For+Mums+and+Dads

For Mum's and Dad's: Term 4 Week 3 This week our two first year college teachers will be taking small groups for writing, reading, maths and drama, along with running Monday afternoon's programme together. Thanks for all the bags of afternoon snacks; it was very obvious the day we ran out that the children are used to having them now. The homework letter this week is Mm. Nobody had done this last week, so we are hoping to see several examples, especially from the Year 3 students. We are organising a trip out for our syndicate in a couple of weeks so this week we hope to send a notice home asking for your help. Keep your eye out for this please. Rach

Week 2

We're hoping to get into the big Athletics Day (weather dependent of course). Please ensure the kids brimmed sunhats come every day and I'll get them to keep them in their drawers in the classroom for easy access. Afternoon snacks went really well last term so I'd love to continue them this term. The homework letter is Ll this week, it would be great to see more children doing a mini project with you at home so they get the chance to be teachers on a Friday.

Rach

Week 1

Term 4 2011 Room 6 Notice to Parents

Welcome back to a short but very full term. In order to write reports I will be doing testing and one-on-one conferences with the children for the first 5 weeks so they can have their voice in the reports. We will be setting goals around co-operation and caring this term because, as you can imagine, tempers wear thin and people start to anticipate changes to new classrooms and can get over-zealous about this. Well into this term we will begin looking at classes for next year and so I will be asking the children for their opinions about suitable friends to be with after week 5 when we have finished information gathering for reports. It is important for us to get through this terms needs before considering (and therefore exciting students about) 2012, as I hope you will agree.

For our topic we will be looking into advertising and how it affects our emotions. We will finish this unit by creating our own advertisements to affect other children’s or parent’s emotions. I hope this advertisement topic can be around Health and PE but will leave the children to decide what kind of advertisement they would like to make. Please feel free to cut out ads from magazines and papers etc that tickle your fancy for us to view. I will be providing the students with posters, pamphlets, TV, radio etc ads to get the critical thinking opinions of the students.

For the first few weeks of this term we have booked the Learning Hub every day from 11 to 12:40 for Room 6. This is because I would like to give the students new motivations and spaces to work in. We will do our writing over there and choose books to read each day from this area, as well as doing our normal reading books. For the first 3 weeks of this term I would like to send one book home for you every two nights (from the library books) and just do the readers in class time. This is because a) I want to monitor the understanding when the children only see the school readers 2 times (rather the four they would get if they see them at home at night too) along with how it affects the students ability to ask meaningful questions, and b) to expose the students and yourselves to importance of reading for enjoyment (which is more likely to happen if the student chooses the book for the week themselves).

So here is my plan: when the child brings the book home on the first night please read it to them, then have them read it to you. On the second night please read it again, then get them to ask questions about the book, and then ask some yourself. To assist this I am sending home the Question Matrix – starters to get you thinking outside of what, when and where questions.

Regards Rach McNamara

Term3 Week 9

This week's homework and handwriting letter is Ii.

Rach

Week 8 This week's homework and handwriting letter is Hh. This means that along with reading each night, and playing the maths and literacy games on this wiki, the children have the choice to complete a mini project about anything that starts with the letter Hh. On Friday they become the teacher and then quiz the other children on their topic after they have taught them about their topic.

For new parents we visit the learning hub to get library books on Friday at 9:45. We have Bible in Schools on Thursday afternoons. We also have syndicate topic on a Monday afternoon and a Friday at 11. The children can opt into Kapa Haka or Singing with our syndicate also on Wednesday afternoon.

We have moved our bags into the corridor with Room 5. As part of this the children cannot go out to their bags during class time as this disturbs Room 5's work area...so I have been encouraging the children to do up their bags and to ensure they have everything they need to work with in the classroom before school.

The children seemed to really enjoy the fun run. Thanks to those of you who supported us financially and by coming along to watch.

Rach

Week 7

Welcome to all the new children and parents (along with the regulars of course) in Room 6! Because we have so many new students I will be using the Year 2 and 3's who know our routines well as buddies to help things hum along nicely. We will changing the timetable ever so slightly to suit everyone's needs (as well as the classroom space). On Tuesday morning we will be moving our bags into the area we can share with Room 5. It will mean the boys can use the Room 5 toilets and the girls will continue to use the girls toilets outside Room 7 to alleviate the mad rush at morning tea and lunchtime.

This week's homework and handwriting letter is Gg. Last week we had one person who got to be the teacher and helped the other children learn about the Flinestones. Well done Archie, I even learned things and I thought I knew so much about the Flinestones.

For the new parents information every afternoon we have a toilet break, wash our hands and have a snack time in Room 6. I'm finding that feedback from parents is that the children didn't seem quite as hungry when they come home. It becomes difficult to maintain when we do not have snacks, so this is a call to all Room 6 parents for a donation of biscuits, crackers etc to help us maintain this break time.

All our newsletters are on our classroom wiki: rm6elmgrove.wikispaces.com so please keep checking it each week. I do my best to put things up on a Sunday night, sometimes however there is nothing new to add, or I'm not able to get it down in town, but I do try to do my best to inform you.

Please feel free to come for a chat at school.

Rach

Week 6

This week's homework letter is F. Its great to see how the children are getting into learning from each other. Next week we have a few more children joining our class so this week we will be rearranging the room to fit us in and think of ways to welcome the children to our class culture and routines.

Rach

Week 5

This week's homework letter is E. Thanks to all those parents who are encouraging their children to do the extra homework. The kids are teaching me lots of interesting things when they get to be teachers. We are again short of afternoon snacks if anyone is able to send more in. Our topic is humming along really well. The children have chosen their area of interest and are coming up with very creative ideas for a mini show they will put together later in the term.

Rach

Week 4

This week's homework letter is D. This week we have 4 children going to Teachers College with me to present to teachers on Monday morning. We will also have a week with lots of topic happening across the syndicate because we were held up with the snow days somewhat. Thanks to the parents who have been sending biscuits and crackers for afternoon snacks. The children are really enjoying this each day.

Rach

Week 3

Sorry you didn't hear from me but as you can probably guess my week was very quiet, home sick on the couch. We'll be back into it this week, assuming there are no snow days of course!

This week's homework letter is C.

We have once again eaten through our afternoon snack stash so if you would like to continue this please send biscuits or crackers to school for the kids to put in the pink basket on my bench.

Rach

Week 1

Dear Parents and Caregivers

Well here we go, we’re into Term 3.

We will continue to do the afternoon snacks as they worked well last term. If you could send packets of biscuits or crackers again that would be superb.

I’ve had requests for children to be able to do projects for homework. I was at a conference in the holidays where they talked about the children doing projects based around a letter each week. This week’s letter (to match handwriting) is Aa. The children could pick anything that starts with that letter and do an investigation with their parents about the item or area they have picked. On Friday they can bring that project and share it with the class (much as we did our boxes about ourselves last term). Each week the letter will change. So…

Week 1 is A, Week 2 is B, Week 3 is C, Week 4 is D, Week 5 is E, Week 6 is F, Week 7 is G, Week 8 is H, Week 9 is I, Week 10 is J.

Along with this the children are still encouraged to play games form our wiki, and reading each night is compulsory. The children may read the stories I send home each night or a book from home if you would prefer.

This term we will be using fairytales, nursery rhymes, myths and legends to discuss morals and lessons to be learned from stories. The Pukeko team will be doing class swaps to look at the Arts (Art, Music, Dance and Drama) using these morals.

We will set new goals for this term based on the discussions with parents at the interviews. Please ask the children what they are.

Rach

Term 2

WEEK 11

This Tuesday at 9:00 to 10:00 we will have Switch the dog and Roz from the DCC will be visiting Room 6 to look at how to be safe with dogs.

Rach

Dear Parents/Caregivers Week 10 and 11

We are putting together our profile books this week to send home to you for the holidays, so you can again see the wonderful work the children have been doing. Interviews are in week 11 and the children will be preparing what they want to say to you in them too.

Regards Rach

Dear Parents/Caregivers

Thanks to all those who came on the trip to the Early Settlers Museum and the Art Gallery. We had a busy day and lots of laughs. The Elgrego show was once again a success with a great message too.

We will be doing work around Early Settlers this week as well as looking at Scooby Doo for our play activities.

The afternoon snacks seem to be successful so far as the children are really keen and I'm noticing more on task behaviour and issues.

Regards Rach

Week 8 Dear Parents/Caregivers

I have been to a wonderful teaching course this week – you may have noticed I was off for a few days – and have a few ideas which require your assistance.

Firstly I would like to start the idea for the children of afternoon snack times (at 2:20 pm) each day. We talked at the course about how tired children are when they get home from a busy day at school and how a wee pick me up may assist this. Children often eat everything in their lunchbox at lunchtime so I would like to ask if everyone would be prepared to send along a box or bag of cookies or biscuits for the children and we will try this for a couple of weeks to see if it makes a difference to the children.

Secondly I would like each child to make a special interest box for school. This is to aid us with talking about topics we are well informed on, and holding TWO-WAY conversations with others. Could your child please bring a box with things they are interested in to school by next Friday (our trip day). The interest items do not need to be costly; in fact if they are I suggest you take photos of them and send them in the box instead please.

Thirdly at the course we talked about the importance of social play; not just at interval and lunchtime but during class time, and how children learn to self-regulate through targeted playing. So along this vein we will be acting out our favourite movies and books in Room 6 in the afternoons.

__TRIP: Art gallery and Early settlers museum__ We have our trip coming up fast, on Friday 24th June. If you have said you’d like to come please meet us at school on Friday to bus into town. We were inundated with car offers, so thankyou but we are sorted now. The children will need jackets, a big lunch, a drink bottle and a bag to keep their goodies in.

We're up to week 8; we have 4 weeks of school left.

Regards Rach McNamara

Week 6

Hello everyone. After a long weekend we are all up and go. This week is the stock standard - well as much as it can be at a school. We've been working hard on our challenges so please ask your children what they need to do next.

Rach

Week 5

Hi to all Thanks to those parents who supported the fundraiser in the weekend. It was a success - of course. This week we have the Life Education Trust Bus here and the kids will visit Harold on Monday and Tuesday. Not a lot else to report to you, so ...have a good week! Rach

Week 3 and 4

Hi everyone For these two weeks we are setting off into our challenges. The children will be able to tell you their social challenge (from our school vision and values), a school challenge (their choice of curriculum subject focus) and another whole class challenge ie maori, maths, spelling, PA etc. Some people already have a badge on their body display and are aiming to get all ten very soon! Please remember to remind your children to be "personal managers" and bring their reading book every day and have a blue pen and gluestick ready before school. We have visitors into school in week 4 (ERO) who will come into our room and chat with your children to see how they feel about our school, and ask what they are learning and how they know what to do. We have a trip to the art gallery coming up in June and we will send notices home soon asking for your help. Remember that the maths and spelling homework is on this site for the children to do as we are doing their sounds alive homeword at school now. The reading books should still be coming home for homework so if you haven't seen them EVERY night please ask your child where they are and get them to read a book from home if the book isn't in their bag.

Try this maori challenge at home - your children should be able to tell you what the dog is saying and how to answer it!

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Rach

Week 2

Hello again. So this week we are settling into the new timetable and after last week our new goal is to concentrate on listening to instructions again. Its really important that the children listen, process and follow instructions to know what they need to do and so we will focus on listening skills (capable communication from our school vision). We are also ensuring we do Daily Physical Activity as its so easy for this to lapse in the winter months, and Effective Thinking - we'll be doing lots of critical thinking activities.

We have Kate Martin with us again this week and she does a full day control on Wednesday, along with lessons with the children all the other days.

Rach

Term 2 Week 1

Hi everyone and welcome into Term 2.

To start the term we have a 2nd year college teacher with us for two weeks. She will be taking reading groups, maths groups, writing groups, PE or an Arts lesson and a whole days control. Please encourage your child to see her as requiring exactly the same respect as they give all the teachers in Room 6.

Our timetable is completely different this term due to extra things happening for the students, other teachers coming in, teacher aides coming in and the cold weather coming in. So our timetable goes: 9:00 to 10:30 Learning Journals, Maori, PA, News and fruitbreak, Spelling, Writing and Shared reader. 11:00 to 12:40 Autopilot, Basic facts and problem solving maths activities, PE and Circle time. 1:30 to 3:00 Silent reading, Reading and Handwriting, Topic and Reviewing of the day. We still have Kapa Haka, Book Club, Singing of a Wednesday afternoon, Bible in Schools on a Thursday afternoon, Library book time in the hub on Friday morning.

It would be good if you could ensure your child has a piece of fruit for fruit break as towards the end of the term there was only a few children getting to have fruit break. Also stationery was becoming an issue. The dreaded missing blue pen was becoming the bain of the teachers day so please feel free to send a few NAMED spares this term.

You will notice that we have new ramps outside the room - Yay. These are not scootering ramps so if the kids bring scooters they will have to park them at the end of the block so as not to cause congestion outside the classrooms.

Looking forward to seeing you all pop in this term. Regards Rach McNamara

Week 10 Hi all. Ten days of school left to go and we have quite a bit to do. We will be working hard this week on our scrapbooks which come home at the end of each term. The idea of these is for your child to share their success with you and have positive comments from you all. I'll send these home next week (week 11).

As you may be aware we have been following Mr Todd eagerly on Master chef. Some of the children have articulated how they want to cook now so if you have time in the holidays take the opportunity to teach measurement for maths with your child. Cooking involves several different measuring methods which your child can learn, plus there's food about for snacking on in the holidays.

Thanks to all the people who came to the maths evening, it was a great success and the children liked having you come along.

Rach

Week 9

Hi everyone. Sorry I haven't been very on the ball with this area; let's excuse it with wedding fever. As you have probably all heard I got married last week. My name will only have a small change however; I will now be Ms McNamara instead of Miss McNamara. Thanks to everyone for their kind wishes.

The maths evening was a great success; thanks to all of you who came. The swimming over the last fortnight seems to have been enjoyed by the children, although they did comment on how cold the pool was and we are sending this feedback to the committee.

For the next 3 weeks (yes that's right remember we have an 11 week term) we will be trying to finish off our topic (helping hands) and continuing to build our classroom culture of being helpful. Some children are working towards this beautifully. We will be revisiting literacy and numeracy results to gauge progress over the term and as you can imagine this can take me some time to give the children the required one to one so it will take a couple of weeks.

Regards Rach

Week 6 Term 1

Hi everyone. Just a few quick messages. Firstly, I'd like to remind parents that if your child seems unwell please err on the side of caution as we have a child in Room 6 who gets sick very easily, and sickness can have a detrimental effect on her. Even a cold is something you will need to inform me of please, by phone call, note or just come have a quick chat before school if you have time.

Secondly, remember there is swimming next week (week 7) on Monday(14th), Wednesday(16th), Thursday (17th) and Friday (18th); and again the week after on Wednesday (23rd), Thursday (24th) and Friday(25th). Our time is 12:00 and extra food in lunchboxes is a great idea.

Thirdly, the children are working towards assisting the people of Christchurch in several ways, as part of our 'Helping Hands' unit. They may come home and question you for ideas or assistance in the next week. We will also be focusing on helping each other in the classroom too, so please question your child on what they do to help other people in Room 6. If they can't give you 'a list' please help them generate ideas for what they could/should be doing. We will be reflecting in our learning journals on what caring is and why we should value it in ourselves and others.

Fourthly, I am going to be away next week on Wednesday (16th), Thursday (17th) and Friday (18th) as I am getting married on the Friday! There will be a reliever in Room 6 (yet to be confirmed sorry) but Robyn will be there as per usual to assist. Also even tho I'm getting married I will not be changing my surname (less confusion for the children) and I'll be known as Ms Mc (rather than Miss), so you don't need to prep the children for a big change.

Lastly, although I am sending this information home on paper today (due to the importance of the issue with sickness and a request for your permission to show your child’s work) we have our classroom wiki set up for you to read important Room 6 information each week so please check in at rm6elmgrove.wikispaces.com each week (usually a Monday night). To add images to the wiki for you to see your child’s work I require permission from you. If you see any images you are not happy about please let me know immediately. Please fill in the slip and return it to me in Room 6. .

Regards Rach McNamara

Week 4 Term 1

Hi everyone. Look at that Week 4 and I'm late putting things on the blog again. This week we have a relatively non-eventful week. I will be testing children's reading levels and finding a comfortable series of books and other children for them to work with. Browsing books that come home are a level or so lower than the books they read with me in class and we read the one book in class for two days.

Thanks for all the help we got at the beach from Will, Tina and Lynette. It was very much appreciated because without you we couldn't have gone on the trip.

Rach

Week 3 Term 1

Sorry people, I'm a day late getting this info on for you.

This week is Beach Education on Thursday. Please refer to your letter to know what to bring. We are still looking for a couple of parents to help and I am still waiting for a couple of permission slips. Remember its on rain, hail or shine...

Regards Rach

Week 2 Term 1 Hi everyone. Thanks for sending in the cans, rags and plastic bags. We are all set up for a long time. There are still several people without their stationery and some who didn't get the L-shaped pockets with their stationery.

I hope everyone got a chance to check out the homework information for our whole school in the school newsletter. This week I will be sending home books for the kids to read with you and to you. These books will be a mixture of levels as I said in last weeks newsletter, until I get a better picture of how each child is progressing. For basic facts practice you will games to play on this site. Next week I will add a few spelling activities here for you too.

This week we will be working on setting up the class routines so as much as possible I will be trying to stick to time slots I explained last week.

The children and I had a discussion about school expectations and together we have come up with a classroom treaty. I've put the key elements into the Room 6 WALTs page.

Regards Rach

Welcome to Room 6 for 2010.

Hi everyone and I hope your holidays were fantastic. We are very lucky to be starting in a new room because we have lots of new equipment and Mr Turner has spent a lot of time these holidays decking out the room so it looks great. Now we just need to fill up the empty walls with fantastic work and great art.

Robyn Pearce is the teacher aide in the class with us and Sarah Moreton will also be working periodically with us also. We are so lucky.

Our class has their own wiki online for you to check important Room 6 information each week. The address is http://rm6elmgrove.wikispaces.com. As a staff we are trying to role model sustainability and so I will only be sending notices requiring parental consents home on paper. Please check the wiki each week for new information – and I’ll do my best to remember to write each weekend, so it should be there for Mondays.

This year we will not be doing A to D maths practice before school but there are still the usual things that the children are expected to do to set themselves up for the day. It is important that the children take responsibility for doing these jobs before school, rather than letting their parents do this. Our focus for this term is going to be on being Responsible and Self Disciplined.

Our topic is “What can we do to help our community?” We will investigate how to help each other in our classroom community and then move to school community and local community, even perhaps the cyber community.

We will also be doing a mini inquiry on Waitangi Day to introduce the students to the concepts of inquiry skills and Social Sciences.

For the first few weeks you may notice a mixture of reading levels coming home for your child; please don’t fret about this as we are working on understanding and comprehension, rather than reading levels for decoding, as this is something I would like to hear in discussions with all the new students.

We will be doing Syndicate sports and Syndicate singing on a Wednesday afternoon and Kapa Haka will be running at the same time as singing. At the moment we will be having Bible in Schools on a Thursday afternoon and our Library time is Friday morning at 9:15. These is subject to change as the year starts off. Last year we did baking every 3rd Friday but this year I would like to spend our classroom budget on other exciting ventures, which I wish to discuss with the children first, to get their thoughts on the ideas.

The routines for each day will be started right from day one. For your information now however: From 9 to 10:30: Learning Journals, News and Fruitbreak, Topic reading and writing, Basic Facts, Problem Solving From 11 to 12:40: Silent Reading, Guided Reading and Writing rotation, PA, Maths activities From 1:30 to 3: Auto pilot, Shared Reading, PE, Circle Time and to finish off the day reviewing goals. These things of course again are subject to change.

In regard to sickness: if your child seems unwell please err on the side of caution as we have a child in room 6 who gets sick very easily, and sickness can have a detrimental effect on her. Even a cold is something you will need to inform me of please, by phone call, note or just come have a quick chat before school if you have time.

Which brings me to the final point about coming into school. If you have anything you are concerned about or questions you would like to have answered please do feel free to contact me at school. Remember, if I don’t know about it I can’t help with it – I tell the children this often. Also if you would be interested in helping in Room 6 please let me know, as many hands make light work.

Regards Rach McNamara