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

Kia ora whānau

Well, another crazy week done and dusted. It's hard to believe there are only three more weeks of the 2019 school year! Bearing this in mind we will be starting to alter our programmes at the end of this upcoming week. Guided instructional Reading groups will finish on Thursday, as we do need to get all of our school readers back into our resource room to do a stock take. To this end, can you all please have a look through your child's room, under the couch and in the backseat of the car, for any lurking school reading books or library books. We are still missing quite a few!

We will be continuing doing Reading throughout the team, but just in a different format combined with lots of Literacy based activities. Please do actively encourage your child to continue to read at home each night, and also over the holidays, so that they are able to maintain the wonderful progress they have achieved over this year.


This week will see us amping up our Art preparation for our big extravaganza in week 9. Your child should have brought home an invitation on Friday. Please have a rummage if you haven't seen it yet.
We will also be continuing to practice our beautiful singing voices so that we can amaze you on Thursday.

Timatanga End of Year invite

Congratulations to Jack Hodgson, Francie Stringer,  Jack Derry, Jane Kuntz, and Addison Aspros- for receiving a class certificate in yesterday's assembly. You make us all very proud of your achievements and for demonstrating the qualities of a Thorrington citizen

Reports and Class placements for 2020
We have been working very hard over the past weeks, both to complete all our assessments, reporting and general comments regarding your children, as well as thinking deeply about the best possible placement of your child in 2020. We do spend a lot of time thinking and discussing all the various factors that are involved when making up new Homebase groups. Please be assured that we do look at the whole picture very carefully, and take into account friendship groups,  past issues if any,  particular children's learning or social needs, class numbers, different personalities within a team, collaborative team members,  and much much more. It actually is a very complicated process!
Please remember also, due to the nature of our collaborative teaching at Thorrington, even if your child does not have their ' best friend' in their Home Base, throughout their collaborative team we have tried our very best to ensure each child has a friendship circle to support them.


Dates to diarise

Friday 6th Dec: 12-noon Timatanga Assembly- Athletics Certificates will be presented this assembly
Thursday 12th Dec: 11a.m Timatanga End of year celebration and shared lunch
Wednesday18th Dec: PTA Pizza Day
Friday 20 Dec: School finishes at 12.30.



 Have a happy weekend.

Sarah, Wendy and Andrea

Kia ora whānau

What a beautiful weekend we have had- just perfect for the Thorrington Boot Market. Hopefully, you have all had a restful enjoyable weekend.


Thank you for your queries and concern over Andrea's absence over the past couple of weeks. Her family has been dealing with a sudden serious illness and subsequent bereavement.  All of our support and sympathy are with Andrea and her family at this very sad time.

At this stage, we are uncertain as to when  Andrea will be returning to L3.
However, as Sarah and I are very aware of all the needs of our children through our collaborative teaching, our programmes are able to continue with minimal disruption to the children.


On a happier note, many thanks to all those parents who came along and supported us for our Timatanga Athletics day last week. It was a fabulous event and the children participated in everything with enthusiasm and positivity. Certificates for the Sprint winners will be given out in a later Timatanga assembly.

Congratulations to our Principal certificate winners last week- Jhai, Talia and Izzy.

Dates to diarise.

29 November: Timatanga Assembly
12 December: Art Exhibition and shared lunch



Many thanks

If you have any concerns or queries, please do not hesitate to contact Sarah or myself.

Wendy and Sarah.

Kia Ora whānau

Another busy week is over and the children have been practising very hard for our upcoming athletics day next week. We are also spending lots of time on producing some amazing art for our upcoming exhibition.

Some key dates and information to take note of

Tuesday 19 November: Timatanga Athletics 9.30-12.30. Pp date is Friday 22nd November. 

Please note House teeshirts are to be worn if possible.

On the day please ensure your child has 

• House colours shirt
• a polar fleece at school
•  a wide-brimmed hat (they cannot take part in any event unless they are wearing a sunhat)
•  a full water bottle
• suitable sports shoes 
• sunscreen applied

9.30am: Rotation of athletic skills

10.30am: Morning tea

11.00am: Sprint races

12.30pm: Parents and supporters welcome to stay for lunch together

Thursday 21 November:  Tuakana Gala

Our slot for visiting this exciting annual event is 11-11.30 on Thursday. Please see the attached information regarding this opportunity for your child to be able to buy some treats and support our senior student's initiatives in fundraising for the school. 

Tuakana Gala Day

Friday 22 November: Full school assembly 2 p.m. 

All are welcome. You will be notified if your child is receiving an award.

2020 Year 3-6 BYOD Parent Information evening - 7 - 8pm

Please feel free to attend this if you would like more information about the use of devices in the middle and senior school.

Thorrington Boot Market: Sunday 24th November 9- 2 p.m

Come along and enjoy this special Thorrington event!

Year Two writing

Some of our students have been doing some amazing writing based on Roger Hargreaves Mr. Men stories. We have even published our own book of these stories. Please feel free to come in and look at it.

We were very lucky on Thursday as Mrs. Harris came in to read and listen to, our stories with us.

 Have a happy and safe long weekend.

 Wendy, Andrea and Sarah.