Term 2, Week 4

Hi folks,

Well wasn't the weekend a cold one and it's technically not even winter yet!!!

This week in Room 5 we won't have too many interruptions to our classroom routine.   Friday is PINK SHIRT DAY and the senior sticks 'n stones members in Room 6 will be organising a few activities to raise awareness of their anti-bullying message.  Please encourage your child to wear a PINK item of clothing to school and if you want to, feel free to include something PINK in their lunchbox!

CAMP MEETING.  This Thursday night at 7pm in Room 5 there will be an initial meeting regarding our ski camp in Term 4.  I would like as many parents present as possible especially those of you who would like to accompany us on the camp.  The dates are August 21st-23rd for Year 5 students and August 23rd for Year 6 students.  We will discuss parents attending, availability of 4WD transport, ski ability (interest in being on field with children) of those who are attending, food and meal planning, camp costs and fundraising.

TIMES TABLES:  After a rest from times table testing for 4 weeks I have decided to re-introduce our practice of this skill.  In term one we had a weekly test where the children worked hard to beat their previous best time record.  Starting this week I will time table (see what I did there?) a spot for revision to happen.  The children can have the option of either practising a set of tables with a buddy, or timing themselves to attempt mastery - I consider mastery of times tables to be able to answer a problem within 3 seconds.  Please encourage your children to choose a times table to focus on for the week, help them skip-count the answers and become familiar with the numbers in that table ie for the 4's....4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36, 40, 44, 48.  Writing down the answers can be helpful for some children also.  There are truckloads of videos on youtube to help out if you find this task onerous.  Ideally by the end of Year 6 your child should have memorised the times tables from 1- 12.

Homework this week will be spelling, times tables practice and a worksheet.  Homework should also include a discussion about our key competency focus of Working with others and Participating and Contributing.  As always, a discussion I encourage you to have with your children is to attend Room 5 with a learning attitude and positive mind-set.   (I don't know how to do that.....yet)

I think that'll do it....keep an eye out for the reminder notice about the ski meeting!!!

Have a great week parents,

Carolyn.