Photos from our visit to Te Rau Aroha Marae

Term 3 Newsletter

Kia ora,

Wow, it is hard to believe that we are already half way through the school year.  Term 2 proved to be a very busy term, filled with many accomplishments for us.  Term 3’s calendar is already filling up with many exciting learning opportunities for the team. 

We will be continuing our focus on developing all students as independent and responsible learners.  Our flexible learning spaces have proven to be very successful and it has been pleasing to see the children grow in their abilities to manage themselves and take ownership for their learning within the learning spaces.

Last term, we asked the children what they would like to learn about in Term 3 and many requested a focus on animals, so we are going to kick off the term inquiring into native New Zealand animals through the conservation lens of the LEARNZ project, “restoring bird life to Kepler”.  This will provide an opportunity for the children to practice their researching skills more.  Later in the term we will become scientists and embark on a process of investigative researching into scientific phenomenon through carrying out experiments, graphing results and making statements about trends and patterns we discover. 

Swimming will consume our afternoon programme for the next two weeks and once this is over, we will be using the knowledge we gained from visiting Te Rau Aroha Marae to investigate Maori art.

Mathematics:  Numeracy will focus on the domains of multiplication, division as applied to whole numbers, decimals, fractions and percentages.  Our Maths programme for the first couple of weeks will focus on learning about 2D and 3D Geometric shapes.  Later in the term we will be integrating statistics into our Science Inquiry.  Please support your children to continue to learn their basic facts because these are crucial to children’s success with multiplication and division.

Literacy:  We are continuing to focus on literacy across the curriculum, so wherever possible our reading and writing will be integrated and linked to our Inquiry.  Our reading programme will focus on developing students’ vocabulary and reading comprehension skills, while also providing opportunities to practice Sounds Alive skills. 

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 have also realised that as the children become capable spellers, they do come across words in their spelling lists that they do not understand the meaning of.  Building students’ vocabulary is vital for developing as a reader and writer.  We would really appreciate if you could spend time with your child as they learn their spelling words to unpack the meaning of any unknown words.

Nga mihi,

Kate Webster and Elaine MacPherson

Dates to Remember              

29^th July – 8^th August               Swimming at Splash Palace

1^st August                                 Chess Power in the Hall

                                                SGHS Open Day

2^nd August                                School Assembly

7^th August                                 Aurora Open Day

9^th August                                 Year 6 Zones Netball Tournament

15^th August                               Year 5 Zones Netball Tournament

16^th August                               School Assembly

19^th August                               Miss Carter begins her posting

20^th – 23^rd August                     Polyfest

23^rd August                              Living Legends planting at Sandy Point

26^th August                               Dreamweaver visit

30^th August                               School Assembly

13^th September                         School Ski Trip

                                    School Assembly

15^th September                        Gym Festival

16^th September                        Sing Out at the Civic Theatre

20^th September                        Miss Carter’s posting ends

                                                School hangi (Yum!)

27^th September                        Term 3 ends

                                    School Assembly

Matariki Kites

Museum  VISIT

Last Wednesday Room 9 went to the museum  to learn how to make Maori kites.  We needed lots of toi toi,  sticks and rakau to make these kites. Lots of people got hay fever and red eyes.  Koreena was a great help and we thank her a lot for helping us with making our kites.  Some people had really big kites and some people had smaller kites. When we were finished we had a massive tidy up.When we went back to school we looked proudly at our kites then  we hung them up and  took photos of our brilliant  kites.   Every ones kites stood out.  We would like you to give us some feedback about our kites.

BY MIA, TAYLA AND LUCIA

Being Our Dramatic Selves

Kia ora Parents and Caregivers

Have you ever seen a man called Tama Dean?

Hi,  this week Room 9 and the rest of the syndicate have experimented with making beats and speech with Tama Dean.  Mrs Webster had to pick ten people to be in a show after lunch.

If you want to see us becoming stars please watch our movie below.

(Will be loaded tonight)

SECOND PLACE!!!

This week room9 entered the green screen awards competition and we came second for trying to save the estuary.  We won $700.  Mrs Webster said that we might buy a camera that goes fish eye and it makes the image bigger and it also videos.  What do you think we should do with the money?

The Gavin Bishop reading group went out and gathered flax                       
to make head bands for room9 and room8.
Some Room9 kids competed in the South Spell tournament and Edwards group came third.  Way to go team!
 
                           By Brayden & Brad

Check out this link to see some photos of the Room 9 Movie stars:

https://www.facebook.com/environmentsouthland/photos_stream

WHAT A WEEK!

This week we have had a variety of different subjects, and I’m going to talk about the social science fair. We have been working so hard that steam is pouring out of our ears! Our theme  is about the Maori culture and how they lived. Maori lived in houses that had sticks and straw roofs that touch the ground. The doors are cut out of the side of the house, the door was as big as a quarter of a  door like ours. We would also like to thank you for the school disco that some adults planned for us. All the kids at Otatara School loved it, we hoped you did too.  We hope you do it next term.  Composed by Rachel, Billea - Nova and Amelia

   KUTAI FRITTERS

This week the Lynley Dodd reading group which is Amelia, Brayden and Jacob baked Kutai fritters with Amelia’s mum Lana.  Kutai is the Maori word for Mussels.  Kutai fritters are mussel patties. We got to bake them in the staffroom.  Because we read about Kutai fritters we decided to cook them because they looked yummy! After we made them we shared them with all of room 9.  Most of the kids liked them but some didn’t.  Thank you Lana for sharing your expertise with us.  Here are some photos for you to enjoy.  By: Brayden, Jacob and Amelia.

Room 9 happenings...

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Hello parents and caregivers it’s Cam, Jake, and Edward telling you about recent events in Room 9, such as; cross-country, learning about the Marae, going to the Museum, writing myths and making a green screen project.  Room 9 went to the Museum two weeks ago to learn about Tikanga Maori, we learnt about Maori animals, instruments, art wakas and games some of which we still play today.  Can you guess what games?

Term 2 newsletter from Mrs Webster and Mrs Mac

It’s Term 2 already and we have “hit the ground running”! 

We have been busy planning to create a green screen movie to enter into the Environment South Awards.  Mrs Livingston has kindly given us money to buy a green screen for filming with.  The children have been divided into groups to plan and script a part of the movie.  As part of becoming self-directed learners I am expecting them to organise somebody to transport them and support them with their filming and contact any other experts that they may need.  All e-mails must go through me.  The response from parents so far has been great and I look forward to working with the children to pull it all together.  If our film is successful, it will be publicly broadcast, so please contact me if you do not wish for your child to appear in the film.

On Tuesday the 21^st of May, we are going to visit the museum for the day.  This will be the igniter for our Term 2 Inquiry into Early Maori in our community and how traditions, beliefs and values are maintained throughout time.  This topic arose earlier in the year when the children became interested in Early Maori while learning about the Treaty of Waitangi.  This Inquiry will involve the children learning through reading and writing, visiting a Marae, interviewing experts and hopefully conclude later in the year with helping to prepare a Hangi.  Please contact me if you are available to transport children and spend the day with us at the Museum on the 21^st.

Our focus for Numeracy this term is Multiplication and Division, so it would be great if you could please support your children to continue learning their basic facts. 

I have made a slight change to homework for this term.  I want to give children more time to practice their spelling to ensure they achieve mastery, so we are now spending 15 minutes after lunch on spelling every day.  Please support your child to ensure they bring their homework book to school every day so they are able to practice. 

Here are the important dates to note in your calendars:

Dates:

15/5                             Room 6 Museum visit

17/5                             School Assembly

20 & 21/5                    Visiting author

21/5                             Room 9 Museum visit

27/5                             Young Leaders Day (year 6)  - Dunedin

31/5                             School Assembly

3/6                               Queen’s Birthday weekend

5/6                               School Cross Country

                                                NZ Playhouse performance -The Big Sad Wolf

12&13/6                      Student Led Conferences

7/6                               Learning Journals sent home

14/6                             School Disco

18/6                             Zone Cross Country

28/6                             Southland Cross Country

3/6                               Museum visit Matariki Kites

TBA                            South Spell competition

Kind regards,

Kate Webster and Elaine MacPherson

 

This week we got a new member in our class called Edward, he likes to play sport and we welcome him into team 9.

We have all enjoyed are first week back in awesome Room 9. For math we have been doing measurement for the Census.  We have also started Cross Country training.  We even run when it’s cold!  We are looking forward to treating our Mother’s on Mother’s Day this Sunday.

From Sophie, Ella, Brad and Arielle

Happy Holidays

 

              Happy holidays

This week Cameron and Bradley enjoyed typing this letter for you!

Archimedes has enjoyed learning about integers.

Room 9 members have been using deci-pipes to learn more about decimals.  We have been busy also writing a script for the green screen awards. We expect this to be finished early next term.  Happy holidays from the amazing room 9 team.