Kia ora Koutou.
Welcome to the last week before another term ends and we wind into the final term of the year. Time is traveling so fast but it has been a memorable year thus far. As you all know this will be a sad week as we will be saying goodbye to our Principal, so please make sure to say goodbye and thank you for the many wonderful things Caroline has done for our school. The farewell will happen this Thursday in the school assembly hall from 11:30 to 12:30. School will continue as normal after lunch. Apart from that it will be a reasonably normal week with no major trips or interruptions. Please remember to help your children with their spelling lists, and starting next term I will be getting the students to practice their basic facts for homework as this is something we studied in the first 2 terms, and needs some refreshing for a lot of our students. If we don't get to see you through the week we hope you all have a safe and enjoyable 2 weeks holiday, with lots of stories for your children to come back to school and share with us all. Term 4 is set to be a very busy term, but it is very important to finish the year strong. Sincerely, Lyndon and Alison.
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Kia ora o te whānau
The term is racing by. We will be in Week 7 next week with only 3 weeks till the holidays. Half the class had a very long day on Thursday attending the Inspire Conference. I have heard they all had a fantastic time, learning many interesting things. I have been thrilled with the Conservation Reports that have been written in class over the last 2-3 weeks. There is some very clever and insightful thinking going on, which hopefully will help the survival of our planet in years to come as these young people get older. We are now moving onto Narrative Writing, using strong vocabulary and powerful sentences. Have a look at our blog page https://cas6and7s.weebly.com/ if you are interested in seeing the Success Criteria. This week our class has a tennis lesson with David Lewis on Tuesday and again the following week on Thursday. On Wednesday 19 September there is a chess competition at Motupipi School. We are able to send 4 Year 5-6 students and 4 Year 7-8 students. We are trying to encourage our keen chess players to brush up their skills so they are ready to enter. Please play at home and help your students to improve their skills. We are at present trying to work out who our best players are. For homework we would like the students to be learning their spelling words, reading for at least half an hour per night and practising their times tables. They should be bringing home their new spelling list in their notebook on Monday night, and returning it to school on Friday ready for their spelling test. Thank you to those who have helped out on trips lately and for all your home support. Please get in touch if you need more information or have any concerns. Ngā mihi nui nā, Alison Menary and Lyndon Clark Kia ora koutou
Thanks to all the families who have worked hard on the spelling lists that were brought home last week. Most students had obvously worked hard on learning their words and achieved 9 or 10 out of 10. I am hoping we can achieve success with all students this week. Please remind your child to bring home their notebook so words can be learned, and then return their notebook to scholl on Friday for the spelling test. The camp dates have now been set from 4th to 7th December at Tahuna Beach Holiday Park, We have cabins booked and will soon begin to create our itinerary. We are unsure of costs at this stage but will give an indication of likely costs in a few weeks time to give pleanty of time for individual fundraising. Lyndon and I raised some money at the cross country sauasage sizzle which we will put towards costs. At the camp meeting it was decided that fundraising will need to be done by individuals to be fair. In the past some people did a lot of wok fundraising and then had to share with the students whose families hadn't contributed. So this time everyone needs to organise their own payment of fees or their own fundraising. However, it is necessary to follow the fundraising guidelines that are as follows on our website: Fundraising by any individual or group follows our guidelines:
I was very proud of the students who have presented their speeches to the class, or to Year 4, 5, and 6, Jonny, Mrs Gray and myself in our CAS speech competition on Wednesday last week. I was just as proud of the others who wrote amaxing speeches and then presented them to me on their own or to a small group of students. This week it is the Year 7 group who have their turn to compete in our CAS Year 7-8 speech competition. I wish them all good luck. We have some very good speeches from this group as well. This week we will begin writing about Conservation as Conservation Week approaches in September. I am encouraging students to think of a conservation topic they are passionate about, do some research and then write a report. I hope you have all enjoyed the weekend. Ngā mihi nui nā, Alison and Lyndon Kia ora koutou
Thank you to those parents who attended our camp planning meeting last week. We have made some possible decisions, and are now following up to see if we can confirm bookings for cabins at Tahuna Beach Holiday Park towards the end of November, or beginning of December with lots of exciting activities around the city. We will let you know more information when available. This week we are going to bring spelling lists home again to learn. I would like you to ask your child to write their list words at home, not just spell them out loud. By writing the words down it will help to cement them into their long term memory. Some students learn best by saying the letters out loud as they write them over and over again. Students will all need a notebook to write their 10 list words in if they haven't already got one. They will also write them in their literacy books at school and practise writing them from Tuesday to Thursday at school, then have a spelling test on Friday. A new list will come home on Monday evenings. We will record how many words they get correct on a Friday and reward those with the highest scores at the end of term with Banquer cash. We are also working hard on encouraging A1 Quality standards with written presentation in all their school work. They need a blue and red biro as well as a ruler to ensure their work is presented neatly. Please keep encouraging your child to read each night for at least 20 minutes. We are seeing great progress from those who are reading regularly. We hope you have had a great weekend. Ngā mihi nui nā, Alison and Lyndon Kia ora everyone.
Already 2 weeks gone in this term and we are starting to get back into the flow of things. Some students have been showing some wonderful respect to the class and working really hard so far which has been really neat to see. We have introduced the student of the week award that comes with a certificate and $50 banqer cash (if you don't know what banqer cash is ask your child as this could be a good conversation starter). So if you see you child getting one of these certificates make sure to give them a lot of praise and find out why they received the award. In PE over the next 3 or 4 weeks we are going to be doing some adventure based learning which involves team work, building great leaders, and learning the qualities to become an important member of a team. Im really excited about this and hope this may make our students stronger in each of these aspects. Also in Social Science we are on the subject of conservation. The students had some homework of finding out things they do well at home and to come up with some things they could do better (ie. take out plugs when not in use). If you haven't seen this have a chat with them as if you could try at least one of their recommendations it could give them a feeling that they are making a change and could share that with the class. Remember this Tuesday there will be a meeting about the end of year camp. We have collected some student voice as to what they would like so this will mostly just be a meeting with the parents to discuss how we will do things this year. Anyhow~ if you have any questions or concerns about anything please make sure to contact us so we can keep on top of things. Sincerely, Lyndon and Alison. Kia ora koutou o te whanau
We hope you have all had a brilliant holiday with your wonderful children. Lyndon and I both had rejuvenating and relaxing holidays and are very excited about returning to school to begin the new term. We have another busy term ahead of us. Outside activities that are taking place are the Tackle 7 tournament on 10th August, the Speech competition on 20 August and the Chess competition on 21st September. We will begin planning and writing speeches this week, so if you have any ideas for your students please talk to them about this. We will hold a speech competition at CAS for all our Year 4-8 students. Our Year 4-6 winning students will be eligible to enter the Golden Bay Schools Speech Competition in Takaka. We will be encouraging students to play chess when they have free time to hone their skills. It would also be great if they could practise at home so we have some highly skilled students to send to Motupipi School for the competition. We are planning to hold a meeting on Tuesday 7th August at 3.15 pm to plan our end of year school camp. We will need lots of ideas for where we go, activities to include, as well as support with fundraising. So start thinking now in preparation. If this time doesn't suit you and you really want to attend please let us know. Please check that your child has everything they need for school- blue, black, red biros, ruler, etc. This term homework will continue to be at least 30 minutes reading each night- some reading to, reading with and the child reading independently. It is important to discuss what they are reading and talk about interesting vocabulary as this will also help with their writing. Spelling will be done in class, but feel free to work on spelling or times tables if you feel your child needs extra support. Writing in class will mainly be done on ChromeBooks using google docs which you will be able to look at if you ask your child to share their work with you. You will then be able to comment and make helpful suggestions if you would like. Please remember to get in touch if you have any worries or concerns. Kindest regards Ngā mihi nui nā, Alison and Lyndon Kia ora everyone.
Welcome to week 8 of term 2 which means there are only 2 weeks left till the half way point of the year. It's getting really busy coming to the close of this term so pleas make sure to keep up with what is happening at school. First of all I would like to thank al of those who came to Matariki and were involved in some way to help making it happen. It's a great opportunity to come together as a community and we were blessed with a beautiful night with a clear sky (albeit very cold). The students all did fantastic with their singing and other Matariki responsibilities. We were also lucky last Friday to have a drama group perform in front of our junior school. If your child hasn't talked about this to you already it is a good chance to start a conversation about this enjoyable performance (to start the conversation: it involved a king having an archery challenge with Little Red Riding Hood, as well as Red joining allegiances with the wolf) . This week brings the time of three way interviews with our student's being able to talk about learning that they have been doing throughout the year already. We are looking forward to meeting most of you for this occasion. In the final week we will also be having our inter school cross country event. Our students have been training hard for this event and are hopefully looking forward to participate in this fun activity. Year 7's will be running with the senior school so on this day they will be running the sausage sizzle so that they can fundraise towards the end of the year camp. Here are some talking topics from our students current learning: - Social Science: They are currently learning about famous people who demonstrated traits of Courage, Inventiveness, Charisma, Creativity, and Kindness. At home you could discuss some famous people (world famous and New Zealand famous) and how they showed these traits. ie. Sir Edmund was very courageous because he climbed the biggest mountain in the world before anyone else where others had even died trying before him. - Technology: We are solving a world (Golden Bay) problem of getting supplies to our area for if the Takaka hill were to shut down again, by designing, making, and evaluating boats. At home you could talk about some other world problems and how your child would try to solve the problem. We hope the remainder of this term runs smoothly for everyone at school and home, and look forward to seeing you within the next few days. Ngā mihi nui nā, Alison Menary and Lyndon Clark Kia ora o te whānau
We hope you are all keeping warm with all this cold weather and we hope you had a lovely Queen's Birthday weekend with your children. We have had another busy week in the classroom. Most children seem to be enjoying the start of our day with singing, which is a great way to get warm and ready for learning. We are very lucky to have been given some extra Learning Assistant time for our class, so we have had Helen Mead coming into our room lately as well as Liv Scott for several periods a week. Liv and her son Caleb are departing for an overseas trip for 3 months, so next week we have Ian Brown replacing Liv in our room. This is very helpful as it means more adults to help with math, reading and writing and more individual or small group learning time for your children. John Parsons held a workshop with our students today, so do please ask them about what they learnt. We have Cross Country coming up in the last week of term so please encourage your child to get out and run. We had one student run to school this morning! The Library Quiz is coming up on 28th June. If your child is going, please encourage them to read the books and get thinking about possible questions. I have asked Diane, one of our librarians to assist our group. The reports are being written at the moment and will come home about 18 June, with parent Teacher Interviews the following week. You should have received your form requesting an interview time by now, and have hopefully returned it to Kate in the office. We are preparing for our Matariki celebration on 21 June and look forward to seeing you all there. Ngā mihi nui nā, Alison Menary and Lyndon Clark Hello to you all and welcome to week 5 of the second term. Things are moving so quickly and are only going to get quicker as there are a few things coming up to keep everyone busy. With reports and parent teacher meetings coming up theres plenty of opportunity to catch up on how your child is getting along in class. Don't forget to book a time to see me and Alison to talk about your child. This week there will be a teachers development day on Friday and the Queen has decided to have her birthday on Monday so a chance to have a short breather from school on those particular days.
A reminder also that next week on the 7th of June we will be having John Parsons coming to our school to talk to parents about cyber safety and how we can ensure our kids are safe on the World Wide Web. I completely recommend for as many people to attend this as possible as the information will be relevant towards keeping our kids safe who are showing greater independence in the use of devices/the internet. You may have been informed by your child that we are introducing something new to the class called Banqer. What this does is it teaches students the importance of money and how to use it. It covers all facets such as tax, kiwisaver, having an income (having a job), spending wisely, creating a savings account, and many other ways to prepare them for when they will need to have money skills to be successful in their future lives. The money involved is not real, but will be used to auction for privileges at the end of each term. Students really seem excited by it and so far it has had a positive introduction. We are also getting the students to be more self directed in taking photos of work they want to show you and sending it through seesaw, so please remember to send them positive comments, as it is a good way of showing your support for what they are doing in class. We hope you are all keeping warm and well and look forward to seeing you at the upcoming meetings, or just around school. Warmest regards, Ngā mihi nui nā, Lyndon and Alison. 15 May 2018 Kia ora koutou We are well underway with the new term and new routines now. As the weather gets cooler, it would be good to check that your child has a uniform jersey to wear to keep themselves warm. We are enjoying our novel, Posted and the fun activities that are suggested by Chapter Chat each week. There are a lot of creative students in our class who are taking the opportunity to do an art, craft or other activity which we then share on our class twitter page, which we all log onto on a Friday morning to answer questions about the novel and see what other classes throughout New Zealand have shared. Please keep in touch and let us know immediately if you have any concerns. Warmest regards, Ngā mihi nui nā, Alison and Lyndon Welcome back to the new term everyone.
We hope you all had a good break, and that our 6-7s are refreshed and ready to go in our new term. We are currently in discussion about what we will be doing for our class camp, which appears that it will happen some time in November when the weather is warmer. We will give more information about this when details become more concrete, but if you have any ideas or preferences don't be afraid to get in contact with us regarding this. As we head into winter please make sure that your child is prepared with the warmer uniform. I believe that the top issue has been solved and that an alternative top can be ordered from the usual place. We hope to keep illness to a minimum through this year to avoid as many interruptions as possible. Just a reminder also that Year 7 immunisations are happening on May the 8th, so if your child will be involved with this please make sure they are aware this is going to happen so that it won't be a big shock for them on the day. We are beginning to use a new reading website called ReadTheory this week. The students have been given a newsletter about this as well as user names and passwords. This is great for reading comprehension and can be used at home as well. This week we are beginning a new class novel called Posted. This is part of a programme called Chapter Chat. There will be activities associated with the novel throughout the week as well as a class twitter session on Friday mornings where we can share what we have done throughout the week with other schools involved in Chapter Chat and answer questions on line. This is a highly recommended programme which involves a class twitter account which I have set up. We have changed our spelling programme as well, with students creating a new list on Monday, then saying, looking, covering, writing then checking the words each day throughout the week. They will also be using these words in sentences. They will not need to learn them at home, however, it would be good for students to spend time reading each night to continue building their vocabulary and fluency. We look forward to all the fun and learning that will happen this term and hope our students are also looking forward to what it brings. Warm regards, Lyndon & Alison. |
Weekly LetterIs where you can find out about what is going on in our class Archives
September 2018
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