Hello from Charlotte

Hello Team 13

In the morning yesterday I arrived at Sydney and it took 3 hours to get to Sydney. I had to get up mega early, before 5 o’clock. It was super dark outside and there weren’t many cars around us. We only saw 21 on the way to the airport. Jonty was trying to crawl around and wiggle on the plane.

Our house number is 63 and it’s got a teeny weeny little garden and my bedroom has a little doorway where I keep my books and DVDs.

Yesterday for lunch we went to a café and Tilly came too and I found treasure. There were two pirate rings, and a golden coin which has got a treasure chest on it, and I found two camels and one piece of blue tack. Then we went to the beach and Tilly and I played in the water and after that we had a sandcastle competition.

Then Daddy took us on the ferry across and we went past the big bridge and to walk to the café we went under it. I stayed up until 8 something and we walked all the way to the café and for dinner I had chicken nuggets and chips. For my drink there I had Coke. After that I got a lemon and chocolate ice cream.

Now it is Sunday morning. It is very hot over here. I was just reading The BFG with my mum and we just went out for a walk before we read The BFG and we bought some cherries and a fruit salad.

I hope you enjoy school on Monday.

From Charlotte

Team 13 Newsletter

Miri Kirihimete, Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas everyone!

This will be the last newsletter for this year.
Week 9
Book amnesty - The library is now closed for issuing and is doing a stoke-take of all their books and the junior readers also need to be returned, please bring back any books you may have at home that belong to the school. Also, due to this, there will be no readers going home but the children will be getting poems every day in their poetry book to read every night.
Learning reports must be returned this week so they can handed on to next years teachers. Thank you to all those who have returned your reports so far, If you haven't handed yours back can you do this asap please.
Meet next year's teachers - On Wednesday afternoon as at the end of every year all the children get to meet all the teachers who will be teaching in their year. They won't be told specifically who their teacher is just who the overall teachers are in their new team.
Carols by twilight and fish 'n' chip night - The Junior Team would like to invite you to a Christmas Carols by Twilight on THURSDAY 9th DECEMBER from 5.00pm. Gather up the family, bring along your picnic - this could be fish ‘n’ chips (the local fish ‘n’ chip shops will be notified) and we will see you at school.
For those parents who have some year 6 leavers and don't want to miss this assembly in week 10 (Unfortunately same time as the Junior Christmas at the Cathedral), the children will sing their Christmas song repertoire at 5.35pm in the new lunch area by the Junior Playground. So, bring along some Christmas attire and join us in the festivities!
Class Placement notices going home. You will find out on Friday 10th December where your child is placed for next year. We have deliberately over this for some time, swapping and changing to best suit your child so hopefully you will be pleased with the results. If you do have any queries about this then please direct them to Mr Sibson.
Music Forms for Tuition can start coming in after you have the information to complete it ie class placements for next year. There is a box in the office for you to post this form in along with your cheques if required.
Leaving assembly - this is the last normal school assembly (9.45am on Friday) and it is also a farewell assembly to all the staff who will be leaving us at the end of this year.


Week 10
Named Plastic Bag - Please bring a named plastic bag to school for the children to put all of their art work and books in. The children will be working on a Christmas contract next week so all their books will be going home. If your children will not be here on the last few days please let me know becuase I have a little treat for them that I will be giving on Thursday of next week.
Secret Santa - The children will be bringing home a wee letter with lots more information about this and the name of the child they are secret santa for. They will need to be here at the end to receive and also give their wee present (from the $2 shop or the like- nothing too expensive please). Again if you know now that your child will not be here on the last Thursday please let me know asap so I don't include them in this activity.
Cathedral Visit - Thursday 16th December. Come and listen to the lovely singing voices of the junior team as they sing Christmas Carols at the Christchurch Cathedral. Please let me know if you are able to attend this and help supervise the children. At the moment I have
Year 6 Leavers assembly - Thursday afternoon the Year 6's are having a special graduation assembly with awards, celebrations and graduation certificates. This is the same time as
Final School Assembly - You will be welcome to take your children home straight after the assembly. This assembly starts at 9.30 and should finish about 10.30am.


Hopefully I have managed to include everything pertinent to you. If not you will receive another quick email lol.

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a safe and happy holiday.
Cat Kincaid

Healthly Eating and Drinking is sooooooo Important

Hello team 13,

I am very excited to hear you have been learning about healthy eating. There is so much to learn about this - and we are always learning more about foods and what is good for us to eat. The reason why I think eating healthy is so important is because food is the "petrol" for our bodies - they are kind of like an engine! If we put bad food into our bodies it will affect how it works, but we will get the best result when we eat healthy.

Good topic team 13. I will be interested to read your menu for the Run, Jump, Throw day.

Today Reuben chose strawberries in his lunch and they are so yummy. The best food are things that have not been processed, they are picked and eaten.

Great learning,
Warm regards
Vanessa Anderson (Reuben's Mum)

Living Healthy and staying healthy

Team 13 are looking at how to improve our ability for our Run, Jump Throw day. We have found out that we need to have a healthy diet and we need to practice and do lots of exercise. This will keep us fit and healthy.

We have set our goals for the activity we need to improve on and now we need to work on achieving these goals. We are practicing our exercises and our event every day and now we need to look at our diet.

We are learning how to make our own healthy lunch. For our lunches we can have

• Sandwiches
• Bread roll
• Wraps
• Sausage (plain no batter)
• Banana
• Strawberries
• Apple
• Water
• Kiwi fruit
• Carrots
• grapes
• Yoghurt fruit flavours
• And 1 treat this could be one of the following
• a cake
• donut
• chips
• muffin
• muesli bar
• biscuits (including gingerbread men)
• mini mario’s
• cupcakes
• roll-ups
• LCM
• popcorn
• pie
• pizza
• sausage roll
• hotdog
• yoghurt – chocolate, banana, caramel etc

Each child in Team 13 will be developing and planning a menu for all our food for the entire day on our Run, Jump, Throw day. We will plan what we will have for Breakfast, Brain food, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and finally our dinner and possibly pudding. Can you please help us with this by making sure that we have the right food available for us to choose our healthy option? Sometimes we may not be able to prepare the food so can you please help us when we need it like cutting the fruit or making the sandwiches etc?

We can have takeaways for dinner this night if we haven’t had takeaways already this week because we decided that we should only have takeaways once a week because they are not a healthy choice.

what team 13 did today.

Today we went swimming it was FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TODAY team 13 learned how to make a bar graph.

Team 13 Newsletter

Week 5 next week, is it just me or it this term going really fast?

We are in desperate need of tissues, can you please bring a box of tissues in for the class.
Due to the reports being done and assessments needing to be completed the children will not be receiving a new book to take home each day. They will be taking their poetry book home for the week for their home reading. If they forget to bring this home then please encourage them to read a book they have at home.

What's coming up?
PTA Golf tournament tomorrow.


Week 5
Wednesday 10th November 12.30 - 3pm. Senior show at Ngaio Marsh Theatre - Please see your classroom teacher if you are available to parent help with this trip asap.

Week 6
Wednesday 17th November 3.30 - 6pm. Thursday 18th 3.30 - 8pm. Student Led Conferences, please see the timetable below to see what time you are required to be here with your child. Please make sure your child is in school uniform as this is a formal conference for the children. You will be able to take the learning reports home at these conferences.

Wednesday 17th November

Time Slot	Child 1 & Family	Child 2 & Family	Child 3 & Family	Child 4 & Family
3.30 – 4.00	Larissa	Lewes	Jason	Sophie
4.00 – 4.30
4.30 – 5.00	Charlotte	Emily	Ashtyn
5.00 – 5.30

Thursday 18th November

Time Slot	Child 1 & Family	Child 2 & Family	Child 3 & Family	Child 4 & Family	Child 5 & Family
3.30 – 4.00	Amy	Jordan	George	Xavier
4.00 – 4.30
4.30 – 5.00	Reuben	Max	Jackson
5.00 – 5.30
Dinner break
6.30 - 7.00	Lily	Hugo	Justine	Rory
7.00 - 7.30	Lucas	Renee	Ryan	Bella

Week 7
Last Day for Bible's in Schools - Friday 26th November

Learning Reports to be returned.

Mini Music Night - For any child who has learnt a musical instrument this year.

Orchestra Demo Concert - The school orchestra will demonstrate all the instruments that will be available to learn next year. Should you wish your child to learn an instrument a form will go home following this concert for you to fill in for next year's tuition.


Week 8
Junior Athletics Day - Run, Jump Throw day 11 - 1pm Thursday 2nd December. This is the Junior version of athletics day. This is only for the junior school and parents are welcome to come and watch and then share lunch with them afterwards. Sport uniforms to be worn on this day. (Postponement day is the 6th December)

Read, Feed, Speed Day - Day for the Dad's to come in and have some fun with their children. They will come to the classrooms and read with their children, then share in a sausage sizzle and then partake in some physical activity on the fields in a very friendly class game of soccer. Friday 3rd December

National Standards Reports - NS reports go home this Friday.


Week 10
Cathedral Visit - Thursday 16th December. Come and listen to the lovely singing voices of the junior team as they sing Christmas Carols at the Christchurch Cathedral.

Final School Assembly - You will be welcome to take your children home straight after the assembly. This assembly starts at 9.30 and should finish about 10.30am.


That's all for now, hope you're having fun in the sun!
Cat Kincaid

Team 13 Newsletter

Term 4 Week 3

What's on?

Week 3 (This week)
Swimming - Our swimming time is 1pm so we will be leaving at 12.30 to get to the pool in time to get changed and ready for our lesson. We will have a snack at 12 to tied us over but won't each our lunch until we get back so we don't get stitch before swimming. Thank you to all those parents who volunteered to help with this, please come along on the day/s you said you could help by 12.25pm.

Disco - Friday 29th October, Halloween Disco Juniors (Yrs 1 -3) 6 - 7.15pm. Seniors (Yrs 4 - 6) 7.30 - 9pm.


Week 4
Swimming continued

Middle Team Gala - Wednesday 3rd November. This is an after-school event and everybody is welcome to come and see what is up for grabs, there will be all kinds of stalls, music and talent on show. Come and check it out, don't forget to bring your money.

PTA Golf Tournament - Friday 5th November


Week 6
Student Led Conferences - Please make sure you have returned your forms stating which time you wish to have these conferences. If you do not put a time in one will be allocated to you. This is the conference that your child leads with you in a group with other class mates. These are half hour slots and your child, along with 3 or 4 other families, will lead you through a day in the life of a Junior Team Member. They will go over what happens in their classroom and what they have learnt and then they will take their learning reports home with them for you to have a better look through. This will then be returned the following week.


Week 7
Last Day for Bible's in Schools - Friday 26th November

Learning Reports to be returned.

Mini Music Night - For any child who has learnt a musical instrument this year.

Orchestra Demo Concert - The school orchestra will demonstrate all the instruments that will be available to learn next year. Should you wish your child to learn an instrument a form will go home following this concert for you to fill in for next year's tuition.


Week 8
Junior Athletics Day - Run, Jump Throw day 11 - 1pm Thursday 2nd December. This is the Junior version of athletics day. This is only for the junior school and parents are welcome to come and watch and then share lunch with them afterwards. Sport uniforms to be worn on this day. (Postponement day is the 6th December)

Read, Feed, Speed Day - Day for the Dad's to come in and have some fun with their children. They will come to the classrooms and read with their children, then share in a sausage sizzle and then partake in some physical activity on the fields in a very friendly class game of soccer. Friday 3rd December

National Standards Reports - NS reports go home this Friday.


Week 10
Cathedral Visit - Thursday 16th December. Come and listen to the lovely singing voices of the junior team as they sing Christmas Carols at the Christchurch Cathedral.

Final School Assembly - You will be welcome to take your children home straight after the assembly at 10am


Hopefully that covers everything that is pertaining to the Junior school for the remainder of this term. If you have any questions about any of these events can you please see your classroom teacher.

Thank you.
Cat Kincaid

Reminders

Dear Parents

The first day back went well and the children all seemed very excited about being back. This week we are focusing on The Commonwealth Games and a few children are doing a wee project to share with the class on Friday about it. I am looking forward to seeing what they have found out. They are also pretty excited about sharing it because they get to use the iPad to record their findings.

The children will need to remember to bring their sunhats to school now and they can leave them in the cloakbay until they leave at the end of the term. If you already know that you will be leaving early this year please try to remember this hat otherwise it will go to lost property at the end of the term and you will need to find it when you come back next year, this goes for any jerseys or anything left behind as well.

After Labour Weekend (week 3 Tuesday 26th October) the children will be starting their swimming lessons. Please make sure that everything your child brings to school is labelled especially if you want to get it back. This includes undies and socks as we have had these left behind before and no child ever claims them, so please make sure you label all your child's clothes, togs, towels and bags etc.

We are going to start a new "Drop your child off at the door" policy every Wednesday. This means that no parents are allowed into the classroom on Wednesday mornings as we are trying to encourage their independence and see if they can organise themselves. If this works well and all children are able to manage themselves then we may finish the year off as we mean to start them next year as this is also a pre-requisite for being in a year 3 class next year.


That's it for now. I'll keep you updated as things become more evident to me (or until I get my head around things too lol)

Regards
Cat

Team 13 Newsletter

Welcome back!

I hope you have all had a wonderful and enjoyable holiday and are now well rested and ready for a fun filled action packed term.

This term we have (not necessarily in this order):
The Fendalton Friends (FF) Commonwealth Games, A wonderful puppet show at the Ngaio Marsh Theatre, The Christchurch Schools' Music Festival at the Town Hall (this is for the senior choir and you may have some older siblings in this), the Halloween Disco, Student Led Conferences, Learning Reports going home, the Golf Tournament, the Feed, Read and Speed Father's Day, Class placements for next year and the Junior Team Christmas Carols at the Cathedral day to name but a few.

But first let's have a look at week 1.
Monday - Welcome back to school. What changes do you notice in the classroom?
Tuesday - FF time 11 - 12.30 to prepare for Thursdays Commonwealth games. A notice will go home with your child today to say what country they are and what colours they need to represent this country. These colours will then need to be worn on Thursday.
Wednesday - The Farm at the End of the Road show 11.00 - 12.30pm. Parent help is required for this excursion however only 1 parent is needed, please see your Classroom teacher urgently if you are interested.
Thursday - FF Commonwealth Games 11 - 3pm Parents are welcome to come and watch, this will be a fun rotation system with a break at 12.30 - 1pm for lunch. Wear your team colours (see notice that went home with your child on Tuesday)
Friday - Anne Talaska will be in Room 13 until lunchtime as I will be away with the Senior Choir for the CSMF practice in Town hall all morning but will be back for the afternoon. We will then have our first Junior Team Christmas Singing Practice for the Cathedral visit later in the term.

As I said this term looks to be a very busy, fun filled action packed term. I will keep you informed as much as I can on this Blog so keep checking it to see what we are up to.

Looking forward to seeing you all on Monday :-)
Miss Kincaid

Term 3 Recount

What has Team 13 been up to this term?

• We changed the handwriting to triple blend beginnings. Bella
  
• Amy is going to start in our class next week and she came to visit us today. George
  
• We had a week off school because there was an earthquake in Christchurch. We had to wait to be told when the school was safe before we could go back. Rory & Lily
• We had 2 African people come to teach some African drums and we all got to have a go and the teachers did a funny dance. Max
• Jordan, Rory and Emily had their birthday this term. Max
• We have been practicing our production for next week. Jordan
• We learnt a new Jump Jam song today - we can now dance to the Candyman song. Emily
• We are now in round 2 for the Star Child. Hugo
• We have painted different trees for different seasons when Miss Phelps was here. Xavier
• We have learnt about fractions, we now know how to half and quarter groups of objects. Lucas
• We have been learning some spelling words and Miss Kincaid tests us to see if we can get 10 out of 10. Justine
• We have had an Earthquake drill to teach us how to be safe in an Earthquake. Reuben
• We have learnt about seasons and how the earth rotates around the sun and we are the Southern Hemisphere and if we are closest to the sun we will be having summer. George
• Every Monday we get a new learning rubric to help us with our independent learning. We get to choose what activites to do at what time. George
  

Earthquake news

Hi Rug Rats

I hope you are all well and have managed to keep safe this past week. It's been pretty scary hasn't it?

My family and I are fine. We have had some damage to things falling in our house, lots of broken bottles, glass and glasses, 2 of our tv's broken etc but luckily no damage to our actual house so we are still safe.

I look forward to seeing you all again on Monday where we can share our experiences and see how everyone else has been coping.

Take care team 13 and keep safe. See you Monday.

Miss Kincaid

Team 13 Newsletter

Amazing to think that we are now more than half way through term 3. Is it just me or does this year seem to have flown past?

What do we have in store for the rest of this term?

The Arts

Well, now that book week is over we will be having a big focus on the Arts. As you will already know from the school Newsletter we are having an Arts fortnight in weeks 8 & 9. Throughout this fortnight there will be a big range of wonderful events happening. We will have a grand opening, performances galore from all the teams, buskers, an open Arts day where you will be welcome to walk through the school and see al the wonderful Art that will be happening that day, Arts displayed in the Village from every child in the school and an Art Extravaganza evening to name but a few. The Arts Extravaganza evening will be filled with children and adults performing their amazing musical talents for one and all to enjoy.

Days coming up that will concern you are:

• Friday 27th August - National Standards letters go home with your child.
  
• Friday 10th September - 5.30 - 7.00pm. Junior team production. There will be a gold coin donation at the door for this and it will be held in the Hall. The children are to go to their allocated classrooms by 5.30 ready for their performance at 6pm. (Please note if you have children in the senior school their production is in the Ngaio Marsh Theatre on Wednesday night 8th September.)
• Wednesday 15th September - Arts Open day. There will be a programme going home before this date to tell you what is going on, where and when. Remember you will be invited to see what is going on throughout the school not just in your child's classes but in all the classes. You can check out what the middle school is doing and what the senior school get up to etc you will not be restricted to the junior school or just the class that you have a child in.
• Thursday 16th September - Arts extravaganza evening. From 6pm - 7.30pm the village will be open for an amazing variety of talent from our children, teachers and other adults within our school community. This is the best of the best on show and well worth a look. There will also be a gold coin donation for this event.
• Wednesday 22nd Thursday 23rd September - Student Learning Conferences
• Friday 24th September - Last day of term.
  

Parent Talk Time

• Friday 27th September - There is a talk on Dyslexia this Friday at 9am in the staffroom.
• Also come to the talk by Richard Taylor - How Boys Learn. This is on Wednesday September 1st at 7.30pm in the village. Very enlightening.

Our Learning Journey

We have a new system that just started this week to make the children more responsible for their own learning. They have a weekly rubric of everything that is to be done within each day. There are must dos like story-writing, learning spelling words, a maths activity and handwriting and then there are extra activities that the children can do that are conducive to the children learning. Some of the children are at the stage now where they can choose when to do these activities throughout the day. I still have a routine of set times because that is when I work with groups and the children can chose if they want to do reading at reading time or they could do a different activity and do reading another time. Some children need to stick with the routines and this is fine too.

This is new and as we go through it we will modify it to work better and easier for us. The children seem to really enjoy having that responsibility, some are struggling with it but that is also a learning curve for them to realise how they learn, some need a lot of structure and some are happy to choose their own way. Having said that, here is our focus for our learning.

Maths
Fractions, We are learning to find halves, quarters, and other fractions of sets and shapes.
Written Language
Narratives continued. We are learning to plan, write, edit and publish our work.
Handwriting and Poetry
Our handwriting focus is on triple blend beginnings like 'scr' and 'shr' etc. On Friday's we get a poem and worksheet with this focus.
Topic
We are still learning about the seasons and how and why they change. We are teaming up with Room 1 for the junior production where we have all 4 seasons represented with the different arts. For example Autumn is drama, Summer is Dance, Winter is Music and Spring is Visual Art. We are lucky enough to have some extra support to help teach some of these, thank you to Miss Phelps who is helping with the Dance and Sarah Buchanan (Hugo's mum) helping out with Drama. Children will need to wear clothes representative of their season. Please ask your child what Season and Art group they belong to. Winter/Music will be dressed in black or navy blue, Summer/Dance to be dressed in yellow, Autumn/Drama in browns, red and/or orange and Spring/Visual in green. Thank you for your support with this.

Well that's certainly enough info for now, I hope I haven't blown your mind with too much with this novel.

Enjoy the rest of the term and I will see you at the Student Led Conferences in week 10.

Reuben Anderson

Hi Team 13,

I can tell you have lots planned for this term with all the news in the latest school newsletter. Maths week sounds great, I think we will have a maths challenge at home too! Maybe a 'guess the weight" challenge with Reuben and his brother.

I am looking forward to book week and it sounds like that week is full to overflowing. I hope you will get those PJs washed and ready for the special day on the 19th August. Hot milo sounds like a great idea especially if today's weather is an example of what we can expect in a couple of weeks.

Today when I was in class I saw some beautiful tree paintings - the looked fantastic!

Keep up all the good work,
Kind regards
Vanessa Anderson (Reuben's Mum)

Team 13 Newsletter

Hi there

Welcome to Team 13's next class Newsletter.

Events to calendar:
Week 4 Thursday 12th August - PTA Quiz night
Week 5 Tuesday 17th August - Book Character Dress up
Wednesday 18th August - School Photos
- Chch Schools’ Music Festival Area Rehearsal in morning, Anne Talaska will be relieving in Room 13 while I go with the senior Choir to this.
Thursday 19th August - Snuggle up and read. Bring your PJ's and favourite toy to school and even your favourite bedtime story.
Weeks 8 & 9 - Arts fortnight – more info to come closer to date
Week 10 Wednesday 22nd & Thursday 23rd September – Student Led Conferences

Week Four
This week is ‘Maths Week’. This will be a great opportunity to set up some fun maths challenges at home. We will be doing the online competitions that your child can do at home as well by going to http://mathsweek.org.nz/ and either register themselves or they can use our classroom registration, username Team 13, password 13.


Book Week
Next week is book week. We will be doing a lot of fun things that will compliment our usual school programme. Not the least will be some fun dress up days. On Tuesday the children are to dress up as their favourite book character and there will be a parade at 9.00 for all to see each other, but only for those who want to take part. This is not compulsory. We will also be doing other activities like stop, drop and read, buddy class reading, reading around the world (read stories from around the world), fractured fairy tales, Teacher read around (teachers visiting other classes to read a story), and snuggle up and read (children dress up in pj's bring their favourite toy and read stories (there may even be hot milo served - yummy!)). We will also have some guest Authors come and visit to talk to the children as well as many other great activities.
During this week the normal classroom programme will be a bit topsy turvy but the learning will be full on and inspiring.
Reading: This will run as normal and the children will continue to have a book to read every night. Maybe you can make sure that you read a story with them every night too. You could even try to include "Food from a book" lunch, include something in their lunch that appears in a story.
Maths: We will be learning to read and write number stories.
Written Language: We will be writing some interesting and fun fractured fairy tales of our own.
Oral Language: We will be promoting books to our buddy class (Room 7). They will have one minute to promote their favourite. It would be great if you can help them with this too if you have time. Once you have read a book together you can talk about what the book was about and help them retell it to try and inspire the listeners to want to read it themselves.


Grandparents Afternoon Monday 16th August - 2.15-3pm: (The children will be sending home an invitation this week.) If your child’s Grandparent/s is unable to come then they might like to bring a special friend or other family member. Can the Grandparent or friend please bring a picture book to share and read.

On Wednesday 18th August we are having our school, class and individual photos. We are scheduled to have ours at 1.30pm. If you would like to come at lunch time to make sure that they are clean and tidy you are more than welcome.

And finally the children have been so enthusiastic about using whiteboards in class that they have gone through all their whiteboard markers. If you are able to supply some or bring money to school to purchase another couple per child that would be very much appreciated as they are keen to get back to using these wonderful resources.

Please remember there will be a school fair in the library. The library will be open before and after school to purchase any items.

Have a fantastic Book Week, I know we will!

Cat Kincaid

Team 13 Newsletter

Welcome back to Term 3.

We have a jam-packed term coming up so here are a few details you will want to know.

First of all I would like to welcome Kelsi Phelps (Miss Phelps) who will be with us for 5 weeks. She is a third year student and this is her last placement before going out into the world to have her own class next year.

I would also like to welcome Toby in to our class on Thursday mornings for the next 2 terms as well. He is taking the place of Mrs B.

Slippers
The children are welcome and encouraged to bring their slippers, (or thick socks if they don't have slippers), in again this term to make sure they aren't traipsing dirt or mud into the classroom after playing outside in puddles and the muddy ground. There is a box available for them to put their slippers in.

Topic:
This term we are focusing on Science – Planet Earth and Beyond and The Arts – Music and Dance. We are looking into seasons and seasonal changes and how they affect the environment. In weeks 8 & 9 we will be having an Arts Fortnight with a whole lot of wonderful and exciting things to do with all of The Arts going on.

Maths:
For the next few weeks we will be looking at multiplication and division. At this level this covers grouping and skip counting.

Literacy:
For writing the children will be focusing on Narratives. They will be learning how to write interesting stories concentrating on plot, setting, characters, creating a problem and solving the problem. They will be learning how to make sure that their writing is interesting enough for others to want to read it by giving details, beginning to use similies and using interesting adjectives as well as continuing to use basic punctuation like capital letters and full stops and learning to use more difficult punctuation like speech marks, exclamation marks and apostrophe’s.
They will continue to focus on final diagraphs for handwriting and in their poetry, and for oral language they will be focusing on presenting their Mihi’s. Preparing them for their student led conferences later this term.

Events to calendar:
Week 4 Thursday 12th August - PTA Quiz night
Week 5 Wednesday 18th August - School Photos
- Chch Schools’ Music Festival Area Rehearsal in morning, Anne Talaska will be relieving in Room 13 while I go with the senior Choir to this.
Weeks 8 & 9 - Arts fortnight – more info to come closer to date
Week 10 Wednesday 22nd & Thursday 23rd September – Student Led Conferences

Well that’s enough info for now. I will keep you informed if anything else comes up.

Here’s to another great term together.

Cat Kincaid

Term 3 Week 1

What have we been up to this week?

* We presented our posters of the Countries in the Soccer World Cup - Sophie

* Our new handwriting and poem focus diagraph ending sounds was 'ng' as in bang - Lily

* We sang the 2 songs to welcome the new people to the school (the Powhiri) - Max

* The new star child is Sophie this week - Sophie

* We have welcomed Miss Phelps into our class for the next 5 weeks - Renee

* We have rearranged our tables and have new groups and new names - Charlotte

* Maths groups have changed around - Hugo

* We finished our SMARTS on the Soccer World Cup this week - Max

* We have started our Mihi's so we can have them ready for our Student Led Conferences in week 10 this term - Larissa

* We discovered what SMARTs we are strong in and what SMARTs we need to develop - Max

* We now have Toby coming in for Miss Kincaid on Thursday's instead of Mrs B - Bella

* Spain won the Soccer World Cup 2010 - Xavier

* We changed the data projector monitors for the term and it is now Lily and Charlotte - Hugo