Religious Education

This term we begin with a Prayer module, Imaginative prayer.  Following this we begin the Sacrament strand.  I'll update you on this in the next short while. The Achievement Objectives for the prayer module are that the children will be able to:
 develop an understanding of imaginative prayer and meditation; understand a variety of ways of praying using Scriptures, the senses, the body, music, writing, art, symbols, literature, liturgy and traditional prayers; develop skills and attitudes related to different forms of prayer.

OOPS!

Sorry but that document for the Oral Language Programme has not behaved itself!!  Never mind, I will adjust that tomorrow.  In the meantime, for Friday 12th May we will have
How To     Amelia       Our Place   Jay-T  Current Events   Bella B   Famous Person    Quinn  About Me   Tara      Book Review    Aurelia

Thanks.  Rosalie

Morning Programme Groups Term 2

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4
Amelia Jay-T Bella B Quinn Tara Aurelia	Charlotte O Zack Tamai Jack Savanah Taine	Lily Bella D Eden Findlay Sam Ted	Charlotte K Jedi Liam Jada Pippa

Topic	12th May	19th May	26th May	2nd June
Round 1	Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4
How to...	Amelia	Charlotte O	Lily	Charlotte K
Our Place	Jay-T	Zack	Bella D	Jedi
Current Events	Bella B	Tamai	Eden	Liam
Famous Person	Quinn	Jack	Findlay	Jada
About Me	Tara	Savanah	Sam	Pippa
Book Review	Aurelia	Taine	Ted

Topic	9th June	16th June	23rd June	30th June
Round 2	Group 1	Group 2	Group 3	Group 4
Our Place	Amelia	Charlotte O	Lily	Charlotte K
Current Events	Jay-T	Zack	Bella D	Jedi
Famous Person	Bella B	Tamai	Eden	Liam
About Me	Quinn	Jack	Findlay	Jada
Book Review	Tara	Savanah	Sam	Pippa
How to...	Aurelia	Taine	Ted

Maths Term 2

Hello again.  I trust you have all had a very good break from school routines for the last two weeks, and that you've enjoyed this time together.  Just a few notes about maths, and our Oral Language programme for the coming term.

For the first couple of weeks, we will be working in the Geometry and Measurement strand, learning about position and orientation.  At level one this entails giving and following instructions for movement that involve distances, directions, and half or quarter turns. At level two, the children create and use simple maps to show position and direction.  In both levels the children describe their position from different views and pathways.  They will learn about the points of the compass and use this vocabulary in their work.  At home, you could encourage the children to make up directions that you can then follow e.g. take two steps to the North, make a quarter turn to the East, take 8 steps in that direction, then make a quarter turn to the South, take 6 steps and stop.  Make a half turn to the North and you're finished.  And so on.
Following this strand we will be moving onto multiplication and division.  More on that later.

The new schedule for our Morning Programme will begin the second Friday of the term, 12th May.  See below.  This was so successful last term and once again the children spoke on a range of topics, keeping us interested and well informed!  And once again they received many questions which shows that the audience was truly interested in what they were hearing.  Well done everyone.   We've heard about great books from Amelia, Charlotte O, Lily and Charlotte K.  These titles are: The Country Bunny; The Search for Sunken Treasure - with Geronimo Stilton; The Hare; The Princess and the Pea.  Good to see the 'old' stories are included as favourites as well as current works.
Jay-T, Zack, Bella D. and Jedi gave well thought out instructions and demonstrations for drawing dinosaurs, cultivating kowhai seeds, making pavlova and a paper plane! The children were well prepared for this, and we were impressed at their ability to teach us these skills.
Moving on, we found out about special places for special reasons.  Bella B told us about the attractions in Christchurch, notably the Margaret Mahy playground.  Tamai talked about Napier/Ahuriri, where her family comes from, Eden fishes at the Poolburn Dam and Liam has fun at Papatowai.
There are so many things happening but the current events we heard about were the death of Murray Ball, the cartoonist, by Quinn. Jack told us about a teenage cyclist who was injured; Findlay was interested in the inter-schools triathlon and Jada reported on the Maadi Cup rowing competition.  Each child supported their talk with pictures either from the paper or the internet.  It makes it easy for us to relate to what has happened.
And the famous people!  Tara, Savanah, Sam and Pippa told us all about Sir Edmund Hillary, Jim Morrison of the Doors, Richie McCaw and Leilani Read. These people are famous for very different reasons.  There was a mountain climber, a rock musician in the 60's, a rugby great, and a netballer. Three have sadly died and Richie, thankfully, is still very much alive!
Lastly, we have heard more about the fascinating lives of Aurelia, Taine, and Ted.  It is always wonderful to find out more about our great class members. Aurelia loves art, Taine loves fishing and Ted likes a good holiday!
Thanks parents for ensuring that your children are ready for their turn, with supporting information.  I keep all the accompanying pictures and scripts for our big book, or photos of book covers etc when it is not possible to keep those items.  Here is the new schedule for Term 2:

Room 3 Morning Programme Term 2

Morning programme will be part of our Oral Language programme each Friday.  The purpose is to practise speaking and listening skills and to question others to gain more information, or to clarify information.

Morning programme topics will need to be prepared at home prior to the presentation date.  They can be prepared on a piece of A4 paper, so that once they have been presented they can be glued in a class book as a record.  As this is oral language and not simply a reading task, it is a good idea to practise speaking clearly with a suitable volume and making the presentation interesting (this may include showing items, photos/pictures, or demonstrating).

Topic	Description
About Me	Prepare a short talk about yourself.  This may include your full name, where and when you were born, places you have lived, information about you and your family, pets, likes, dislikes, hobbies . . .
Book Review	Choose a favourite book. Tell the class the title, author, illustrator, suitable age level, what the story is about and why you enjoyed it.  Show a favourite picture or read a favourite paragraph.
How to . . .	Choose something you know how to do and describe it to the class in a logical order or numbered steps e.g. a favourite recipe, an experiment, instructions to make or do something . . .
Our Place	Select a place in New Zealand.  Be able to pin-point it on a map of NZ.  Find at least 5 facts about it.  This might include where it is, (which island) population, attractions etc . . .
Current Events	Present news in your own words from the newspaper, television, internet or radio.  You need to be able to understand what the news is about so that you can keep the audience interested. (It is harder for the children to present if they are having to read out excerpts from the internet, or what you have written for them. Much better to let them tell it in their words. So a good chat about the event at home prior to presenting is really helpful. This goes for Famous Person as well. )
Famous Person	Choose someone who is famous either in NZ or in another country.  Find out what they are famous for and some interesting facts about them.

Week 1 Term 2

Welcome back to another busy term of learning. This term our over riding theme is "Living In Harmony" - this moves on from our "Belonging" theme last term. I will be incorporating new learning from our staff Professional Development in Restorative Practice into our classroom climate, and how we all relate to each other and make and maintain friendships.
Again this term we are all working on our self management of our belongings and work, for example handing in homework books/reading logs on a Friday. We will be making sure that we self assess how we have done with our printing against the WALTs and use the writing WALTs as we take more responsibility for becoming independent writers. Encouraging the use of our spelling skills to our everyday writing is also a goal for me this term.
Discovery Time: We will join with Room 3 on Wednesday afternoons for 'discovery learning'. To allow us to provide the best range of activities Mrs Laidlaw and myself would appreciate some parent help.  Regina (Lily's mum) is available to be in the garden for small groups - is there anyone else who has green fingers who could come? - it doesn't need to be every week. This week our learning focus will be "Autumn". Looking for a trailer to load leaves onto once we have had FUN! I can dispose of them. Helping out with the leaves is a 'responsibility' of belonging to the school community.

Dates to record on your calendar:

• Swimming: begins on Tuesday 2nd May and is every Tuesday and Thursday with the final session being on Thursday 1st June. Room 3 will swim at 1:30 on Tuesdays and 12:30 on Thursdays. We will travel to and from the pool by bus. Please make sure that your child has their togs each session as the cost for the pool and the tuition is fully funded, but the tutors must have everyone swimming as they need to submit their rolls to receive the funding for these sessions. If your child is not swimming I expect a note please, and they will be set work to complete.
• Year 4 - Sacramental Programme: Parent meeting for Reconciliation Thursday 11th May 7pm.
• School Mass - Sunday 28th May
• Skating: Tuesdays 13th, 20th, 27th June, 4th July and Thursday 29th June
• Poetry Eisteddfod: Monday 3rd July

Reading: This week we will all be learning how to use "The Reading Box", which is a resource on loan from COEC for the term. The texts in this box cover many different styles of writing, which is what we all need to read as we widen our range of types of writing - an aspect that is required by National Standards. On Monday all children will have a small test which will indicate the 'colour' that they will start on.  We will then learn how to complete a card by working through one together, how to record our answers, mark and score our reading. The first few questions on each card relate to comprehension of the text, followed by a range of word study and other language activities.  There is a challenge at the end of each card which allows for individual "going further". While we are learning how to be independent in this activity this week, not all reading groups will have group instruction. Feel free to come and have look at this resource.

Homework

1. Reading: Record what you have read every night in your reading log.  We have some people who have read for 50 nights!! Well done. Browse boxes have books to take home each night.
2. Spelling: We are all working on the spelling patterns for the long 'a' sound. Each word needs to be listened to, tooled then recorded.  Be sure that letters are written the correct way round, as incorrectly written letters mean that the word is not marked correct in the Friday test.

Looking forward to a great term of fun learning.

Eisteddfod Performers

What an excellent job everyone did with the preparation for the Scripture Reading Eisteddfod.  It was wonderful to see so many people using the Bibles presented to them as new entrants at school.
After a further 'semi-final' round today the following people were selected to represent Year 3 & 4:
Findlay Love, Tara Mulholland, Sophie Tait, Jelena Morrell, Jack O'Connor and Adam Ward.  Mason Broome will be our emergency performer - in case someone is sick.
See you all in the church at 1:30.
Next term's eisteddfod will be heard Monday 3rd July. Poetry will be performed - an easy choice with a selection of weekly poems that are known or something from another source. We need to remember to be able to give eye contact and make the poem come alive. This is an aspect that lots of people need to work on.

Are You Wishing to be a Parent on Camp?

If you are considering accompanying the Year 3 & 4 overnight ski camp in term 3, could you please contact me or the office to get a copy of the Police Vetting form. At present there is no cost to the school to have these done, but there will be a charge for this beginning in July. It is BOT policy that all parents attending an overnight camp will have a police check in line with safety procedures.

River Monitoring EOTC

Thank you Christine Lanham for emailing your photos.  

Fabulous Designs and Designers.

We had a great day constructing the ice cream machines that we designed. We had to make a few changes to make everything work. Most people here, unfortunately I couldn't fix the camera function on my phone to take photos of the rest.  You wouldn't believe it - I eventually found there was PVA on the lens!!!

Week 11 Term 1

My goodness where did last week go?  My apologies for no blog - trouble at home with getting internet connection for some reason.
Thank you so much to Lauren, Christine and Regina for accompanying us on our river monitoring trip last week. We were all so excited about our learning outside the classroom.  I will post photos separately of us at this activity. I need to borrow back the Room 7 i-pads.
What excellent learning the staff did on Friday and Saturday. I feel really committed to the restorative practice that we are operating in our school - building and repairing relationships. So good to be together as a staff team with a shared understanding. The Saturday was spent with the experienced international presenter discussing our school process and excellent collaborative learning was done by all of us. I will be using some of my new learning to start the new term as our inquiry theme moves from 'Belonging' into "Living in Harmony".
Kapahaka Festival: Congratulations to those people who represented St Gerards at this event. We all felt so proud of you all as you put our school right up there with the best. I was busy so didn't take photos, but would love someone who did to email a couple so that I can add them to the blog or school newsletter. Girls, a reminder that dresses need to be returned in your named bag by Tuesday.
Scripture Reading Eisteddfods: well done to those people who have presented already. It is clear that there has been excellent preparation.  For those still to present, don't forget to share your introduction as this is worth 5 marks. I will post the names of those people presenting at the Thursday afternoon eisteddfod assembly at 1:30 in the church as soon as we have heard everyone. Names will also be in the school newsletter.
Wednesday Mass 9am will be lead by Room 7.  Please join us to celebrate the special events of Holy Week.
Thursday lunch: families are invited to join us for lunch before the eisteddfods. Sausage orders to the office by 9am please.
Recipe Book Recipes: every child has received a hard copy paper for recipes to be written on. Kiwi house please make sure that you have your recipes at school by Wednesday.  We can do it!!!!. Recipes can also be sent to recipebook@stgerards.school.nz

Homework

 Reading: every night.

Manuherikia River Monitoring Trip

A reminder that on Monday morning we are joining Room 6 at the river to find out what they have been doing this term and to answer our questions about our river.
Please wear school sports uniform with either a school jersey or sweatshirt, sturdy shoes and/or gumboots to wear at the river. No bare feet.
Thank you to Mrs Cuthbertson and Mrs Lanham who will accompany us. Room 6 have an exciting morning planned for us.  We will start our learning adventure in Room 6 and will be working in small groups with a Room 6 leader.
It will be very important for each of us to self manage our clothing and actions, so that we can experience a fantastic learning opportunity.
The river is such a wonderful environment for us to undertake hands on learning, where people can go back with  families and continue to 'monitor' what is happening.  We all love our river, especially for swimming and jumping off rocks in summer and also for fishing and skipping stones.  We are the people who need to look out for the health of this precious resource.
This is connected to our Inquiry "Belonging", where we are branching out from looking at belonging to our school, groups and families, to belonging to the community, and the rights and responsibilities that we have in belonging to the local community.