Week 4 update

Kia Ora whānau

Well- that was another busy week that passed in a blur! But it was a happy one and the children are settled and enjoying all their learning and activities. We are now pretty established in our morning routines of Reading, Writing and Maths. In Week 4 we are starting our full collaborative teaching of Maths and Writing as well as Reading, so your child maybe with a different teacher for each of these. 
We aim to rotate our teaching groups for all subjects in the last week of each term so that all children will get a chance to learn and interact with each teacher in the different subject areas. At the same time, this allows a block of 8-9 continuous weeks with the same teacher, so that a high degree of rapport and trust can be developed in each group. This depth of knowledge and information will then be shared with the next teacher.

What’s On Next Week in Year Two: Week 4

Wednesday 26th February- Coding Club 3.15-4p.m HB12

Thursday  27 February –  Library day

Friday 28 February –  Timatanga Assembly 11.50 in the school hall. ** Please note the earlier start time.

Keeping Ourselves Safe programme

This programme enables children and young people to learn and apply a range of safety skills that they can use when interacting with others. More information can be found at the Keeping Ourselves Safe website here. All Timatanga Homebases will be working through this programme in weeks 5, 6 and 7 alongside our local community police office, Constable Ross.

We are having a parent information session run by Ross on Tuesday 3rd March at 2.15p.m in the school staffroom. If you would like to attend this- please RSVP to the office.

K.O.S Programme

Reading:  We have had a couple of queries about " what do we do with our reading books?" We would love your child to keep all their instructional reading books in their Reading folder for the whole week. We will write the name of the book that has been read that day in your child's notebook. This allows them some browsing material for over the week and rereading texts is a brilliant way of increasing fluency. Your reading teacher will empty your folder each Monday.

Puzzles:  Thank you to those families who have donated some puzzles to us- we would love some more!

Maths

We have been learning all about Statistics and learning what information we can get from tally marks, bar graphs and pie charts.  Last week we went and counted all the traffic going past our school and graphed all the different results. We had great fun while we were learning!

We had fabulous fun at Discovery Day yesterday!

As always please come in and have a chat with us if you have any queries or concerns.

Sarah, Wendy and Anna

Week 3

Welcome to Week 3

Kia ora Whānau,
It has been lovely getting to know all the children this week and to begin our routines. We had a whole school discovery day on Friday - your child probably had some lovely treasures that they brought home to show you! We have also been finishing off our self-portraits and these should be soon up on the wall for everyone to enjoy and to further brighten up the classroom.


Reading: We have spent last week listening to the children read and introducing the reading routines. From next week your child will be bringing home reading books every day. Whilst we try to ensure that they pack their reading folder at the end of the day it might be a good time to get into the routine of checking it is in their school bag at the end of the day. Instructions for 'Reading at Home' are in front of the notebook. The reading folder gets put into their book box at the beginning of each day. Any questions please ask.

Puzzles: If anyone has any spare puzzles at home that are no longer being used we would love to receive them! The children are really enjoying doing puzzles and word games in the literacy time.

Reminders:

Stationery: Some children have not yet got all their stationery. Please make sure that your child has got everything including a poetry book and a notebook.

Library Day is every Thursday. Return library books from the previous week to the slot on the desk in the classroom.

Poetry: A new poem is read every day with the children. The poem is glued into their poetry book every Friday and the book comes home for the weekend. Please take some time to enjoy this week's new poem and to reread the poems from the previous week. Poetry books are to be returned to the Poetry Box every Monday.

Rubbish: We are finding it very difficult to keep the cloak bay area tidy and free of rubbish. On Friday, as well as a lot of rubbish, we found several plastic bags that children have had in their lunchbox lying on the ground. Please help us and the environment by using labelled containers instead of gladwrap bags to put snacks in. 😀

• Wide-brimmed sun hats are compulsory for all students.
• Please send a full drink bottle of water each day.
• Whānau Picnic 5.30p.m Week 3, Thursday 20th February.
• Our first Timatanga assembly will not be until Week 4 (28th Feb)this term (fortnightly on even weeks).
• Full school assembly 2p.m Friday 6th March.

As always please come in and have a chat with us if you have any queries or concerns.

Sarah, Wendy and Anna

Welcome to week 2

Kia ora whānau
Welcome to 2020  and the Year Two team! Anna, Sarah and I are very excited about the year ahead and are looking forward to getting to know you all.
Thank you to all those families who were able to make it to our whānau connect meetings last week-  they are always a valuable source of information for us to be able to understand your child and their needs.
The children all appeared to have a great day back on Friday- we did some very cool art, so please feel free to come in and have a look!

This week we will be still concentrating on continuing to get to know all our of our students, but also will be slowly introducing some reading, writing and maths routines. Please be aware that our formal guided teaching groups will not fully be up and running until we have had a  chance to really understand the needs within our team.
 In the meantime please continue to read with your child,  play maths games or write stories together-   this partnership between home and school is so important for a child's overall learning. Thank you for all your efforts over the long summer break!


Important things to know for Week 2

• For one of our upcoming art projects, could your child please bring in any  " treasures" from home that they would like to add to their self-portrait to show their individual style. This could be glitter, crinkly cellophane, ribbons, sparkly material, camouflage,  special paper, anything that your wee " magpie" might like to add onto their creation. We hope to start this next art on Wednesday, so any treasures that you find may be placed into your child's "book box" to keep them safe. Many thanks!

• Wide-brimmed sun hats are compulsory for all students
• Please send a full drink bottle of water each day
• Whānau Picnic 5.30p.m Week 3, Thursday 20th February.
• Our first Timatanga assembly will not be until Week 4 (28th Feb)this term (fortnightly on even weeks)
• Full school assembly 2p.m Friday 6th March

Please feel free to come in and have a chat with any of us if you have any queries or concerns.

Have a great week

Wendy, Sarah and Anna