Next Tuesday night (singing for Sue)

Next Tuesday at 7pm at the Cellar Door there is a function for Sue Roy who is retiring from Terrace Kindergarten. We have offered to perform a song. This will be Room 1,2 and 3 children who are available next Tuesday night. The children will need to be there at 6.45 and will be able to leave just after 7. The song we are singing is I wish.

Please let me know if your child is able to come.

Many thanks

Julie

What's happening Week 8

My apologies for not posting a "what's happening" last week.  We got off to a fantastic start with St Patrick's Day.  Thank you Reilly's for some wonderful books to read.  We worked on Leprechaun maps last week - check these out in our poetry books. We learned some basics about mapping skills and put these into practice.  Hope you can spot the treasure on the map, by looking at the key.  We also showed that we were pretty sharp at our Leprechaun Orienteering course which potted us all some gold on Monday afternoon.  Thank you to those people who popped a gold coin donation into the Caritas box as their mufti donation.

This week will be the  leprechaun traps - sorry I forgot that we were all in Dunedin at a course last Friday.  Bring on the bits & bobs for this making time on Friday.

A reminder that this Thursday is the "You, Me & Us" Parent Community Meeting at 7:30pm.  Hope to see you there as we listen to the parent body.  I attended an excellent session at "The Gathering" on Friday about establishing Restorative Justice practices in schools.  This will sit beautifully alongside what we have already planned.

Last week we worked through spelling lists in class, making sure that we all knew exactly what "LOOK, SAY, SOUND, COVER, WRITE" means.  We looked at identifying the hard bits in a word to put in the 'to learn' column. It is just so important that each night this is the process, and of course to check after the word is written that it is correct. Next week some people will bring home a list to tool and learn.

Eisteddfods: this is the week to work on learning your prayer (year 2) or preparing your reading (year 3).  Please see me if you need help as I will give you a prayer or reading.  These will be heard on Monday 7th April.

Wow, the term is flying past.  It is great to see so many of you pop in to the classroom for a chat or for your children to share their work with you.  Please remember that all poetry books need to come back on a Monday, and Homework books every day so that I can put stickers in there when children read their favourite page of their reading book to me before school.

Scripture Reading Eisteddfods

Scripture Reading Challenge 2014

This week, you need to work on preparing your eisteddfod.

 Year 3:

• Your scripture reading can be anything you like, eg. a parable, a psalm, a reading from the Gospels. You may choose your own or I will have some simple texts for people to choose from.

Year 2:

• choose a prayer that you know, to say.  It may be the Hail Mary, the Childrens' Suscipe or a simple one that is known.  I have some to choose from.  

• Introductory speech – Years 3/4: 15-20 seconds. This is a time to use the main ideas or theme of the scripture reading to make up a small speech explaining what the reading means to them, without retelling the reading – ie. ‘What the story of the Last Supper tells/demonstrates/means to me is ...… ‘

• Timetable – Monday 7^th April Rooms 3 & 4 class Eisteddfods will be heard. One boy and one girl will be chosen to give their eisteddfods on the Thursday.

• Format for scripture reading on the day: Whole school Eisteddfods, Thursday 10th April in the church – students will start in the middle of the church in front of the altar using a microphone with their introductory speech, then they move to the lectern and say “This is a reading from eg. Matthew Chapter3, Verses 1 -14 ...” then start the reading. At the end, if it is a gospel reading only say, “The Gospel of the Lord".
• Years 1 & 2 students will say their prayer with the microphone in front of the altar.

• For students to remember

-       When reading from the lectern you do not have to look up at your audience all the time – don’t always look at one particular group.

-       Use good expression when you read.

-       Do not read too fast.

-       Pause correctly.

-       You do not have to learn you reading off by heart but you must learn your introduction.

-       Make sure your words and voice are very clear, so that your audience understands.

Leprechaun Catchers

An Irish themed week this week.  As a follow up to our weekly poem "I Want To Catch A Leprechaun", children will be designing a leprechaun catcher which they will make on Friday.  Please talk with your child this week about what bits and bobs they may need to bring from home for this. We will talk about using recycled stuff, like glad wrap rolls, weetbix boxes, lemonade bottles etc. I'm sure these creative kids will come up with fantastic ideas. I do have some stuff in my cupboard as I am the school hoarder, however with shifting classrooms again, I did reduce the amount of goodies for activities like these.  I am always happy for you to drop in this sort of stuff at any time as it is useful for design projects such as this.  Yes, there is space in my store room!!

St Patrick's Day

Monday 17th is St Patrick's Day - a day to kick up your heels!!

Remember that everyone can wear green mufti, and it would be awesome to have a coin or two (the Irish Leprechaun's always had gold ones) to put in the Caritas box.  This box is on the prayer table in the foyer.  Coins can be put in at any time during Lent as alms giving. Hope you can see it with all the cones!

What about a healthy green lunch in your lunch box for the day?  How many green foods are there?

If you have any Irish stories at home it would be awesome to have them to share.

See you Monday

Discovery Time - "Little Acts of Kindness" Pinecones Are Ready To Go

"A little act of kindness" pinecones are now ready to be delivered in the community.  Today we designed gift cards.  We used team work by doing the arty part in pairs with Room 3 helping their younger buddies, while some of our Year 3 students used the computer to design and write a message to put on each tag.  Our bags with their creative tags are ready and waiting by the prayer table in the foyer.  Pop in and see for yourself what awesome labels we have made.

Do you know anyone in the community who would be grateful to receive these?

Looking pretty pleased with our efforts.  Our great idea has been successful. We hope everyone just loves our cones and handcrafted labels.  Whose bag is the heaviest anyway?

High Viz Vests

I have a pile of these in the lost property box in our corridor.  The children do not remember their numbers so I have sourced the information. Could you please check that your child has the correct numbered jacket and swap amongst yourselves?  This list will help us all.

Joshua        32
Nicolas       68
Sully           60
Tadhg         74
Zaria           79
Kimberley   36
Jacqui          40
Ana             77
Rhianna      65
Cait             27
Gabrielle     67
Annajhay    66
Thomas M  70
Lucas          35
Olivia          69

If everyone has their jacket at school we are able to have one of the walking pair wearing a jacket which helps keep us safe when we walk about town.
Some children may also have their own jacket, I know that Parents Centre gave jackets to members a couple of years back.  Please name these if this is what your child is wearing.