora Whānau
Whew- we've made it! One more week to go and then we all get a break from school lunches!  It has been a really busy term, and we have lots of children who are very tired and many are affected by all the bugs and sickness circulating the school at the moment. 
Many thanks to all our wonderful Mums, Dads and Grandparents who assisted us on our Arion Park trip last Thursday. It was a fabulous morning of hands-on learning for our children and we can't do these sort of trips without parental assistance. Thank you!!
Thank you also to all those parents and caregivers who met with us last week for your Learning Conversations. We hope it was useful for you all in understanding your child's progress.

Key dates to diarise

• TLC PJ and Hot chocolate day  Tuesday 2nd July week 10  Please send your child with a plastic mug and in their PJs/ onesies/ slippers if they wish to. This is a free event.
• Library Day is each Tuesday
• Sausage sizzle this Friday $2 per sausage
• Please keep your baby and whānau photos coming in- the kids are loving seeing themselves up on display!
• Our final Timatanga assembly for the term is this Friday 5th July at 12 noon. L3 are hosting this- all are welcome.
• To diarize- Week 9-10 in Term 3 will be our Swim weeks 16-27 Sept.

Arion Park Photos

My apologies- I only have photos of my group of children!

But I know they all had an amazing time!

 Enjoy another lovely sunny day!
Wendy, Andrea and Sarah

Kia ora whānau

Welcome to Week 9- the term is racing away on us all!  This week promises to be another busy one with  Learning conversations happening on Monday and Tuesday after school as well as our Arion Park trip on Thursday. To end the week is our  Full school assembly on Friday.
Many thanks to those parents who tried to assist us with our quest to find some chicks- and special thanks to Sabine  Handel who was an absolute star in enabling us to have Goldy, Shadow and Spotty in our Year two space!

Visit to Arion Animal Farm
Thank you for the great response to our trip to Arion Farm Park. Please return your child’s permission slip to their Home Base teacher urgently if you have not already done so. Please also remember to indicate whether or not you can offer parent help on the day (Wednesday 26 June/Thursday 27 June).
Please help your child to pack a warm jumper, jacket and even gumboots if they have them. Previous classes who have visited the farm this term have reported that it is very cold there! The bus leaves school at 9:10 am so please make sure your child is at school on time. Parent helpers, please check in with the Home Base teacher by 8.45a.m to get your group list, and other details for the day. The children will be eating morning tea at Arion Farm but not lunch. They will bring their bags with a jacket/warm layer, a change of footwear, morning tea and drink bottle.
Children who carry their own medication will need to have this in their bags also.

Key dates to diarise

• Tuesday 25th June- Sarah, Wendy and Andrea are all out together on their CRT days- planning an amazing Term 3 for our children!
• Please keep your baby and whānau photos coming in- the kids are loving seeing themselves up on display!
• Please return any permission slips for our  Arion Park visit in Week 9 on Thursday 27th June 
• TLC PJ and Hot chocolate day  Tuesday 2nd July week 10  Please send your child with a plastic mug.
• Library Day is each Tuesday
• Sausage sizzle this Friday $2 per sausage
• Full school assembly 2.15p.m Friday 28th June 

We have had a fabulous week of learning-  Matariki kicked off with our amazing students proudly saying their mihi's in front of the full school. Congratulations to Abbey Thomson for winning the Timatanga competition!  Congratulations to our other five finalists who did us proud- Mackenzie, Nico, Holly M, Mercedes and Jaden.

Holly M above Jaden below

Mercedes and Abbey

Mackenzie and Nico

 Some of our learners have been doing some fabulous learning at Literacy time. Have a look at their posters about the Giant Snail.

 On Friday to end our Matariki celebrations- we buddied up in a Tukana- Teina relationship and learned how to do māori string games, art and paper creations.

Finally - what a great way to end the week - Tuhura time.  Luka and Charlie spent a lot of time making their own robot-  follow up learning from their bee - bots ignite session earlier in the day. Ka Pai boys!

 Have a happy week from the Year Two teachers

Kia ora Whānau

Oh dear- it looks like another soggy Saturday- let's hope the sun shines through soon...

You may have heard that we had a bit of an egg disaster this week.  We think one of our cleaners may have inadvertently turned off the power to our incubator. :-( So we had some very cold eggs in the morning- it has all been such a shame, but a bit of a 'real life' lesson for us all! So now we are on the hunt for some day old chicks, as we desperately do not want the children to miss out. Does anyone have information about where we could get some chicks at short notice?

Our Literacy Programme

As we mentioned in our last blog, our new Literacy programme will be starting this week. We thought it might be useful to explain the ' average' rate that children progress through the Reading levels. Upon starting school an 'average' student will progress through Reading Levels 1-12 at a reasonable pace. We all know the excitement of both ourselves and a child when they "move up into different colour books!" Obviously, this varies greatly between children, and please do not panic if your child does not fit this model- we know where each of them are, and what we need to do to help them progress.:-)

However, once your child moves into the levels of Orange / Turquoise and above- you should expect that your child can spend about six months typically at each colour level. This is because we are no longer concentrating heavily on teaching decoding skills, instead, our teaching focus shifts to the comprehension of texts. This includes being able to infer, predict, summarize, look for key points and retell a story in their own words. These are all quite high order thinking skills and they do take a long time to develop and to learn properly. In fact, many adults still have difficulty with inferential questions! Hence your child will stay at a particular level for a much longer period so that they can learn and consolidate these important literacy skills.

Key dates to diarise

• Remember to book for your Mid-Year Face-To-Face Discussions:  If you have not yet done this- could you please book via Sandy in the school office.
• It is Matariki week.  Our Kapa Haka groups will kick off our week of celebrations at 12.10 on the courts. Please feel free to come and join us. 
• Tuesday 18th June- Wear your House colours and have a hangi lunch.
• Please keep your baby and whānau photos coming in- the kids are loving seeing themselves up on display!
• Please return any permission slips for our  Arion Park visit in Week 9 on Thursday 27th June 
• TLC PJ and Hot chocolate day  Tuesday 2nd July week 10
• Library Day is each Tuesday
• Sausage sizzle this Friday $2 per sausage

The children thoroughly enjoyed seeing our show the recent  Playhouse theatre performance of the Tortoise and the Hare earlier in the week. Here are some photos they may enjoy!

Have a happy weekend and please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any queries.

Wendy, Andrea and Sarah.

Week 7

Kia ora and welcome to Week 7

The term is beginning to disappear rapidly on us.  It's that time of the term when tiredness and sickness start to take its toll.  The middle winter terms are always hard, so be kind to yourselves and your wee ones! If your child is sick, going to be late, at an appointment or going to be on holiday- could we please ask that you do let us know, but please always copy the office in as well. It gets very busy in the class, and often we will not get a chance to check our emails at all, from well before school till lunch time or even later! We do appreciate you letting us know, but please be aware that you should not rely on us seeing your message quickly. (For example, if you are going to be late at pick up time, and asking us to let your child know this - it really would be much safer to let Sandy/ Jude know and they will make sure the message gets through- otherwise, we may miss it completely!

Literacy 

In Week 8 we are going to be introducing some changes to our current Literacy Programme. This will result in your child having an increased number of instructional guided reading sessions with one of the teachers. This also coincides with us changing our teacher rotations, so your child will most likely have different reading and/or writing teachers for the next few weeks. Because we are making some quite big changes in Literacy, we have opted to keep our Maths programme running in the same way so that we have consistency for the children in this area. Please bear with us as we make our teaks to develop the best possible learning programme for your children.

Home Learning

We have had a number of parental requests asking for some form of basic facts/ maths problems that can be done at home if desired. We are very happy to do this- along similar lines to our spelling programme- so that if you wish to work with your child at home, you will have the resources to do so,  but there is no obligation to if you don't. However, to set this sort of programme up well, we do need some time. Hence we have made the decision, that we gather all the resources we need over the next few weeks, and it will be available and ready to go at the start of Term 3.

Some key dates to be aware of:

• Library Day is each Tuesday
• Sausage sizzle this Friday $2 per sausage.
• 10 June Playhouse  performance of the Tortoise and the Hare 
• Arion Farm visit - Week 9  26th June Yr0-1,27 June- Year 2's
• Learning in action school Observations Tues 11th - Thurs 13th June Week 7
• Interviews  Week 9 Mon 24th - Tues 25th June
• TLC Tues 2nd July Pyjamas and Hot choc day.

 

 TLC Mufti day: Thanks to everyone who participated. Over $530 was raised for the Ronald McDonald House! Was a great effort and fun was had by everyone!

 L1  presented a fabulous assembly on Friday. Thank you to everyone who presented or shared their learning:

In our Discovery day on Friday the children had an awesome time learning how to make bridges, trying new drawing techniques and making penguins.

Have a happy weekend and please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any queries.

Wendy, Andrea and Sarah.