Lost Dog

The Sport Shed is coming along really nicely and Room 6 have been really been enjoying the week. A lost dog was found wandering on Dunns Road. She loved the kids, and the kids loved her. It has been great and hopefully the rest of the year is like that too.

Tots to Teens Magazine

Today I learned that Tots to Teens is not just for tots, there are things in there for adults and older kids like choc-blueberry smoothie recipes.

Sports Shed Solutions

Since the start of the year we have been learning about "The Sport Shed". Finally we have found a solution and are going to present it in assembly. We hope that we are going to get a good message across to the school. We know that our solution is working when the school is using the sport shed as we said.

Another Great Week in Room 6

It has been a great week of learning and I've really enjoyed it. I've enjoyed role playing and I'm happy with my part. We have also been leaning some new Jump Jam songs!

Sports Shed Inquiry

Today my group have been practising for assembly because we have to do the 'sport shed gone bad' and 'the sport shed not chaos!' This is part of our Inquiry to upgrade the sport shed because the equipment was getting lost or damaged. We are showing the school a role play so they see that first it was crazy and now we hope it will be better.

Future blogger

I would like to learn how to put movies, drawings and stories on the blog.

This week in maths

This week, in maths we have been thinking of questions to gather data about favourite local destinations and Jump Jam so we can create bar and pie graphs. This is so we can learn to handle data and present it in a graph format.

Term One Week 3

Welcome to Room 6. We welcome Kiri Hogan to our Senior Team and our classes and teachers are as follows: Room 6; Gillian Donnelly/Kate Webster (will return in term 2), Room 8; Matt Williams, Room 9: Raylene Burgess-Heald and Room 10: Alice Casey. Kate Webster and Trudy Brand will be working with groups of students supporting their numeracy and writing skills.

As usual our term starts with a unit of work designed to enable students to understand themselves as learners and develop their work habits in order to get the best they can from their learning. This will involve exploring the three principles of the Treaty of Waitangi (Protection, Participation and Partnership) and how we can apply these to our learning and relationships in our classroom and the wider school community.

Athletics has begun in preparation for the school athletics, zone athletics and the Southland Athletics which are later in the term. Students will have instruction and practice in running, jumping and throwing. Please make sure they have suitable footwear.

Outdoor Education:

The Year 6 students attend Camp Columba from Feb 28-Mar 2 and the Year 5 students also have an Outdoor Education programme on March 1st and 2nd.

Literacy:

Our reading programme is designed to assist students to use the comprehension strategies to make sense of and respond to texts.  We have started  writing about family treasures with instruction into the skills of writing. As part of our writing programme all students will have a ‘jotting’ notebook that will be used to record ideas they can use to inspire their writing. For example: observations in real life, feelings, personal or shared experiences or a phrase or sentence that appeals to them from their reading or new vocabulary. The notebook, may at times be taken home to record family experiences but IT DOES NEED TO BE AT SCHOOL EVERY DAY. Please encourage your child to use their notebook and make some suggestions for them to record.

Our spelling focus is to reinforce the Sounds Alive tooling strategies to enable students to develop their understanding of spelling patterns and rules they can apply to words they are not sure how to spell. Learning of lists without understanding of the spelling patterns and sounds does not help students to apply known spelling rules to unknown words. We are holding a Sounds Alive evening on Wednesday 29 February at 7pm where you will learn some ways to help with spelling at home.

Mathematics:

We have started the year with Statistics.  The students are learning about the process of statistical enquiry and how to handle and interpret the data they collect.

Parent Support Group - Numeracy Knowledge:

If there are any parents who are able to help run a knowledge support group in mathematics for the senior syndicate children we would love to hear from you.  This involves 1 hour of your time once a week to help children practice their basic facts and place value knowledge.  This programme ran very successfully last year, it is all set up with resources, equipment and has an easy to follow structure.   It was great to see how students’ confidence in their mathematical abilities grew through this programme. If you are interested please let Raylene in Room 9 know and she will explain the programme further.

Homework:

Reading:

All students are expected to read every day.  Regular reading followed by discussion is really important to help maintain student’s reading levels and understanding. We visit the school library once a week where each student is expected to select a book they can read for a sustained period.  Here are some questions starters that may help you in your reading discussions with your child:

·      From what you have read so far what can you predict about the story/article?

·      What is the main point the author is making?

·      What is the story/article is about?

·      How has your thinking changed after reading this text?

·      What else have you read that seems similar to this text?

·      What has reading this text made you wonder about?

·      If you had to explain this story/article to someone else, what would you say?

If you are unsure of the type of strategies students should be using to interpret texts take look at this link:

reading.ecb.org

Writing:

The importance of practicing writing is often over looked, encourage your child to spend 5 or 10 minutes to write about an event, their feelings and opinions.  Look for real opportunities for your child to write - emails to relatives, lists or invitations.  It is also important for your child to see you as a writer - you might like to talk about your ideas and share some of your writing.

Numeracy:

Ensure regular practice of student’s knowledge goals and basic facts using games or activities sent home, alien basic facts sheets or sumdog.com will consolidate student’s learning.

Spelling:

Using the Sounds Alive tooling strategies with the Sounds Alive spelling levels or words students use in their writing will reinforce spelling awareness and using a website like spellingcity.com to generate games for practice will consolidate their learning.

Sunhats:

All students are required to wear a school sunhat when outside at morning tea and lunch time in Terms 1 & 4 regardless of the weather. 

School Bell Times

8.45 am: This bell is for students to get organized to start their learning i.e. bags away, move into the

classroom

8.50 am: All students to be in class and attendance is taken. Please note if students are late they need to report to the office as they will have been marked as absent.

Interval 10.00-10.20 am, Lunch 12.30 – 1.15 pm

2.50 pm School ends

Students need to be at school at least 5 minutes before class starts in order to be organised for their learning.

Jump Jam: Every Friday from 9.00 am to 9.15 am, please come and join us, we are an active school and seeing their parents join in is a powerful model for the students.

Contact:

The best way to contact me is via email gillian@otatara.school.nz

Please visit often as there will be links to what we have been learning on there as well as news.  The blog is open to anyone to view and comment on so let the wider family know.  I screen all comments that come to me before I publish them.  Students are identified by first name only.

I have really enjoyed working with the Room 6 Team so far and can see we are going to have a great year.  Thank you in advance for your support.

Gillian