Term 3: Week 10 Learning

Week 10, and we are into the last week of term 3. This week we welcome another Student-Teacher back into our class. You may remember Kendall visiting our class back in Term 2 for 1 Week. Kendal is from Auckland University and will be in our class for 4 Weeks. (Last Week of this Term and First 3 Weeks of Term 4) She will be working alongside me, to support the children in their learning and taking a few different Reading, Writing and Maths Groups throughout her time. Please make sure we make her feel welcome in our class. 

This week on Thursday is our Schools Cultural Festival Shows. We have a show at 1 pm and another one at 6:30 pm. Tickets for these shows go on sale on Monday until Wednesday for $2 and will be sold at school before 9 am. You must have a ticket to attend these shows. As a class, we only have a selected group of children performing for this. These are the children involved in Peachers and Pickles and have had a permission slip sent home. As a VLC we have been busy doing all the Visual Art to decorate the hall for this event. We are putting a slideshow together to show and share all our hard work. I will put this slideshow up onto this blog once it is finished. With this Cultural Festival going on, it will affect what we are doing in our class but we will do our best to support our school, and take advantage of this experience.

Throughout this week we will be taking, the chance to run a mini-study on Bees. The children have taken a keen interest in bees from the presentation we got from Troy about the Bee Hives that the school is getting.

In Writing, we are working on retelling. We will unpack the Myth and Legend of 'Maui and the Sun'. The first day we will put it into order. To follow on from this we will be re-telling the story in our own words, making sure we put the key points in. 

In Reading, we are revisiting the different decoding strategies we have worked on throughout this term. Remember this sheet is in the children's Communication Book. The children will be bringing home a reading book until Thursday, so it allows us time to make sure they are all in by the end of the term.  We will not be visiting the Library this week, as on Wednesday afternoon the children will be getting to watch the run-through of the Cultural Festival. 

The Big Book we will be looking at this week is 'The Kings Cake'. This book links to our writing as we will be focusing on adjectives, describing and interesting words. Along with that, we will be working on identifying the beginning, middle and ending, retelling the story, and the words and sounds of the week.

Our Poem for this week is 'Beehives'. This poem integrates into our school as we have just been given some beehives to have at our school. They have been placed in a safe place. Ask your child to tell you where they are. 

Reminders 

• Last day of Term 3 on Friday (2 Weeks Holiday and see you all back on 16th October)
• Cultural Festival Shows on Thursday at 1 pm and 6:30 pm 
• Assembly Friday at 2:20 pm: Our VLC is presenting 

Term 3: Week 9 Learning

What an amazing, busy term we have had. Only 2 weeks left until the school holidays and I know a lot of the children are looking forward to a well-deserved break. They have all worked so hard this term and made some great success. This Friday is a mufti day. To wear mufti you need to bring a can of food to school. This is to support the Salvation Army who is trying to help families in our community who do not have enough money for food. 

In Writing, we will be continuing with our Narrative writing that we started last week. Last week, we discussed what an Author is and the different stages that authors go through before they have finished their writing for publishing. The expectations for our writing last week was to have them as the character in their story and use different adjectives, describing and interesting words in their writing (WOW Words). This week we will be finishing our Narrative, going back and checking our story and adding in the correct punctuation. We will be looking at the book 'Meet the Marks' to help us with adding in different punctuation. Then we will become a publisher and produce our stories in a way we can share with others. Talk to your child about their Narrative and ask them to describe them as a character. 

In Maths we will be continuing on with looking at different patterns and making our own. Along with this, we will be revisiting fractions. Getting the children to know, read and identify a half, quarter and third. We will be working on this in our Warm Up. In their ability groups, they will be focusing in addition, subtraction and skip counting to solve different problems.

The Big Book we will be looking at this week is 'The Kings Cake'. This book links to our writing as we will be focusing on adjectives, describing and interesting words. Along with that, we will be working on identifying the beginning, middle and ending, retelling the story, and the words and sounds of the week.

Our Poem for this week is 'Beehives'. This poem integrates into our school as we have just been given some beehives to have at our school. They have been placed in a safe place. Ask your child to tell you where they are. 

Reminder 

• Wednesday: Library 
• Friday: mufti day. To wear mufti you need to bring a can of food to school. 

Term 3: Week 8 Learning

We had an amazing time at Motat on Wednesday last week and all the children were on their best behavior. We would like to say HUGE THANKS to the awesome parent's helpers that came on the trip. We would not be able to do it without your help and we really appreciate it. THANKS AGAIN

This is Sophie's last week in our class and we have really enjoyed having her, with all the support you have given to the children. During the week we will be having a visit from 1 of Sophie's lecturers into our classroom to observe her working with the children.

For Maths, we are going to be looking into patterns. This could be, patterns with shapes, numbers, objects etc. We will be discussing what a pattern is, identifying why it is a pattern and how we could carry on a pattern. On Friday we will be making our own repeating patterns to put up in the classroom. Along with this, we will be focusing on Addition and Subtraction. The children will be working on identifying and using the correct symbols in the right way.

In Writing, we will be an author and write a Narrative that involves them as the character in the story.  Our main focus is going to be using Adjectives; describing, interesting and WOW words in our writing. Next week, we will then become a publisher, and put them up on the wall. A way you can support your child with this at home is talking to them about their story and giving them ideas that they could add in their writing.

The Big Book we will be looking at this week is 'Dinosaur Roar'. This book links to our writing as we will be focusing on Adjectives. Along with that, we will be working on Prediction, relating to own experience, phonological knowledge, and the sounds sw, cl, and ur. 

Our Poem for this week is 'My Lost Lunch' where we will be focusing on prediction, using the pictures, rhyming, describing words, sight words, and understanding the poem.

• Wednesday: Library
• Thursday: Bikes, bring your own bike if you would like to. 
• Friday: Whole School Assembly at 2:20 pm

Week 7: Motat

Term 3: Week 7 Learning

Week 7 and all the children are really looking forward to this week. As on Wednesday, we head off to Motat. Thanks, heaps to the parent helpers who have said they can help as we could not do this trip without you. Please remember to pack a water bottle, full packed lunch, raincoat and correct school uniform.

This week in Maths we are going to be consolidating skip counting forwards in 5's to 100. Along with this, we will be focusing on Subtraction and Number Knowledge. With the Number Knowledge, the groups will be working on, building a strong understanding of numbers up to 100. (Depending on their level) They will be working on identifying, knowing the number that comes before and after a given number, ordering and sequence numbers from highest to lowest or lowest to highest.

For subtraction, we will be working through different problems making sure we are using the correct strategies to work it out. These will depend on the stage that they are at. Some of the strategies are

-  Using Materials to take away

-  Counting backward in 1's

-  Taking away 10's and 1's

In Reading, we will be focusing on the decoding strategy 'Tryin Lion'. This is where if the children don't know a word and can't decode by using the other strategies we have been working on they will reread the sentence and try words that look right and make sense. 

Along with this, we will be working on reading with fluency and expression, looking at the text for speech marks and different text layout. 

Our Poem for this week is 'Dragon Shop' where we will be focusing on th, dr, rhyming, describing, sight words, and understanding the poem.

The Big Book we will be looking at this week is 'How Boring'. We will be focusing on our retelling, sequencing, comprehension, rhyming, different punctuation and understanding.

For writing this week we are going to be focusing on checking that our writing makes sense and adding in the correct punctuation. One day I will be giving the children a piece of writing, where they will go away and check it. Pointing out the words that look wrong, identifying where a capital letter and full stop-go, and adding in words that are missing. A great idea when reading with your children at night is getting them to find different punctuation in the story.

Reminders

• Wednesday: Trip to Motat
• Thursday: Bikes, bring your own bike if you would like to. 

Week 6: Inquiry

This week we got creative and had to make a city as a class. We each chose a buddy and worked with them to make some towers to belong in our city. We had a lot of fun and used different problem-solving skills to construct our towers. Next week we will get outside and paint them.