Thursday 11 May 2017

KAURI TEAM NEWSLETTER

Kia ora everyone,

Welcome back to the start of Term 2. We hope you all had a great break and took advantage of a change from school routines and battling the traffic. The weather has been a blessing, enabling everybody to take full advantage of an ‘Indian Summer’.

Term 1 raced by with a range of wonderful experiences for the children and staff to participate in. Camp though short lived was a lot of fun and presented a wealth of learning opportunities, the chance to find out about ourselves and to involve children in the outdoor components of the curriculum. We loved the opportunity to see the students in a different environment and rising to the challenges that camp provided.

Term 2 information

Inquiry

Our big idea for this term is: “Connections to marketing persuades us to buy products”.  We are looking at advertising in all forms and the effect this has on us, as consumers.

We will be celebrating with our own Kauri fresh food market at the end of the term, where the children in small groups will advertise and create their own “healthy lunch option”.

Mathematics
We will continue cross-grouping five days a week for Mathematics this term, with classes focusing on multiplication and division strategies, and geometry. It is imperative that children in the Kauri team know all addition, subtraction, multiplication and division basic facts and this is something you can help with at home. Every child in our team has their own Mathletics password and we have set each child at their appropriate level. This is a great online resource we encourage your child to use at home.  

Writing

We will begin the term with both personal and factual recounts from the holidays and book week. As our Inquiry is looking at advertising we will focus on persuasive (argument) writing this term. Children will also have opportunities to write in other genres including explanations, narratives and poetic verse. Emphasis will be on using an overall text structure that is appropriate for the purpose, using language features, correctly spelling all high frequency words, and editing.

Reading

The value of reading can never be underestimated. Reading to children at this age is still something they very much enjoy and the beauty is you can read and discuss more sophisticated material than they can read alone. Independent reading is also something we encourage. Children in the Kauri team are flexibly grouped according to their needs. This term we will continue to work on inferring and will also focus on identifying the structure of different text types, finding the main idea, and skimming and scanning.

Book Week

This is one of our favourite weeks in Term 2. It is taking place this week with book studies, author visits, and of course the Grand Finale, the book parade on Friday.

Physical Education
Swimming has now been replaced with ball skills. The emphasis for this is on large balls and the skills found in those games such as, throwing, catching, passing, shooting at a target, as well as the values that are found in team sports games. Emphasis will be on touch (kiwisport delivered by North Harbour coaches), basketball, football and netball. We have a cluster sports day coming up later this term where all children will participate in a team representing our school in either rippa, football, netball, hockey or table tennis.

Maori Language Week

This is another special event in Term 2 where we practice consolidate and refine skills we have learnt in Te Whare as well as participating in whanau group events across the different teams. This year it will be held in Week 10.

Hats and Clothing
Hats are not compulsory this term. If your child wishes to play on the field, they will need to have a change of clothes, as only shorts are permitted due to the large amounts of mud that can be tracked in during this time. It is also most helpful if all of your child’s clothing is named.

Some dates to put in your diary…

Week 2 – Book Week, Rippa Tournament 11 May
Week 3 – Whole School Assembly 17 May, FONS Funsie in Onesie evening 19 May

Week 4 – Cluster Sports Day 26 May
Week 5 – Whole School Assembly Room 11 hosting 31 May, Kiwisport Touch 2 June
Week 6 – Ponsonby Intermediate to visit 8 June FONS Bingo 9 June, Kiwisport Touch 9 June,
Week 7 – Whole School Assembly14 June, Kiwisport Touch 16 June
Week 8 – Rippa Tournament 22 June, Kiwisport Touch 23 June
Week 9 – Cross Country 28 June, Whole School assembly 29 June
Week 10 – Maori Language Week

Many thanks for your help, contributions and support over the last term. You have no idea the value of the little things people do to help, we really appreciate it! Ka kite ano.

Regards, the Kauri Team

Sheridenb@northcoteprimary.school.nz

RobynD@northcoteprimary.school.nz

Carolinej@northcoteprimary.school.nz

LisaB@northcoteprimary.school.nz

Zacf@northcoteprimary.school.nz