Weekly update

Term 4 week 9

Kia ora te whanau. Well here we are and the last week of term. What a year it has been and all of the tamariki have come a very long way. A very warm thank you for all of the understanding, help and support parents/caregivers have given the class and myself over the year.

Here's how our last week together is looking. The beginning part of the week is devoted to the students sharing and presenting their persuasive arguments for Inquiry. I have to say the standard of writing for these is very high and for the majority of the children this is some of the best work they have done all year. I strongly recommend parents asking the children to see this and to celebrate the success they have achieved.

I am moving to a new classroom for next year so the middle of the week will involve packing up the class, sorting through work for the children to take home and moving the furniture, which shouldn't take long. We will also be wrapping up our work on decimals and fractions as well as our final testing on what times tables we know by heart (last chance to practice!).

We have our final assembly for the year 3-4's on Thursday between 11.00 and 12.00, so if you are free to come and celebrate the year with us then you are all welcome.

The last part of the week will revolve around art work for Christmas, with us making decorations and hopefully some cards as well. In keeping with our sustainability theme we are hoping to use some old egg box cartons, so if there any kicking around at home please send them in.

Once again a big thank you and I wish you all the best for the festive season and the New Year. It has been a real joy teaching this class and I will really miss the close bond we have all built with each other.

Graham Fox.

Term 4 week 8

Please remember our picnic on Monday night from 6-7.30pm. There will be the band jam people playing, performances from the juniors, Christmas carols and a sausage sizzle. Hope to see you there.

A main focus for us this week is finishing the Keeping Ourselves safe programme. There will be further activities to complete at home. This is with the aim of producing discussions between parents and children about what we have been thinking and learning about. The final topics we will be covering are: trusted adults we can talk to about issues which make us uncomfortable, being digitally safe and safety rules for keeping ourselves safe. As we will be discussing safety rules to protect ourselves, any discussions the students can have with their parents/caregivers about this will be of great benefit.

In Inquiry we are going to be looking into sustainability and fossil fuels. We will be investigating the link between fossil fuels and global warming/climate change and the impact this has on habitats. This will then be included in our persuasive arguments to make them even stronger.

We are still having to continue with our work on fractions in Maths. This can be a difficult concept for some to understand and we want to ensure that all have understood it well for their particular level before we move on to decimals proper.

The library is now closed for lending and for most readers now so can parents please ensure that all library books and readers have been returned.

Term 4 week 7

First of all a big thank you to the PFA and all the hard work they put in for our school. They have already started planning our school gala on March 18 2018. It would be great if we could show our support and appreciation for all they do by attending the end of year our Community Picnic on Monday the 4th December from 6-7.30pm, which they have organised.

Most of our week and a good part of next week is going to be working through the Keeping Ourselves Safe programme. There will be some activities coming home to be worked on and we would also ask that parents have conversations at home about the work we are doing.

A big focus for us now is taking what we have learnt about constructing persuasive arguments and using it to argue for people making more sustainable lifestyle choices. This is in order to ensure the survival of a chosen endangered animal. There are many skills that the children are going to have to use in order to do this well. One of which is something we are currently working on in Reading, being able to isolate main and subsidiary ideas from texts.

As we move towards looking at decimals, this week we will be extending our place value knowledge in to decimal places. We will be separating numbers with three decimal places into how many tenths, hundredths and thousandths they have.

 

Term 4 week 6

Welcome all to week 6. The big date to remember is athletics day on Wednesday and here are the details:
Year 3 - 4 Athletics Day 2017
Schedule for the day

Please note rotation 1 is longer to accommodate any teething problems.

9.05am: Students meet for briefing.
9.15-10.00:      Rotation 1
10.00-10.35:    Rotation 2
11.05-11.35:    Rotation 3
11.35-12.05:    Rotation 4
12.05-12.35:    Rotation 5
12.35-1.30:      Lunch
1.30: Winning Team has athletics choosing time on field (tug o war parachute etc) while others inside classrooms
2.30pm: Class Relays
Rotations:


Our learning for the week:

Writing- editing, re-crafting, publishing and presenting our persuasive arguments. They are looking great and are very persuasive.

Maths- we are coming to the end of our work on fractions and are going to start looking at the relationship between them and decimals. We have already looked at how the decimals don't fully reflect the place value of whole numbers because there are no "oneths" in the first decimal position but tenths.

Reading- currently we have a focus on writing book reports to develop our comprehension skills. It has been great to see so many of the tamariki with new books from the book fair last week. The criteria we constructed of what to include is:

  • Title/Author/Illustrator
  • Setting- where and when it takes place
  • Characters
  • Plot- what's the problem and how is it resolved?
  • Personal response- what do you think/feel about it?

We have also been constructing Venn diagrams comparing and contrasting the two main characters from our class book Gangsta Granny which we have almost finished reading together. We are all wondering how it is going to end (no spoilers please!).

This week we will be beginning our keeping it safe programme. On Tuesday we will be looking at emotions and how to identify and express them and on Thursday we will be discussing body parts.

Have a great week and don't forget athletics day, hope to see you there!

Term 4 week5

Firstly, what a great visit we had to the Botanical Gardens last week. The children all represented the school and themselves very well by displaying their ORCA values. Also, a very big thank you to all our parent helpers. The children were all able to demonstrate their learning from our Inquiry work by talking about habitats and by identifying the bird life.

In writing this week, we will be finishing our persuasive arguments. We will be arguing either for or against:

  • Fireworks being banned in New Zealand.
  • Fidget spinners being allowed in classrooms.
  • Slime/Thinking putty being allowed in classrooms.


This will help us to develop the writing skills to construct persuasive arguments in Inquiry to inform and convince people to change their habits/choices around living more sustainably, in order to preserve the habitat of a chosen endangered animal.
As I am sure you are already aware of the children are a masters of persuasion and conversations at home about producing well thought out points in support of their opinion would be most beneficial.

Our Reading eggs trial has finished now and we will be reflecting on how it has gone. We are still conducting a of of research with a focus on identifying main and subsidiary ideas. As much as possible our readers are going to be aligned with our Inquiry theme.

Just a reminder:

  • Wednesday 15th there is a community meeting about what is planned for the school in 2018.
  • On the same day the bike chap is visiting the school.
  • Athletics day is Wednesday the 22nd.

Sadly, our Learning Assistant Natalie is finishing at the end of the week. She has been an incredible addition to O1 and O2 and will be greatly missed. She has been kind, helpful, conscientious, very enthusiastic and patient. The students will miss her very much and have really benefitted from her help and support. THANK YOU NATALIE.


Term 4 week 4


Auckland Botanic Gardens VLC Trip:Wednesday 8 November
This week we are heading south to Manukau to the Botanic Gardens. We will be looking at animal and plant habitats and how they support each other.Everyone will need: lunch, drink bottle, full school uniform, shoes, hat and also a raincoat as the forecast is for rain :(Please make sure you are at school before the bell as we will be leaving straight away.

Seesaw: In O2 we have been trialling a program called Seesaw. It is a place where we can record our learning journeys through video, photos, drawing and notes. Get your tamariki to show you what they have already done. They are all very excited about it.

A lot of our learning this week will be integrated with our inquiry work. The tamariki will be conducting a lot of research into their chosen favourite animal from the zoo trip. The ultimate aim will be to to produce a persuasive piece of writing centred on how we can adjust our lifestyles to sustain/conserve them. As a preliminary to that we will be writing an argument either for or against the use of fireworks, as this is a current hot topic of discussion (no pun intended!).

Reading will also be integrated with Inquiry but also we have been using a website called Reading Eggs. All of the children have their own logins and personalised programmes which include reading, spelling, word work and comprehension. They are able to login at home so if you are interested get them to show you.

Maths with Mrs Stratton on Tuesday is also integrated with Inquiry with the tamariki analysing data around New Zealand birdlife. Maths for the rest of the week is still focussed on fractions, with us beginning to look at equivalent fractions.  

Term4 week 3

Hi all,
Here are the details for O2 at the zoo. Also, please ensure that all tamariki are in full uniform with shoes and hats. They will also need a packed lunch, a drink and a rain coat would be a good idea as well.
Once at the zoo O2 will be meeting on the central lawn at 10.25am. Then:
11.45-12.05- Islands.
12.05-12.25- Forest.
12.25-12.45- Rotoroa centre.

Term 4 week 2

Our learning for this week will look like this:

Inquiry- We will be finishing up our data collection on birds in our green spaces around the school. This investigation is integrated with our strand work in Maths on statistics and data. We will also be finishing the research we have been doing into a chosen NZ native bird and producing information posters to share our learning.

Reading- This has been integrated with Inquiry as much as possible. We have been doing a lot of reading around NZ birdlife, as well as identifying the features of non-fictional, information texts. In addition we are working on our note taking skills, especially being able to isolate the big ideas from what we are reading and reading through multiple sources of information to find a particular answer.

Maths- As mentioned above Mrs Stratton is overseeing our Maths strand investigations. We are also currently working on fractions. One of the main ideas I am wanting the children to understand is the relationship between fractions and multiplication and division. For instance, if three times four is twelve, then there are four groups of three in twelve and therefore, three is a quarter of twelve.

Writing- Our current writing genre is persuasive writing. We have already enjoyed some role play around this and discovered how all children are already masters of persuasion! We will be deconstructing an argument about why scooters shouldn't be allowed in school and constructing a counter argument. The children will then be choosing their own topics to write persuasively about, so conversations at home about this would be really helpful.

Word work- This week we are looking at "r" digraphs. That is the "ar", "er", "or", "air and ear" patterns.

Have a great week and please return all consent forms for our upcoming trips.

Term 4 week 1

Kia ora and welcome back one and all to the last term of the year! This is a short term as well and there is an awful lot to get through, so things are going to be very busy. I am fighting fit again and fully recovered from the flu and pneumonia and would like to say a very big thank you for all of your warm wishes.

Our focus for Inquiry this term is "Environmental Sustainability" and we will be starting our investigations with an examination of birds in our green spaces due to this week being NZ Conservation week. We will be learning about native and endemic birds and their habitats, diets, habits, as well as what challenges they face.

We're going to the zoo. zoo. zoo ...

Yes that's right our whole Vertical Learning Community is off to the zoo to check out the NZ Native birds, animals and habitats.

Check your emails in the next few days as there will be more information and permission slips to fill in and send back. We will need about 25 parents to help make this trip successful so let us know if you can help.

AUCKLAND ZOO TRIP - Monday 30 October



But wait there is more...
We are also looking at healthy and sustainable environments so our whole VLC will be off on another road trip to Auckland Botanic Gardens to look at sustainable gardens, spaces and great places to help our animals survive. 
AUCKLAND BOTANIC GARDENS - Wednesday 8 November

Please put both dates in your calendar and if you can come along and help out please let us know. 

Term 3 week 8

First of all a very big thank you to all of our parent helpers who gave up their precious time to help out with camp and EOTC week. The children all had amazing times and enjoyed real formative experiences which will be with them for evermore, so thank you.

We will be drawing a lot on those experiences for our learning this week especially in writing. In this, we will be examining the language structures and features associated with narratives before we use our experiences from last week to inspire us to write one.

Our Maths this week will be moving towards wrapping up our work on multiplying and beginning to focus more on division. We will be ensuring that we can all use such strategies as: doubling, skip counting, using place value, five time facts, ten times facts and tidy numbers to solve multiplication problems.

Reading will involve continuing to look to make inferences as well as being able to write inference questions. In addition we will also be carrying on with our poetry work.

Our word work this week will move on from the magic "e" to dropping it, doubling the final consonant and then adding the suffixes- "ed", "ing", "en", "er" and ""est".

Inquiry will involve firming up our personal inquiry questions and beginning to investigate how we can take some social action to help refugees and migrants.

Term 3 week 7




Yay our week of thrilling fun and excitement and may chances to try new things and take a few risks is here!!!
Please remember to show your ORCA values at all times this week so that we all have the BEST week ever!
Ownership - Own your behaviour, your choices and your actions. 
Respect - keep in mind that everyone deserves a happy week. Remember your manners and to listen carefully to adults and those in your groups.
Collaborate - When we work together we ALL have fun. How can you help out and encourage your group today?
Achieve - When we follow ORC we will all achieve new triumphs, goals and be proud of ourselves this week.

For our year 4's that means we are off to Camp Bentzon on Wednesday. 
Here is the last camp letter that went out last week:
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/nVaBzhYtBtNu2h96PEpFDlYf_WcsB3C4jYyQdzEAWVzDZ76ECES-DUgY9B4A1zTTX9_Pg1ySNNWF6ZBZylQL1F3VJqSFTshEKI_nVGeJj6PgspbnRt_vvjsYNVMvDuHoyOX3IycQ
31 August 2017  
Dear Parents and Caregivers,
Well, the count-down is on. Only 6 sleeps until we are off on our adventure to Kawau Island.
Please check that you have everything on the gear list and everyone is prepared for all types of weather.
For the camp we need to provide our own morning and afternoon teas, these are not included in the catering. We would like all the tamariki in O1, O2 and L4 to bring some home baking and T1 and T2 tamariki to bring fruit, please. This will be kept in our communal kitchen area and will be shared out during our morning and afternoon tea times. If you are sending containers please try to send in ice cream containers or the like so that we don’t lose them. If you are sending a good container please make sure it is named clearly so that we can return it to you. Those tamariki with specific dietary needs will need to bring their own snacks enough for at least 6 snack times.
On Monday and Tuesday before camp we will be doing activities in class to explore information about Kawau Island, Camp Bentzon and our rotation activities. Tamariki are to wear uniform on these days and may bring their devices on Monday as we will be able to use them for finding information.
A reminder that everyone needs to make their own way to the Gulf Harbour Ferry on Wednesday 6 September and meet between 9.15am and 9.30am please. Everyone will also need to be picked up from Gulf Harbour on Friday 8 September at 2.30pm.
If our tamariki would like to bring glow sticks and a onesie for the disco on one of the nights then please pack them. We also welcome card games and board games for any quiet times we MIGHT have.
Any questions please email so that we have everyone on board our adventure.
Nga mihi nui

Ruth O1, Graham O2, Nairi, L4, Sam T1, Maurice T2 and Kevin

Here's our timetable:
Activity Rotations -Camp 1

Sailing Peter
Fishing
Orienteering
Kayaking
Raft Building
Confidence Course
Bivouac
Rotation 1
Wednesday12.45pm
Group1
Krazy Kangaroos
Group 2
Crazy Campers
Group 3
Pixie Rainbows
Group 4
Disco Camp
Group 5
The Ten Dabbers
Group 6
Camp to the Future
Group 7
Golden Crystals
Rotation 2
Wednesday
2.00pm
Group 7
Golden Crystals
Group1
Krazy Kangaroos
Group 2
Crazy Campers
Group 3
Pixie Rainbows
Group 4
Disco Camp
Group 5
The Ten Dabbers
Group 6
Camp to the Future
Rotation 3
Wednesday
4pm
Group 6
Camp to the Future
Group 7
Golden Crystals
Group1
Krazy Kangaroos
Group 2
Crazy Campers
Group 3
Pixie Rainbows
Group 4
Disco Camp
Group 5
The Ten Dabbers
Rotation 4
Thursday
8.30am
Group 5
The Ten Dabbers
Group 6
Camp to the Future
Group 7
Golden Crystals
Group1
Krazy Kangaroos
Group 2
Crazy Campers
Group 3
Pixie Rainbows
Group 4
Disco Camp
Rotation 5
Thursday
4pm
Group 4
Disco Camp
Group 5
The Ten Dabbers
Group 6
Camp to the Future
Group 7
Golden Crystals
Group1
Krazy Kangaroos
Group 2
Crazy Campers
Group 3
Pixie Rainbows
Rotation 6
Friday
8.30am
Group 3
Pixie Rainbows
Group 4
Disco Camp
Group 5
The Ten Dabbers
Group 6
Camp to the Future
Group 7
Golden Crystals
Group1
Krazy Kangaroos
Group 2
Crazy Campers
Rotation 7
Friday
9.30am
Group 2
Crazy Campers
Group 3
Pixie Rainbows
Group 4
Disco Camp
Group 5
The Ten Dabbers
Group 6
Camp to the Future
Group 7
Golden Crystals
Group1
Krazy Kangaroos
Year 3 EOTC Week:

Year 3 EOTC Week Info & Timetable


(For O1, O2 and L4)

Important to note:

Year threes come in mufti all week

Students will need packed morning teas and lunches on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday . No lunch orders these days

Parent helpers can come on buses or take own cars and meet there - please let teachers know if you are meeting there

Chromebooks & bookbags will not be needed this week

Please Pack:
Sensible shoes for bikes

Mufti clothes
Sensible shoes for rock climbing
Packed morning tea and lunch
Mufti clothes
Sun Cream and Hat
Helmets (life size games)
Mufti clothes
Last chance to warn of any food allergies (Pizza)
(Optional) Cushions or any extras for dressing up their tents
Swimming things and towel
Mufti clothes
Packed morning tea and lunch
Mufti clothes
Packed morning tea and lunch
Day
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Activities and times
9.00-10.35am
BIKES
9.00-9.30am
Art and crafts in class
Hibiscus Coast Youth Centre:
Rock Climbing
9.30am: bus leaves for Hibiscus Coast Youth Centre in Orewa
9.00-10.35am
LIFE SIZE GAMES
9.00-10.00am
Art and crafts in class  
10.00am: bus leaves for Leisure Centre
Leisure Centre:
Half day in pool/half day in stadium
9.00-11.00am
Art and crafts in class  
Morning tea
Morning tea
Morning tea
Morning tea
Morning tea
11.00-12.30pm
BADMINTON/TABLE TENNIS
Hibiscus Coast Youth Centre:
Rock Climbing
11.00-12.30pm
MAKING PIZZA
Leisure Centre:
Half day in pool/half day in stadium
Leisure Centre Celebration:
Olympic Games
11.30am: all year threes leave on buses for Leisure Centre
Lunch
Lunch
Lunch
Lunch
Lunch
1.30-3.00pm
SCAVENGER HUNT
Hibiscus Coast Youth Centre:
Rock Climbing
2.15 pm: bus leaves for school
Art and crafts in class
1.30-3.00pm
TENTS and ARTS and CRAFTS
Leisure Centre:
Half day in pool/half day in stadium
2.15pm: bus leaves for school
Art and crafts in class
Leisure Centre Celebration:
Olympic Games
2.30 pm: buses leave for school
3.00pm Home time
3.00pm Home time
3.00pm Home time
3.00pm Home time
3.00pm Home time

We will put this info and more if possible onto our O1Learning Space

Be Awesome and remember to show your ORCA values at all times 😀😀😀

Term 3 week 6

This week will see us gearing up and preparing for our year 4 camp and year 3 EOTC week. Much of our learning for the week will be based around these preparations.

In Maths we are continuing to learn strategies for solving multiplication problems as well as noticing the reverse division facts and the relevant fraction facts. The strategies we will be looking at in the beginning of the week will be:
Using place value to partition numbers and then recombine them for solving multi-digit problems.
Using five time knowledge to solve, 6,7 and 8 times problems.

In Reading we are continuing to make inferences and also to be able to write inference questions. We will also be deconstructing a poem in order to notice what features (rhyme and rhythm) it has and then writing our own poems, incorporating those features.

Writing this week will include a recount/description or reflection on our cross country run as well as more research for Inquiry (what is our social responsibility towards refugees and migrants) and camp.


Term 3 week 5

What a great week Maths week was. It was such a thrill to watch he children so immersed in their work and working so well together.
Maths this week will involve getting back into our work on multiplication and division.

In our writing and reading we will be doing some fun activities around learning how to make inferences, as well as getting used to writing book reports about our library books.

In inquiry we will be working towards making connections between the concept of social responsibility and refugees/migration. We will be asking ourselves how are we socially responsible for refugees and migrants.

On Friday we will be having our cross country run, starting at 12.30. Family and whanau are welcome to come and cheer the children on.


Term 3 week 4

This week is New Zealand Maths week. Most of our week will be filled with maths as we are signed up as a class for both the Daily Dollar challenge series and the Survivor Series. These involve daily word based problems for the akonga to solve. Please do have conversations about this at home if you can and get the children to discuss the knowledge and strategies which they have been using.

Readers will still be coming home but we are starting a new initiative in which we will be writing book reports/summaries on Mondays about our library books. This is to encourage students to both read their library books and return them so that they can get new ones.

Our current word work is on adding suffixes. We are looking at adding "ing" to words and also "ed". The second is the harder one because it has three possible sounds, a "t" sound, a "d" one and an "id" one. In addition to this we are also looking at conjunctions and using them to form complex sentences.

Term 3 week 3

There will be no formal whole school cross country this week but we will be practicing as a VLC on Monday and Wednesday.

As a VLC we are learning to juggle and hopefully you have already heard about our first attempts. This is such a great activity for children and really supports their learning in terms of: mind-body co-ordination, gross and fine motor development and the interaction between both sides of the brain. Oh, and it is also FUN!

Maths for us this week is all about multiplication, as last week we spent a bit more time on geometry than we initially intended. We are getting very good at doubling with several students getting up into the eighth thousand range. Halving is not as strong yet so we will be continuing with that and also looking at the patterns and relationships involved in skip counting. Any support parents can provide as opportunities to solve multiplication problems or to just learn times tables will be really valuable.

Much of our Reading will be integrated with our inquiry investigations but all reading groups are still running as normal and readers will still be coming home to be read. We will also be looking into what our next learning steps in reading need to be.

In inquiry this week we will be starting to think about what would happen if we survived a disaster, in tandem with conducting some research into the history of disasters in New Zealand. If it was to happen to us where would we live? Where would we get food/water and other essential services from. What would that be like? This is what it must be like to be a refugee/migrant. This will lead into an investigation of the history of our nation as one built on immigration.


Term 3 week 2

Cross country practice starts this week and is on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Please ensure that tamariki come to school on those days with a change of clothes to run in.

Also, Please ensure that all permission forms for our Year 4 camp are returned by Friday. If you have misplaced them then please check your emails. Thank you

In Maths this week we will be working on multiplication. We will begin with doubling and halving and then move onto skip counting, first in twos and then in threes, fours, fives and tens.  The next step will be to use our five times knowledge to solve six and seven times problems. In hand with this we will learn to use arrays to visually represent multiplication problems. The concepts to understand here are that multiplication is the same as repeated addition and involves dealing with "groups of".

Inquiry this week is about "tuning in" to our theme of social responsibility. We will be looking at our school emergency procedures for natural disasters and designing survival kits and emergency plans for home. The next step will be to think about what it would be like to experience a natural disaster and how we would survive both the actual event and more importantly, the following days with no infrastructure or services to rely on. This will then lead into thinking about refugees and migration.

As mentioned last week much of our reading will be integrated with our inquiry. We will be looking this week at note taking and the textual features of non-fiction.

In addition to all of this we will also this week be finishing our calendar art which will be available for ordering soon.

Term 3 week 1

Welcome back to a new term and half of the year gone already!

Firstly, I hope all school reports made it home safely and were well received. The feedback in class has been positive with nearly all students saying that they have either had a conversation with their parents/caregivers regarding them or have read them for themselves. The overriding point all students made in class was that they wanted more "A" grades!

Secondly, I just wanted to state what high hopes I have for this term based upon how well we finished last term. The tamariki all produced work of a very high standard last term, especially in Writing and Inquiry.

Writing this week will build on the letter writing we did last term as characters from the book The Day the Crayons Quit. The tamariki all found their writers voice really well with this activity and you really believe they are their chosen crayon when you read their work (published on the classroom wall). This week, as suggested by one of the tamariki, we will be writing reply letters to the crayons from Duncan (their owner).

Our Inquiry topic for this term is Social Responsibility and as I said I have high hopes for this. I also hope the tamariki have shared with you their last Inquiry investigations as the presentations they gave in class were excellent. They all answered their questions well, clearly demonstrating what they had learnt whilst displaying fantastic presenting skills.

We begin Maths this term with multiplication and division. At this curriculum level (level 2 going into level 3) students learn additive strategies for solving multiplication strategies so that they gain an understanding of the relationships and patterns which are at the heart of mathematical thinking. However, in tandem with this our whole VLC will be beginning an initiative aimed at encouraging students to learn their times tables with certificate awarding and graduation ceremonies for achievements reached. Parent involvement and support for this will be invaluable and so I do encourage you to ask your tamariki what times table they are currently working on and to help them with their efforts.

Reading this term will as much as possible be integrated with our inquiry topic. The skills which will be required will revolve around comprehension (isolating the big ideas), vocabulary, textual features (headings, sub-headings, glossary and index etc.) and summarising (note taking) in our own words.

Our word-work for this week will be finishing of the last of the long vowel sounds the long "u".    



Term 2 week 10

Whew! Last week of term 2 and we still have a lot to get through, where has all of the term gone? Inquiry has taken off with a vengeance, the classroom is a hive of activity this week with lots of research being done. My main focus for this round of Inquiry is to support the students in isolating the big ideas involved in answering their questions. I have observed that once we have begun to conduct our research many students are writing down lots of facts and information without determining what the main ideas are. We have so many great questions this time around but the students need to think about what the progression of ideas should be in order for their reader to fully understand their answers. This is where your help can be so valuable parents. If you're wanting to support at home the learning we are conducting in class then conversations about isolating and sequencing the main ideas involved in answering their Inquiry questions will be of real benefit. I have high hopes for the work that will emerge from this weeks efforts.

Maths- We will be continuing to work on Time this week. We will be learning about am/pm, the 24 hour clock, minutes, how long it takes to do things as well as standard and non standard measurements of time. I also want to find time (no pun intended) to pose some more fidget spinner word problems, with turns on my awesome fidget spinners from America as a reward for completing them!

Our word-work aim for the week is to finish off the spelling patterns used to make the long "o" sound and to move onto the long "u" sound.

Reading and Writing will be integrated into our Inquiry work for this week.

Term 2 Week 9

Only two weeks left of term!

We will be pushing hard for the next two weeks to conduct our personal inquiries. Most of our reading and writing will be centred around this. Any conversation that can be had at home about what questions tamariki are interested in following up on, especially around change and the three states of matter, will be very helpful.

Maths- we have started our work on time now. As mentioned last week time is one of those funny concepts which needs to be revisited for understanding to remain clear. I am working hard with one group who are learning to read an analogue clock. So far we have covered: hours in the day, the hour hand,  "o" clock and half past. The next learning for this week will be the minute hand and how many minutes there are in an hour. Any support parents can give at home in this area would be of great help.  The other group, who are more familiar with telling the time, will begin the week by looking at days, weeks, months and years. They will be learning the rules for whether a year is a leap year or not and also working out the amount of days between given dates. The knowledge they will need for those problems is how many days there are in each of the months.

Reading- Because of the time of year, this week we are reading about Matariki and it's meaning. We will also be thinking about what traditions and celebrations have meaning for us and looking to make connections to further our understanding.

Writing- I will be looking this week into the website story bird and introducing it to the children, so that they can see their own stories turned into books. This is in support of the work we have been doing on narratives and is something children can safely play around with over the holidays.

Word work- This week we are looking at the spelling rules which make the long "o" sound.

Term2 Week 8

Welcome to our learning for this week on O2.

In Writing we will be continuing our work on narratives and adding detail to them. We will be doing this by dipping into our writers toolboxes and using the tools of adding detail with the five senses and showing feelings/emotions rather than telling. We are also going to have a look at the website story bird and have a go at making our own online books.

In Reading our more accomplished readers are continuing to develop their reciprocal reading skills in order to show greater ownership of their learning, to work collaboratively and to think at a deeper level about what we are reading. Our other readers are working on decoding, reading with expression and punctuation.

In Maths we are finishing up on our work on subtraction and will be moving onto time before we start multiplication and division. Any opportunities parents have over the coming week or two to ask questions/support  students with telling the time and time based problems would be of great help. This appears to be one of those topics which students need to revisit each year to keep the concepts clear, especially analogue time.

Our word-work is carrying over from last week and it is the spelling patterns used to make the long "i" sound.

In Inquiry we are firming up our understanding of the characteristics and properties of the states of matter and working on producing good questions which will lead to real learning for our own personal investigations.

Term 2 Week 7

This is how our learning will look for this week in O2.

Writing- Last week we did a fun activity around adding detail to our writing by getting our characters to show rather than tell the reader what they are feeling. This week we will be writing a narrative and demonstrating our new found skills. In addition we will be working on using similes in our writing.

Reading- As with last week we are looking to deepen our comprehension by thinking of questions about what we are reading, swapping them with a buddy and clarifying the answer. Some of the reading groups are now beginning to use these skills to read together in an activity called reciprocal reading. In this activity a group of four read together with each member having been allocated a job to do. One is to make predictions about what they are reading, one is to ask a question, one is to clarify the answer and the other is to summarise what they have read. Each time the roles swap and the group evaluates how each has performed.

Maths- Subtraction is our focus now. We are learning different strategies and also discussing which ones are best suited for particular problems. The main pitfall which has been noticed so far is that of tidy numbers. We are using tidy numbers for subtraction but students have been wanting to borrow from one side to make the other side of the equation a tidy number, as we do with addition. The problem is that this doesn't work for subtraction were the rule must be that any change we make to one side must be made to the other side as well, otherwise we are changing the difference between the numbers, as in 20 from 32 is the same as 18 from 30.

Inquiry- On Monday we will be making slime again and fingers crossed it works this time! We will also be doing some more activities designed help us develop the skill of asking good questions which will lead to real learning. This is as we start to think about our own personal inquiries.

Word work- this week we will be looking at the spelling patterns used to make the long "i" sound.

Term 2 Week 6

A shorter week this week and lots to get through. We have a fun writing activity this week intended to help us to show how our characters are feeling instead of saying it. In groups the children each take a turn at picking a feeling or emotion out of a hat and then they have to act that emotion out to the group without saying what it is. Everyone in the group has to guess the emotion being acted and then write down three things that the actor did to show the feeling, such as facial expression and posture. Then they compose sentences based upon those three things which show a character's feeling without saying it and test a partner to see if they can guess it.

In Reading this week we will be continuing to ask questions and clarify them as well as looking to deepen our comprehension of what we are reading. Inference is becoming more of a feature in our reading now and any opportunities parents can find at home to ask children to make an inference would be of great help, so that they realise that this is a skill that they are already good at using.

Maths for this week will involve us moving from addition into subtraction and using the place value knowledge we have gained to work with larger numbers. Also, we are beginning to examine word based problems and how to solve them. We are learning to identify whether a problem is a start, change or result unknown problem and to isolate what we do know, what we need to find out and to be able to write the number sentence for the problem.

Inquiry for this week will involve another attempt at making slime, as last weeks one was a failure but that is what happens with science! Students will also be starting to isolate good questions which will further their learning about change and the states of matter which they can investigate for their own personal inquiries.

Term 2 Week 5

Welcome to week 5. First of all a very big thank you to all of the whanau who came to our Student Learning Celebrations last week. What a great success that was, the students were all buzzing the next day after having had the opportunity to share their learning. The couple of students whose whanau couldn't make it still had the chance to present the next day and they did a great job, as well.

This week we will be building on the great work that the students did in showing real ownership of their learning and ensuring that we are working towards achieving our next learning steps.

In Writing we will be looking at how we can add detail to our writing because "Detail makes the difference between boring and terrific writing" Rhys Alexander. We will be doing this including what our characters can: see, hear, taste, think, feel and smell. If you would like to help with this at home we have noticed in class that some students are struggling to find more interesting words for naming feelings. For example, they found it hard to find other words for feeling scared like, terrified, petrified with fear, mortified and so on.

In Reading we will be personally working towards our particular goals but also as a group be developing the comprehension skills of questioning and clarifying. When reading at home you can support this by helping them to ask questions about the meaning of words or pieces of information and then encouraging them to do some research for clarification.

For Maths we are now moving into addition and subtraction and using our place value knowledge to solve multi-digit problems.

Lastly, an apology but please be prepared for some slime to come home this week! As we really try and fire those young imaginations to launch themselves into some more incredible Inquiry investigations.



Term 2 Week 4

Here are some of our scientists investigating ways to turn liquids into solids, by making jelly yum!







O2 are learning how to share their learning with their whanau. Each tamariki has made a GOOGLE SLIDE presentation showing what they know, what they are learning and what they are proud of in Reading, Writing and Maths. We would LOVE to see all our whanau there for us to 'show off'!Please make an appointment to come and share their pride and excitement. If you have not already done so got to www.schoolinterviews.co.nz and enter the code: k23pp . 

We are also continuing our Inquiry into change, chemical change, states of matter and will shortly be 'taking off' on our own discoveries. Please talk plenty with your tamariki so that they can share any experiments we have done. 
Term 2 Week 3

Most of our learning time this week will be directed towards preparation for our student led celebrations being held on 24th May.

All students are preparing a powerpoint presentation on Google slides. The aim is for each of them to be able to lead a presentation in which they share what they have been learning so far this year. They will be able to talk about:
what they can already do
what they are learning to do
what their next learning step is
some work which they are really proud of
all within the learning areas of Maths, Reading, Writing and Inquiry.

As I mentioned last week, I view these celebrations as a wonderful opportunity for the tamariki to demonstrate some ownership of their learning and have their achievements recognised. I understand the pressures of daily life and the difficulties many parents may have attending these functions. Please be reassured that even if you are unable to make it on the day, all students will still get a chance to give their presentation to either myself, management or some classmates, so that they don't miss out.



Term 2 week 2

This week we will be starting to prepare for our student led celebrations, happening on May 24. This gives the children a real forum for showing ownership of their learning by being able to say what they can currently do and what their next learning steps in each area need to be, as well as providing them with an opportunity to celebrate some of their best work.

Our Literacy focus for this week is going to be retelling a Maori myth/legend in our own words. We will be identifying the myths mentioned in the Moana "You're welcome" song, researching them and then retelling them in our own words by identifying the main ideas and sequencing them.

For Maths we will be finishing up our work on place value and moving on to work on addition and subtraction of single and multi-digit numbers.

In Inquiry we will be continuing our Tuning in activities. We will be making jelly and slime this week as well as finishing our examination of the three (or posssibly four!) states of matter. We will be learning to make predictions and hypothesise whilst examining both physical and chemical changes.



Term 2- week 1

A warm welcome back for all of the tamariki in O2 and their whanau.

First of all a new term means a new topic for Inquiry. This term we will be investigating the concept of change. This is really exciting for me as it will provide lots of scope for the children to conduct their own investigations as well as lots of scope to learn more about science. Just some of the cool experiments we have planned are baking powder and vinegar eruptions and making our own slime.

In Writing we will be examining how our intended audience affects the way we write. After Monday you can ask the children about it because I will have played my trick on them by then!

For Reading we will be focussing on summarising and retelling fictional texts which will require us to be able to isolate the main points of a story and sequence them.

Our Maths work this week is going to be on place value because we isolated this, in our reflecting at the end of last term, as being the kind of Maths knowledge we would need for Inquiry.



Week 11

Whew! What a busy term. For the last week of term we will be focussing on completing work, sharing and presenting it and reflecting on what we have learnt.

On Tuesday we will be sharing and presenting the results of our personal Inquiries within our Vertical Learning Community. What an incredible variety of topics we have been investigating such as; fossils and crystals, natural disasters, aeroplanes, supernovas and predators. Some fantastic work has been produced by the students and they thoroughly deserve the chance to share it. The next step will be to reflect on what we now know about the Inquiry process, what we would do differently next time and how we could take our work further, especially how we could integrate more Maths into our investigations.

With Natalie we will be continuing to build our basic facts and place knowledge and increasing our Reading mileage. We will also be focussing on our spelling words and word work (long "e" sound this week).

On Thursday we are riding bikes again. This has been a real success for the term with at least three students learning to ride independently this term. What a joy to see the sense of pride and achievement on their faces.

Week 10

For the last two weeks of this term we will be running a full inquiry programme. Students are going to be given the chance to demonstrate what they have learnt about the Inquiry Cycle by using it to devise and follow an investigation of their own into a topic of interest for them. Each day the children will get the chance to show what they have learnt about their chosen topic by electing to do some work in either our Maths, Art or Construction zones. Next week the children will get the chance to share their learning with the other classes in our Vertical Learning Community.

We haven't got to my surprise in writing yet but it is coming, so watch this space. We are currently finishing and printing our thank you letters.

Our word work focus this week is going to be the long "a" sound. We will be looking at the different spelling patterns for it and also the rules around when to use those patterns.

In Reading and in our Library time we are going to be looking at non fictional texts, in terms of their structure and language features as well as where to find them, in support of our Inquiry.

For Maths we will be examining what Maths knowledge is related to our particular topic, what knowledge/skills we may need and also ways we could demonstrate our subject knowledge through Maths.

Week 9


First of all a belated thank you to all the lovely students who thought they would show their appreciation for me at the Gala by soaking and sliming me! This is my son spending the money that I gave him to have his third go! Before anyone asks, no that is not my own outfit.

This week is mainly about finishing those activities we began last week.  In Maths we will be looking at different ways that we can display the data which we have collected. Then we will be making our graphs and presenting what we have discovered.

Our word work for the rest of the term will be on short and long vowel sounds. This is based upon the pseudo-word spelling assessment we did last week.

In Writing I am going to play a trick on the students as a lead in to our next topic. I'm not going to tell you what it is until after the event in case any parents feel that they would be unable to keep it quiet! Suffice to say I will get a chance to do some excellent acting and we will be thinking about audience and purpose.

Natalie our Learning Assistant will this week be continuing to support those who need extra mileage in Reading and Maths as well as helping to get the spelling programme up and running. This is in addition to all the other help and support she already gives the class.


Week 8

This week in Maths we will be launching our own statistical investigations within our Vertical Learning Community. This is with the intention of furthering both our sense of belonging as a community and also our understanding of Whanaungatanga. The Mathematical knowledge we will be developing will be involving the collection, analysis, organisation, interpretation, presentation and communication of data.

At the beginning of the week we will be completing a pseudo-word (made up words) spelling list in order to identify where the best place to begin our word work proper from. In addition, the students will be learning how to set up and run (testing each other) their own weekly spelling lists.

In Reading we will continue building our sight vocabulary and decoding strategies in order to work towards fluency. For those who are already fluent we will be developing our comprehension by focussing on endings. We will be discussing and sharing our thinking about the endings of the stories in our readers and composing our own alternative ones.

For our Writing this week we are going to be writing letters. Letter writing is a bit of a dying art and we want to ensure that it is something which students both understand the purpose of and are capable of doing. The Year 4's will be writing thank you letters to those staff at the Leisure Centre and at school who made their swimming lessons possible. The Year 3's will be writing letters of thanks to others who have made this term so enjoyable for them (not me!). This writing task will lead neatly into next weeks which will involve developing a sense of purpose and audience when writing.

Our Learning Assistant Natalie will this week be starting to have regular short meetings with those students who need extra mileage in Literacy and Maths in order to embed those skills, strategies and concepts which they need in order to move on.


Week 7

Week seven already! The most exciting thing happening this week is the start of our Learning Assistant, Natalie Sweet, who will be working in O1 and O2 for the rest of the term. She is a qualified Early Learning Educator and will be a real asset to us. She is going to be helping out with group work, admin tasks and giving support wherever needed. This will free me up to provide much more targeted learning for those who could do with either some extra support or some extending.

Our Writing tasks from last week will be on going for this week. We will be aiming to finish them, so that we are equipped with the skills that we may need for our Inquiry. With that in mind we will be learning how to use google slides for presenting our information reports on the Indian Holi festival.

We will be maintaining a word work focus on Capitals and full stops and beginning to introduce some work on blends and short and long vowel sounds.

As always, a primary focus in Reading is decoding unfamiliar words. Even with fluent readers this is an issue, especially because they will be encountering more text specific vocabulary. We will be revisiting the decoding strategies we learnt in order to become fluent readers, such as:
Sounding out
Looking for familiar "chunks" of words we already know.
Looking for clues in the illustrations.
Re-reading.
Reading on and seeing what makes sense.

Our Maths focus beginning this week will be statistics. This is because it should integrate well with our Inquiry into Whanaungatanga. We will be starting this on Tuesday, with an investigation into lollies and how many of each colour there are in a packet. Yes we will be eating the evidence afterwards so please if there are any Smartie allergies let me know! The next step will be for students to launch their own statistical inquiries.


Week 6

Our primary focus for this week is going to be Writing. As with last week we will be integrating our Writing with our Inquiry. We will be continuing to write a recount of our favourite activity related to Whanaungatanga and introducing a couple of new writing tasks. As we are moving into the Finding Out stage of our Inquiry Cycle we will have to think about ways to organise and assess what we have found out and to also start thinking about how to present it. The new writing tasks are set with an eye to the skills and knowledge that the students will need for this.

We will be writing an information report on the Indian Holi festival, which has just taken place and we will learn to use graphic organisers both for note taking and to organise and plan our reports.

Word work for this week is going to be using Capital letters and full stops (it's amazing how quickly this gets forgotten!).

In Reading we will be learning the comprehension strategy of summarising. We will begin with a pictorial, film strip summary of our readers, in order to understand the features of a summary and then we will move onto a written one.

In Maths we will be looking at place value and subitising. In subitising the aim is to identify groups of objects within larger groups in order to work out the total amount. The real learning occurs when we discuss and evaluate the different strategies used and begin to uncover some of the big overriding ideas in Mathematics. The beauty of this is that the discussion is student lead and they learn from each other.

Week 5

Week 5 will see us in O2 focussing on setting up our Reading programme. Children will be coming home with readers and are expected to read them at home. We will also be reading Gangsta Granny by David Walliams as our class book. Remember the three best ways to become a good reader are to:
Read!
Read!
Read!

Students will start becoming familiar with the Reading Rocket (displayed in class) aligned with their Reading level and we will be discussing what they think they can already do and what we feel they need to do, to get to the next level.

In inquiry we will be wrapping up the tuning in part of our Inquiry Cycle by finishing our I see/think/wonder charts and also firming up our wonderings to make a wonder wall out of them. We will also be integrating our Writing into Inquiry this week by writing a recount of one of the activities we have done which related to Whanaungatanga.

We will also be introducing the second phase of our inquiry cycle, Finding Out. In this stage we start to investigate the questions about Whanaungatanga which arose from our wonderings. To learn how to find out we will be asking ourselves questions like:

What do I need to do?
Where do I need to go?
Who could I talk to?
How could I investigate this?
How will I record/document what I find out?
What skills do I need to learn/use to find out?
What will help me learn more?
What do I need to organise?

Quick reminders are:

Swimming-Monday, Friday.
Water fight- Wednesday lunchtime (optional).
Bike track opening- Wednesday 2.20pm.
Bike lessons- Friday 11.00 am (whanau welcome to come and join in).
Mufti-day- Friday, donations of treat items, boys-savoury and girls-sweet please.





Week 4

This week, like the rest of the school, we will be focussing on setting up our devices, getting logged onto our school gmail accounts, changing passwords and beginning to familiarise ourselves with google docs.

In addition we will be relating the work we have been doing on Whanaungatanga and making connections to the Inquiry Cycle and its first stage: Tuning in.
We will be asking questions like:

What do I think, feel and know already about this?
Do I have questions at this stage?
What are they?
What do I wonder about this?
How can I show what I think about this already?
What am I expecting to find out about this?
Why is this important to learn about?
What does this remind me about?

Quick reminders are;

Swimming- Monday, Wednesday lunchtime (optional) and Friday.

Mufti-day on Friday- donations of bottles please. Alcohol to be handed in at the office, otherwise soft drinks, condiments and pickles etc can be handed in at class.



Week 3

This week in O2 we are going to continue our work on making connections between our school motto, mission, vision, values and the kind of learning community we wish to build, with a particular focus on being a good digital citizen.  We will be doing this through a variety of group and individual activities covering: outdoor physical activities, whole class discussions and collaborative group work (involving writing, art and role playing).
We will also be easing into our Maths programme and working on our handwriting skills.

Powhiri

Kia ora te whanau,
As you would have read in yesterday's newsletter Whangaparaoa Primary will be having a powhiri next Friday to welcome all our new tamariki, whanau and nga kaiako to our school. A traditional part of a powhiri is to share kai afterwards. We will be doing this in our VLC - Vertical Learning Community.  Our first social gathering so it's exciting.
Our community think it would be best to have half of us bring food this time and are sure that there will be another occasion later in the year for others to provide the kai. 
Next week we ask that O1, O3 and B1 bring a small plate of food to share with our VLC please.
If your child has allergies please let us know or provide something for them.

We would welcome anyone who would like to join us and meet other parents in our VLC.

Nga mihi nui
Ruth Osborne, Graham Fox, Jan Ramsey, Leah McNee, Caroline Rhodes and Libby Fletcher

Week 2

This week we are going to continue building on our understanding of Whanaungatanga and will be looking to make connections between ourselves, each other and our learning journeys'.

We will be mainly focussing on:


  • Activities aimed at building our classroom culture which involve- collaboration, trust and sharing.
  • Investigating the concept of a treaty and making connections between various forms of treaties- Treaty of Waitangi, classroom treaty and the Student Responsible User Agreement.
  • Unpacking and examining the Student Responsible User Agreement to ensure that we all understand what  a responsible user of a device would look like, in terms/language which we can all understand. 
Welcome to O2 - 2017

Our School focus this term is Whanaungatanga which is all about connectedness and relationships.



  • Being part of a community which promotes a sense of belonging and contribution
  • Building lasting relationships
  • Making choices that enable us to build a learning community
  • What makes our school and our community unique?
  • What makes our school and community great?

Week One 

Before we look at our greater school and community, we will be getting to know ourselves as learners and what kind of class culture we want to create in O2.

In reading, writing and maths we will be revisiting where we are at and what our next learning steps are in these core areas.

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