Fitness for this week

This week for fitness we have been in the hall doing jump jam with Room 1. We have to watch the video really carefully and try our best to follow along. Some of the moves are pretty tricky. 

Our Writing Tools

For writing these are some of the tools we use in class. Everyone has a blend chart with an alphabet card on the back. This is attached to their books so they flip it out before they start writing. They can use this as a reminder as they write.  

These are our learning cards. Everyone has a learning card inside their book that they put out at writing time. This is to remind them of their goal in writing. 

This is the first writing rocket that everyone has in their books. When they use something off the rocket - like full stops, finger spaces, word endings etc - they get a tick in that box. When they get five ticks, it gets signed and a sticker put on it. That means they have mastered it. Once each part of the rocket has a sticker on it, they are ready for the next one. The ticking and putting stickers on really helps them to see what part of the writing rocket they need to work on next. 

A few things from Week 7

Here are some of the pictures of the self-portraits from last week. They have really brightened up the back wall. I probably should have taken pictures of them before I put them up - it kind of made things tricky! 

Here we are learning a new reading game - bingo with sight words and bingo with rhyming words. We played it as a whole class before getting a chance to play it in small groups. 

The beginning of the Water Cycle

We have started looking at the water cycle. We decided it would be a good idea to make one in the classroom. We split up into groups - we had different people working on different parts (trees, sun, mountains, clouds, sea, sky, rain drops and more) 

Not quite finished yet - but we'll get there! We need to add a few clouds, rivers and rain drops - plus a little bit of snow on the mountains. 

We also had a really good discussion today about animals that live in water and whether they need salt water or fresh water to survive. 

Writing Rocket

This is our first writing rocket. It has all the things we are learning to do in writing. We have one at the front of our books. When we can do the things on here really well, Miss Monteith puts a sticker on it. When we have stickers on all the pieces, we get to have the next writing rocket :) Blue comes next and then a green rocket

The Writing Process

In Room 2 we have been learning all about the writing process. We know that there are lots of steps to follow in order to complete a piece of writing. We all have a peg with our name on. When we have completed a part of the process, we move our peg on to the next step.  

We have to think about our topic before we can plan. We often share our ideas with our learning buddies.

 We can plan using a picture and label important parts. 

Once we have planned our writing, we can start! Sometimes we work with Miss Monteith and other times we see what we can do all by ourselves. We try and remember all the things that good writers do. 

 After writing is finished, the we need to do self-assessment. This means we check our work to see if we got it or need more practise. This is what some of the self-assessment looks like. 

We have to circle the smiley face if we have used it in our writing and the sad face is for if we haven't. This becomes our next step for tomorrow or we can go back and write some more and then circle it again. 

We share our writing with a buddy. Sometimes they give us some more ideas to add to our story to make it even better :) 

We have "Publishing Thursday" where everyone has to choose a piece of writing from the week to send to the publisher - Miss Monteith. She types them up and has it ready for illustrating on Friday. We get our writing made into a class book. We now have 3 books with all our favourite stories that we have written. If you get a chance, come in and read them!  

Reading Eggs and Bus Awards

Well done to everyone working really hard on Reading Eggs. We have some more certificates for this week! Keep up the great work.

Two super self managers on the bus - they got bus awards from the bus monitors! Well done 

Word Power!

Each Friday we do an activity called "Word Power". We have to write down all the words that we know how to spell. We have ten minutes so we have to write really quickly! 

This is helping us become super fast writers! 

 We can build word families, write the names of people in our family and all the small words we use in our writing every day.  

A few things for this week

The home work books are at school as I am updating the maths goals and adding a few more resources to them. I ran out of time today but really want to get them all finishes at once! If you would like me to email your child's "Reading Eggs" login, just let me know.

Swimming has finished for this term - the water temperature has really dropped over the past week and it's not so nice for the kids. We will swim again sometime in Term 4.

We made at start on our water unit today - this will be our focus for the rest of the term. We will be learning all about the water cycle, ways we use water, doing some experiments around the different forms of water and a few other things.

Show and Tell - we will know longer be doing show and tell on Friday. Instead, we'll try "Topic Sharing". So if you have anything at home around 'water' your child can bring it in any day of the week. They don't have to wait for Friday. We'll see how it goes for the rest of the term. I just felt that show and tell was getting a little old!

Writer's Notebook - the children a really enjoying choosing pictures from my picture box to write about. If you have any pictures at home of pets, things they've built/drawn, favourite toys or teddys or special trips somewhere - basically anything that might be special to them and something they can write about - feel free to email it through to me and I can print it off at school and glue it in their book. This can be such a powerful way to have kids really motivated to write! It's also really good for me to learn more about their interests as well.

Lights, Camera, Action!

Movie Time!! We have been learning all about being active learners - we hope you enjoy our movie which shows our learning. Just click on the "Active Learning in Room 2" below and it will take you to the movie. 

Active Learning in Room 2

Getting Ready for Assembly

We have been very busy getting ready for assembly tomorrow! Here is a sneaky peak of our art so far. 

 

Not quite finished yet....will be ready for tomorrow though! Hope to see you there :) 

Week 6

We had our first lot of reading eggs certificates today at singing assembly! 

Here we are preparing for our assembly this Friday - it should be pretty exciting! So hopefully you can make it.    

Home learning book - They are still at school! Sorry about that.

The Very Young Farmer

Here is the information about the "Young Farmer" competition happening on Monday 13th March at 1 pm. If the weather is not looking too flash, just phone the school sometime in the morning to see if it will still be on. It's normally a great afternoon for all involved and all watching!  

VERY YOUNG FARMER COMPETITION

Monday 13th March 1:00 pm

This event is open to every child at Te Waotu School.  The competition has three parts: farming based obstacle course, farming quiz, and team building.  There is no entry form-the children just need to let us know they are interested in participating.

There is a trophy up for grabs for every age group!  We would love parents to come along and support their child/children on the day.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Te Waotu School Support Group

Swimming Pictures

Here is a collection of photos of the big event today!

The following is a link to the rest of the swimming sports photos - a big thank you to Claire for taking them for us! You can download/print the photos you like :) 

Swimming Sports Photos