Term 2, Week 5

Hi all,

Thank you to those of you who attended School Mass this morning.

This week at school we will be busy preparing a piece of narrative writing for assessment.  The children will receive success criteria for the writing task on Monday and we'll work on the piece during the week.  Please encourage your child to discuss what they are writing about and how they might use various language features to improve upon their drafts.

Year 5 and 6 writing at Level 3 of the curriculum should include the following:

• Content relevant to the task, including detail to support main ideas
• Ideas should be grouped in paragraphs
• Simple and compound sentences using correct grammar with an attempt at complex sentences using mostly correct grammar.
• Words and phrases should be specific to the theme of the writing.  

Testing for reports

I'll also be testing reading and maths this week as reports are due to be prepared for the end of the term. 

Tuesday morning I'll be on release for an hour and a half and Mr Hogue will be teaching science in Room 5.

RIPPA TOURNAMENT

Some of the senior students at school will be involved in a Central Schools Rippa Tournament on the 8th of June at Molyneux Park (postponement date is the 9th of June).  The following children have put their names forward to play and it's important that they register with the NZRFU to play in this tournament.

Tadhg Reilly

Grainne Reilly

Thomas Patric

Charlie Donaldson

Ana Flannery

Rhianna Hixson-Skinner

Hannah O'Connor

Lucas Tyrrell

Mayce Williams

Millie Williams

Zaria Battrick

Bobbie Stewart

Mika Tait

Sully Love

Cody Robinson

Please register your child here http://www.sporty.co.nz/viewform/37926 

Have a great week y'all.

Mrs Lyon

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.

Term 2, Week 3

Hi all,

I trust the Mums out there had a nice day yesterday - celebrating Motherhood and feeling appreciated and loved.  My Ben attended the school ball on Saturday night.  He looked so handsome in his suit and I really did have a proud Mama moment.  What a privilege it is to be a Mum.
I even got a card with these words on it...

Maths:  This week we will be exploring strategies for multiplying and dividing numbers.  By the end of the week, ask your child to show you two different ways to solve each of these problems.  They should be able to explain their thinking to you and show their thinking process with a diagram.

23 x 31

134 ÷ 3

212 x 11

153 ÷ 17

Writing:  This week for writing we will be focussing on Narrative.  During the week the children will work on using a plan, following the layout of a narrative to write a short story, editing and publishing. I will collect an assessed piece of writing from each child so if you'd like to encourage or talk to them at home about this, that would be great.  Get them to share their ideas for their story with you and perhaps you could discuss how to add more detail, increase language features (similes, metaphors, onomatopoeia etc) and what they might do to build a solid picture in the readers' mind.  Often a story starts with a very simple outline and the extras get added in to embellish the story for a readers pleasure.   Share a fun book at home together and talk about the words used by the writer.  The more you talk about written features, the clearer the idea becomes for your child.

Have a great week,

Mrs Lyon.

Term 2, Week 2

HI all,

Week 2 starts tomorrow. I have to say these middle terms are good for me as we really have very little interruptions to class learning at school and this is a big benefit to the kids' learning, it also benefits their teacher's need to get the teaching environment pumping.   It's always busy at school but at least now for this part of the term is just busy inside of Room 5.

I had a large number of homework books completed last week and a surprisingly pleasant improvement in the spelling levels in a good bunch of the class members.  Well done to the kids/parents who work to ensure the learning is happening.  Please continue to encourage this with your children as well as a learning attitude while they are at school.

This Wednesday there will be a school mass at 9am.  Please come along and join us in the church.

Homework this week will be spelling, reading and a worksheet.  

There's not too much else to report.  I have been in touch with Coronet Peak about our ski camp next term so please have this on your radar - esp if you'd like to attend camp as a parent.  There'll be 2 groups going - a Year 5 group - including the Room 4 Year 5's and a Year 6 group so I'll need parents for both groups.  

Have a great week,

Mrs Lyon

Term 2, Week 1

Hi folks,

Welcome back to school for Term 2!  I trust you've all enjoyed some quality time with the kids and that you are happy to send them back to school to me tomorrow.

Learning Focus' for Term 2
For Literacy this term we'll be focusing on Narrative writing.  There'll be investigations into language features in our reading and we'll be planning and writing narratives to be published.
Maths will have a focus on Multiplication and Division and our strand will be Geometry - position and orientation.
RE Strands covered will be Prayer, Sacrament and God
Our big idea for the term is Living in Harmony which will be covered through student Inquiry.

ALiM
We have been lucky enough to receive funding to have an ALiM (Accelerated Learning in Mathematics) programme run at school this term.  I will be teaching 2 focus groups for this.  During the afternoons from Monday to Thursday while I get release to teach this,  Mrs Bennett will be teaching in Room 5 for 1 hour each afternoon.   I am excited to have the opportunity to teach small group Maths to a small group of students.

Ski Camp
Ski Camp will happen next term from August 21-25.  As we stay at the Vincent Ski Hut and accommodation is limited the class will be split into 2 groups -  Year 5 will ski from Monday to Wednesday and Year 6 will ski from Wednesday to Friday.  Keep an eye on the blog for a meeting date around week 4 of this term to discuss the camp and get some initial planning/parental support etc underway.

Homework
Please ensure reading happens daily with your child.  Spelling homework will come home and this term with a focus on Multiplication/Division for Maths I'd like to hear feedback that the tables are being practised at home.  At our house I encourage Sophia to begin by choosing a table she is working on and then just skip count - 4, 8, 12 ...48 to familiarise the brain with the numbers in the 4 x tables.  Saying, writing, testing for a few minutes each day will help the facts to stick.  I suggest picking one table - like the 4's - and just focusing on that until the answers are remembered.
Usually 2's, 5's and 10's a learned first, followed by 3's and 4's and then 6,7,8 and 9s.   A maths worksheet will come home every week.

Have a great week everyone.

Mrs Lyon

FYI - camp and police vetting forms

To all parents wanting to be considered for a school camp - either this year or sometime in the next 3 years (the length of time the vetting form covers)  from July this year there will be a processing fee of around $10 to get this form filled out.  If you are considering putting your name down to be a camp parent, now would be a good time to get the form sorted with no fee attached.

Term 1, Week 10

Sunday 1st April.

Hi all,

The focus for this week at school will be preparing for Scripture Reading Eisteddfods and also some statistical investigations.   If you click this link it'll take you to the Statistics part of the Digital Learning Objects on the nzmaths website - here to support your child's learning.

Eisteddfod - Scripture reading.  Please help your child if they need assistance with this.  Remind them to think about clarity of voice, pace and volume.  Reading to the punctuation will take a little practice. The scriptures can be anything taken from the bible.  A parable, a psalm or a gospel reading.  When introducing their scripture it is expected your child will have an explanation as to why they chose the particular reading.  Where is it found?  Why is it important to them? What is the message?  Following this, the children read their excerpt and conclude with 'The Gospel of the Lord" or "The word of the Lord."
The scripture reading should take 2-3 minutes.
The presentations in the church will be on Thursday 13th April.

Remember that school is closed for TEACHER ONLY DAY on Friday!

Have a great week everyone.

Mrs Lyon