Week 5 Term 3

We wish the year 5 & 6 students a wonderful ski camp at Coronet Peak. Hope the snow is sparkling and the sun shining as you all swoop down the slopes.
Year 3 & 4 Ski Day: the final note came home on Friday - please check the school bag if you haven't seen it. A copy is posted on the blog.
Congratulations to everyone who competed so well on Wednesday at the cross country. So proud of how you all stepped up to the challenge, and how so many of you really gave 100% to your fitness time training. you were "going for gold!" Wonderful to see how you supported each other, too.

School Fair: let's get behind our PTA who do so much for us all. Mystery bottles are now being collected and can be left in the foyer. Please no alcohol but old bottles can be refilled with something exciting and wrapped or a bottle of something gift wrapped. It would be amazing if we could get one per family in the foyer by the end of the week. I'm sure that some have already been sent in. Thank you all so much.

Gymnastics - Tuesday,  so sports uniform please.  We will have a catch up day next Tuesday as Sharelle was sick last week.
Wednesday afternoon I will be at Reading Recovery In-service training and Mrs Stratford will be teaching.
Years 3 & 4 Netball skirts: I have 2 of these back, keep them rolling in please so that I am not chasing these at Christmas time like I was last year. Please leave them in a named plastic bag on my desk.
Inquiry: Our over-riding question is "What is it like to be a .........? We had so many questions about animals once we had sorted our questions that this was where we will be learning this term. Each person can choose the animal that they are passionate about.
Following on from term 1 where we learned how to use a KWL sheet (what I know, what I want to find out and what I have learned), we looked at a KWHL sheet with the 'H' being how I will find out.  What excellent thinkers we have in Room 3 as it took us no time to get a large list of ways we could find out about our questions.  Our KWHL sheet is on the wall of the classroom - feel free to come and take a peek. Some of us have already made a big start on our independent inquiry learning journey - WOW! I will be supporting all children with their inquiry with varying levels of support. Some reading groups will be using reading time to further their inquiry as they have reached the "Reading to learn" stage of the learning process, while others will continue to have daily instructional reading as they secure their "Learning to Read" skills. A variety of non-fiction texts will be chosen alongside the usual readers.

Homework:

1. Reading: every night. Can be inquiry research or Sunshine on line - there are some great new non-fiction titles being added all the time.
2. Spelling 'er' sound - make sure that you tool each word every night and listen to the sounds. I am seeing a few books where the words have just been copied across. Remember to 'say, listen & tool, record the check that the word is correct.
3. Maths Buddy - have you tried it yet? The password is glued onto the front cover of the homework book.  Great to hear that some people have really enjoyed a few lessons and activities.
4. Poetry for the weekend.

Poetry books back on Monday please.