Week 5 Term 2

Great to see those of you who were able to attend, at mass this morning. Special thank you to those people who then had to whizz to Cromwell for hockey - Sundays are busy days now, but what a beauty it was to be out in the sun.  Thank you for being our Prayer of the Faithful reader, Pippa.

Thank you to everyone who helped at the Working Bee on Saturday - the grounds look fantastic and all the bushes are trimmed back into shape with no risk of those sharp thorns in bare feet. The seats have been repainted and should be dry, ready for use on Monday.

This week we have the last water safety swimming skills. We have all learned lots of new things, many of which I hope we never have to put into practice for example, "what to do in a tsunami!"

Next Monday is Queen's Birthday Weekend - have a extra sleep in!. We all need to be wearing our winter uniforms after the end of this week.

Ms Bennett and I will be on CRT release on Wednesday morning and Mr Hogue will be teaching science in Room 3.

Homework

1. Reading: thank you to those people who have been using the Reading Log for wee messages - yes it is a good way to keep in touch. If you are reading your own chapter books, don't forget to jot down your reading.
2. Spelling: This week our focus is the long 'i' spelling pattern. Some people are noticing the long vowel spelling patterns in what they are reading - great to see the connections being made.  My BIG goal for this term is to see evidence of this learning transfer into the writing books, with sampling resulting in correct spelling.

We are all working on being great TEAM members in Room 3 as we put "Living In Harmony" into action.

This also is a great motto for all the sports teams that we are involved in - we do so much better if we all feel encouraged and valued.

Pink Shirt Day

WOW! Thank you everyone for the wonderful outfits.  Lots of smiles and a fun day.

 Whole school Jump Jam after the parade.

 The Pink Picnic.

 Fancy fan serviettes - table decoration

 The pink school at assembly

Week 4 Term 2

Gosh nearly half way through the term already.

Wonderful to have almost all the homework books and reading logs in each week - keep this up.
This week we are continuing to work on writing narratives which have an opening, introducing the characters and setting the scene, have a problem (or two), and an interesting ending. If you are reading to your child at home, make a point of talking about this structure and look at how the characters are introduced and the setting described.  We have done quite a bit of this before we started writing. It is exciting to see how everyone is stepping up to the challenge of this, while still being mindful of using the 'wow' words and a variety of sentence starts that we worked on last term.
Swimming: Tuesday and Thursday - what a lot of essential water safety skills we have learned over the last 3 weeks. Congratulations to Pippa who even managed to swim 18?? lengths of the main pool - that is just amazing. (let me know if I haven't got this correct) and Tara 10???
Wednesday will see Mrs Cooney joining Mrs Laidlaw to lead Discovery Time.  I will be at Reading Recovery training and Ms Bennett works in Room 5 each afternoon now. Jada is looking forward to having Granny as her teacher.
Friday is PINK SHIRT DAY watch the newsletter for information about this from our school Sticks'nStones Group.
School Mass - this Sunday 28th May. Please be seated with your class at 8:55am. Dress is school uniform. Please bring a plate to share for morning tea and an item for the community food bank.
Maori/Pasifika Hui: Wednesday 28th June - if your child is on our maori/pasifika roll, please pencil this date in on your calendar. Will start with kai at 5:30 with the hui to follow.

Homework

1. Reading: every night - don't forget to record your reading in your log. We are all working on precise comprehension of texts -  page 19 in the Reading Log books has some great ideas to help with this. Another excellent page to look at is the list of words on page 41, which are the most commonly encountered words in reading.
2. Spelling: we continue to learn the spelling patterns for the 'long e' sound. The sheet to practise on is glued into homework books. A few low scores in last week's testing and no practice done at home.  Step this up!
3. Mathe: check out Ms Bennett's post.
4. Eisteddfod - Poetry this term.

Fun with Number Patterns

This week we have had a lot of fun as we began our multiplication/division work.  Whole class teaching has allowed every child to be fully involved in every teaching session. We have identified the pattern of numbers as we counted in threes and this has helped us with our 3x table.  A Loopy game has proved to be very popular and we're getting faster and faster at it.  You Tube is a great source of times tables clips and the children are loving participating in these.  Although some children may have rote learned certain times tables, it is important that they know how to retrieve and use individual components and how to apply their knowledge to word problems etc.  Your support at home with Studyladder and the maths site I posted, along with You Tube is appreciated.  Thank you.

Any Creative Hands Out There?

Just wondering if there were a couple of mums who would like to display the artworks that we have been making - autumn leaves.  We did observational drawings and are beginning to get the dye on them. Looked a fabulous idea in a book BUT after having a play with one on Friday I see several hours of work to get these done looking good. Time is something that I don't have this term as I take on extra work with Trina away, and our kids deserve to have their art looking really amazing.

This is what each artwork needs to look like. You cut the sides off with the guillotine (which I discovered didn't cut quite straight - was probably me), then chop off the corners and place on black paper.

Liam's beautiful work that I had a try with - short of time so stapled which isn't so effective, so will need glued, and the bottom piece is wonky which really annoys me.

We have poetry to go with these and as I am a perfectionist I would struggle to see the art looking like this on the wall. Your children have made stunning jobs of these, so they need the best display.

Hoping I have somebodies who might help with this.  As we are taking our time, to make  our best effort, only 1/3 of the class have completely finished. So not urgent.

Discovery Week 3

This week Room 3 had Discovery alone as Room 7 were learning science with Mr Hogue.

We were the experts and decided on our activities - some of us teaching others new skills.  Thank you Mrs Ballantyne for the octopus, Regina for the gardening and Mrs Baxter for the seed sorting and gathering.

A selection of photos of us at work.

Multiplication and Division

Hi everyone, I hope every Motherly person has enjoyed a lovely day with family.  I loved hearing from my children and grandchildren, and Rick and I had a beautiful Mothers Day lunch at Paulina's in Clyde.
This week we begin to work on multiplication and division.  There are lots of great activities on Studyladder and I recommend making a habit of working on these.  Another really good website is http://www.helpingwithmath.com look for multiplication and division.  There are charts for the times tables and although multiplication is commutative i.e. it doesn't matter which way around you say it, the answer is the same 3x5 is the same as 5x3, I would prefer to use the charts that list 1x5=5 2x5=10 3x5=15 because that fits best with the idea of 1 lot of 5, 2 lots of 5, 3 lots of 5.  Children begin to understand multiplication through repeated addition, before they become aware that multiplication is binary, involving two numbers.  They may see it as 5+5+5 rather than 3x5.
Thanks, Rosalie.