Week 6 UPDATE

Hi all!
1.This week the only homework the class will get will be reading. The children will be given a reader each night so please listen to them read, read to them or just talk about what they have read.
I have their home learning books but they have their reading logs.
2. An important notice came home today about the upcoming beach trip. Please fill in the form and return it asap so your child can take part in this trip.
3. Don't forget the Eden/Albert Cultural Festival is this Saturday.
Have a great week!
Mrs M

Hard At Work

We are over halfway through the term and you will be pleased to know that we are still hard at work. There are still quite a few events before the end of this year so please keep watching for notices in your child's schoolbag.

Dates to watch for include:

25 November - Eden/Albert Cultural Festival

30 November - Family Fun Night

1 December - Community Garden Trip. Keisomani, James & Luca's parents are coming                               with us

5 December - Beach Ed Trip 

12 December - Helpers morning tea

13 December - Reports come home

15 December - Prizegiving Assembly. 

                         Last Day of School

ICAS Exam Results

Three of our classmates participated in the ICAS Exams this year. 

Congratulations to them all! 

Lucas: Maths - Participation

Lillia: Spelling - Credit; Reading - Distinction

Alodia: Spelling - Credit; Maths - Distinction

Green Day

We had loads of weeding to do around the fale today. It was also a great opportunity to look a little more closely at the swan plants and chrysali.

Thanks to Jess and Kate who helped us while we worked. Some of us felt like it was being in a village in Samoa 😁

Green Week Slides

This week was our last Green Week for 2017. Our focus for the week was to learn about insects, where they live and what they eat. On Thursday the class buddied up and made slides of our learning for the Green Day assembly. Vinnie & Jerico's slide represented the class but the quality of work from everyone was wonderful. 
I have left them as they were shared with me so there are a few spelling mistakes and punctuation problems. Can you spot them?

Athletics Day Results

Congratulations to everyone who competed at the Puriri Athletics Day! It was wonderful to see parents coming along to support you too.
A special mention must go to everyone who won a certificate for events they competed in AND well done to our relay team who won the class relays and to the whole class for coming second in the tug of war.

Our certificate winners were Alodia, Vinnie, Lucas, Anjola, Masima,

 Keisomani and Savannah (absent)

ATHLETICS DAY

Tomorrow is Puriri Team Athletics Day 

and the forecast is for fine weather.

We start at 9.15am on the field.

Bring a mat to sit on in case the ground is wet.

Our Finished Projects

Congratulations to everyone for your amazing technology projects. I was very impressed with the ideas that some of your had for your solutions. I think we have some future designers and inventors in our class!

TECHNOLOGY PROJECT

Group A:
Your problem was rubbish on the field.
Create a model of a rubbish bin for our field. Think carefully about the purpose of this bin.

Group B:
Your problem was people picking plants.
Create a model of your garden space and how you would protect it from people.

This model is due next Tuesday 31 October. 

James' rubbish bin

HATS

Please check your child has a hat to wear at school. All hats should be named so they can be returned to the owner if they are lost. 
Thanks to everyone who already has a named hat 😎
                

Term Four Dates

Faakalofa lahi atu mutolu. 

Welcome back to Term 4. 

Please take note of the following events this term:

• Weeks 2 - 6: Netball skills sessions (Tuesday afternoons)
• Week 3:        Athletics Day Friday 3 November
• Week 4:        Fitnessathon 
• Week 5:        Green Week
• Week 6:        Eden/Albert Athletics
•                      Cultural Festival 
• Week 7:        Community Garden trip
• Week 8:        Beach Ed trip
• Week 9:        Last week of term

Other dates will be added as the term progresses. Please check the school newsletters for more details.

End of Term Two

Garden to Table: Week 10 was our last session for Garden to Table. We have had a wonderful term learning about looking after our gardens and cooking different foods. Thank you to Mrs Best and Sarah who taught us every week, as well as the parents and volunteers who came along to assist in the kitchen and the gardens.

Over the last two weeks of term we created papier mache cats and dogs. I was super impressed with the finished pets!

On the last day of school we had the disco. Everyone dressed in their favourite colours.

Week 9 Update

Hi everyone! Two weeks of Term 3 to go and then we can all rest and enjoy a well deserved holiday.

COMMUNITY GARDEN: Sadly the weather was not the best yesterday so we have postponed this trip until next term. Another note will come home when we have confirmed a date.

HOMEWORK: As usual, homework was given out yesterday and will be marked on Friday. Please encourage your child to spend at least 20 minutes each day on home learning and reading.

ART: We need disposable coffee cups to make our papier mache pets. Please send any you have along to class asap. Thanks!

Have a great week 😊

Duffy Books Assemblies

We have been privileged to have two Duffy Assemblies this term. The first was the Duffy Books Show. The second was the Duffy Role Model Visit. The following photos were taken during the two assemblies. Ask your child all about them.

Green Week / Maori Language Week

Kia ora te reo Maori. Ko tenei te wiki o te reo Maori.
Our class are experts at speaking te reo. We can recall many words (kupu) and phrases. We can introduce ourselves and answer simple questions too.

This week is also Green Week. The theme for this term's inquiry is "Are We Rubbish About Our Rubbish?"

In our class we will be looking at ways we create rubbish at school and minimizing the amount of rubbish we are making. Please help by sending waste free lunches to school i.e. no packaging unless it can be reused.

Events for this week include:

• Tuesday: Book swap 
• Wednesday: Make & Take. Notices are in our Home Learning books.
• Thursday: Healthy, waste-free lunches
• Friday: Green Day so wear something green. Walk to School. Assembly 2pm.

Kia ora nga tamariki o ruma waru

Last Friday the Whanau Group went to Sky City to perform at the opening of a conference for some therapists. We performed karakia, waiata, poi and haka. The audience was cheering and clapping for us. We felt like we were famous.

Garden to Table Weeks 6 & 7

We fed the chickens silverbeet from our gardens.  We were able to go inside the cage to feed them.  It was the first time for  Faduma, Taylah and Nicolas. 

After all the rain the garden shed was kind of flooded. The mud was very squishy and yucky. Most of us wore gumboots.

Luke, Savannah and Keisomani made the noodles. Yousuf, Luca and Franny stir fried noodles and carrot cupcakes. Ma'ake, Faduma and Marcus made the muffins. Taylah, Jadarose and Sulaiman made some little pancake things with black beans and spinach in.

The fruit group spent some time in the gardens. We put blood and bone and some sheep poo around the trees. James and Lucas dug out leaf mold then turned the food in the compost bins. Charli and Phoenix sieved the leaf mold ready to put on the plants. 

Bitner's Rugby Game

Last weekend I was privileged to watch Bitner's last rugby game for the season. It is wonderful to see children participating in sports outside of school!!

Summer sports will all be starting soon. Do you belong to a sports club? Can you name a summer sport or local sports club in our area?

Book Week 2

Wow! What a wonderful week we have had celebrating books!

Room 8's Book Parade costumes

Mason is a very hungry caterpillar.

 

We were also very lucky to have Sandy, from Auckland Hockey, teach us some hockey skills on Friday. We have some possible black sticks in our class.

Schoolwide Focus

Our new focus "Being Caring" follows on nicely from "Being Resilient." 
Some of our younger classmates have made great progress with the way they deal with solving problems in class and in the playground. We will continue to revisit being resilient for the rest of the term while we are learning about caring for each other.
This week we will be discussing this chart:

Book Week

Wow!! Book Week is here at last!!
There are lots of things happening this week so please chat to your child about Book Week 2017. 

Highlights include:

• Book raffles $2 a ticket or $5 for 3 tickets. There are lots of prizes. Our Whetu Maths group are selling the tickets outside Room 9 every morning and afternoon this week
• Stop, Drop and Read will happen every day. 
• Teacher swap - One day this week all the teachers will be swapping class to read to another group of children.
• The Book Week Assembly will be at 9.15am this Friday. Hopefully everyone in our class will come dressed as a book character for the parade.

Such an exciting week for us all!

....

As requested, here is the funny photo I took of the class for Book Week. Can you spot James? It's great to have him back!!!

WEEK 5 UPDATE

Congratulations to everyone in Room 8 for contributing to today's assembly. I have linked our assembly slides for sharing. This week we also need to take an updated class photo to include our new boys who have joined us from Room 18. Welcome to Ma'ake, Nicolas and Jas!!!

The school focus for the next fortnight is all about being resilient in the playground and in our classroom. Can you think of ways you can be resilient at home?

GARDEN TO TABLE is after lunch on Wednesday if you would like to help us in the garden. 

HOME LEARNING was given out today and it is due back on Friday. The home learning is marked straight after the roll at 8.55am.

PASIFIKA FONO Wednesday 23 August (this Wednesday) 9am - 9.45am OR 3.15pm - 4pm in the staffroom. Any children will be looked after by staff while you attend the fono. Come along and find out ways to help your children with Maths and Literacy at home. 

Have a great week everyone!

Handwriting Hints

Hi everyone!
I was asked by a couple of parents about handwriting at the recent learning discussions. You may have noticed the letter formation sheets that I glued  into the children's home learning books, which show the correct formation for letters that we teach in New Zealand.
This chart (below) shows the correct starting points for the capital letters, lowercase letters and numbers. If you would like to practise at home please use these models for starting points 

 I have glued a copy of this sheet into only some handwriting books.

I have also attached a chart to show the pencil grip development of children:

Please help encourage your child to use the dynamic tripod grip to write with. This allows more fine movement with their fingers and greater fluency to write faster.

Term 3 Week 3

Kia Orana everyone,

There are a couple of important notices for this week:

• Swimming: Tuesday - Thursday. 1pm - 3pm. Don't forget togs and towels.

• Garden to Table will be at 9.10am - 10.50am this week.

• Learning Discussions take place on Wednesday and Thursday. School finishes at 3pm on both these days. Thanks to everyone who has booked an appointment so far. Please remember to bring your child along as these are student led discussions about their learning.

• Room 8's Got Talent: On Friday Savannah, Keisomani, Lucas, Marcus and Anjola all performed for the class. I am looking forward to seeing other class members over the next couple of weeks. Some of them will be chosen to perform at the Puriri Assembly when it is our turn in Week 5.

• Homework - Sadly only 3 children remembered to bring their home learning books and their reading logs, with 4 days of reading, to school on Friday with all their homework complete. I am concerned that so many are not doing any reading so ...

This week we are only going to have reading homework - no Spelling or Maths ... JUST READING

.                       

Every child has a reading log. Every child will be personally given a book or story to read. They only need to read for 10 - 15 minutes to you each night (Monday - Thursday). 
The goal is to have everyone reading every night. Can we do it??

Have a great week everyone !!

Schoolwide Focus for Weeks 3 & 4

Who Loves Garden To Table?

Sarah shares her knowledge about plant life cycles with the FRUIT GROUP

          Jerico loved the curry so much he had to have seconds. The smile tells it all!! 😀

SWIMMING HAS STARTED

We have now completed our first 3 swimming sessions and it is wonderful to see everyone bringing their togs. Thanks to the parents who have helped supervise the children while they have been in the big pool. So many smiley faces!!!

Term 3 Week 2

Hi everyone! Kia ora koutou!

There are a few updates for you this week.

HOME LEARNING: Only a few children completed all their home learning and filled in their Reading logs (Monday to Thursday) last week. Please check your child has done their homework which is given out on Mondays and checked on Fridays.

 

SWIMMING starts this week. (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday) All the children need to bring their togs and towel in a swimming bag or plastic bag. We need parents to help supervise during our free swim time. You do not need to get in the pool. If you can help please contact me at mmudgway@owairaka.school.nz.

GARDEN TO TABLE has begun. If you are able to help the children who are gardening we would be very grateful. No experience is needed but you will need to wear old shoes or gumboots. Email or send a note on the day you can help.

Week	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
9am    – 10.50pm	Rm 6	Rm 8	Rm 6	Rm 8	Rm 8	Rm 25	Rm 6	Rm 8	Rm 25
11.20 – 12.50pm	Rm 8	Rm 25	Rm 25	Rm 25	Rm 25	Rm 6	Rm 25	Rm 25	Rm 6
1.40 – 3pm	Rm 25	Rm 6	Rm 8	Rm 6	Rm 6	Rm 8	Rm 8	Rm 6	Rm 8

STUDENT LED CONFERENCES take place on Wednesday 9 August and Thursday 10 August. If you would like me to book a time for you please send a note along with possible times you are available. If you are unable to come along on this evenings but would still like to talk about your child’s learning please let me know so we can organize another time.

LAST NOTE: Please have your child at school before 8.50am so they can be ready to start the day with the rest of the class. Children who arrive on or after the bell have not had the opportunity to socialise with classmates or get organized for the day ahead. Help us get our day off to an organized start.

Have a great week everyone !! Whai i te wiki whakamiharo katoa!!