Week 5 Term 1 2022

Don't forget your swimming togs!

Sorry for getting this up so late - I've only just managed to get home. We travelled to Wellington for the weekend to help our oldest daughter shift flats. Her old apartment was the size of a shoe box - you would be astounded at the amount of stuff she was able to hide away in it. She has mountain biking gear, climbing equipment, tramping and camping equipment, diving equipment, hockey gear, skateboards, bagpipes, guitars... and she uses all of it regularly. There are a million upsides to encouraging your kids to try new things, have new adventures, get out in the world and do things that challenge them, this weekend we discovered the downside. We have spent hours and hours on sidelines, at competitions, travelling, carrying water bottles etc. and I wouldn't change a thing.

It's great to see so many of our Room 14 kids getting out and involved in different activities. We're making time for the kids to share their skills and talents with the rest of the Year 4 whanau. Some of the kids are already starting little clubs to do this. We have a sewing club and a book club operating first thing each morning and at lunch times. I'm sure we'll have more clubs by the end of the week.

Covid Update:  We have had two positive tests in our school this past week. We ask parents that if their child is unwell they must stay home. Ministry of Health Advice is:

What you need to do

• You and your whānau should watch for symptoms

• If any develop, get tested immediately

• Then, stay at home until you receive the result

Symptoms of COVID-19

• A new or worsening cough
• Sneezing and runny nose
• A fever
• Temporary loss of smell or altered sense of taste
• Sore throat
• Shortness of breath

Less common symptoms include diarrhoea, headache, muscle aches, nausea, vomiting, malaise, chest pain, abdominal pain, joint pain, or confusion/irritability.

Please read the COVID updates that are sent out regularly, from the school.

This weeks Learning

Maths: Place Value. Adding 10 and/or 100

Literacy: Procedural Writing - ordering the steps, using bossy verbs and making our meaning clear. We will be starting up our Structured Literacy this week as well. A lot of thought has been put into placing the kids in the groups that will benefit their learning the most. It may seem a little easy to start but we need to get our routines right to get the most out of the programme.

RE: Making good decisions. We are talking about times that we can choose to be good and Holy even when people around us are not making the same choices. This Wednesday starts the season of Lent and Ash Wednesday Liturgies, we will be creating Lenten promises please ask your tamariki what there's are and how you can help them to achieve. We were able to celebrate Mass together on Friday. I heard lots of comments from children saying it was so cool being outside for this celebration. Father now has the idea that he could have his Easter Mass in the same spot.

Reminders

Library - Monday is our library day. Please, bring your library books back to school. If you'd like to renew them we can do that.

Technology - A big thanks to everyone who is remembering to charge their device and come to school ready to learn. Well done.

Swimming - swimming starts this week. Everyone is expected to participate. We have the wonderful Henk coming in to coach us and we don't want anyone to miss out. If there is a valid reason that your child can not swim on a particular day, please provide a note. Thanks.

Swimming Sports - Years 4-6 are looking forward to our annual swimming sports. This is to be held on Thursday 10th March. We need everyone to fill in the following form, please. Thanks to those who have already done so.

Swimming Sports Form

Week 4 Term 1 2022

The Year 4 tribe is an awesome group of kids. We have had weeks filled with laughter and smiles and are really loving working with this little team. It’s going to be a great year. 

This Weeks Learning

Maths: Place Value. 

Literacy: How ideas are organised in writing.

RE: What is special about our church community? How can we be active members of our community?

REMINDERS

Technology

Your children need to be responsible for their own learning tools BUT they are only kids so some gentle reminders would be helpful. Chromebooks need to be charged at home so that they are ready for use during the day. We need headphones, too. These allow your child to properly hear instructions in online activities and, for those who need it, can be used to block out other classroom distractions during quiet work. 

Swimming

Swimming starts next week - week 5. We will be swimming in the first block so don’t forget your togs, towel and a swimming bag for wet gear.

Swimming Sports 2022

We will be holding our annual Swimming Sports 2022 on Thursday 10th March. This year only Year 4-6 students will be attending. Please click on the link below to ensure we have the correct details for all our students. Swimming Sports Form

COVID Update

The kids are doing really well with their masks! We still have a few people fidgeting with them but it gets better everyday. Our classrooms are wide open for fresh air and we get outside as often as we can. Many of our kids spend time working outside and are learning to be independent and stay focussed even when the teacher is out of sight. Mr Macmillan has been running around with his CO2 monitor and we’re looking pretty good.  Thanks so much for your support. 

Library

We are hoping that the library will be ready for us this week. Our Library times are on a Monday. This gives us a chance to get some extra reading for the week. 

Uniform and Lost Property

Yes, we already have some lost property.  Please, make sure that all of your gear is well named so that we can return it.  The blue sunhats are part of the summer uniform and are compulsory for playing on the field. Our kids really need to be able to get out and run around at break times so please remind them to pack their hats. We don’t have enough spares for all of the kids who have forgotten theirs, lately.  Occasionally, children need to wear non-uniform gear (broken school shoes are quite a common issue) while replacements are found/ordered. Please, let us know if this is the case and try to make the replacement as similar to the uniform as possible.

See you tomorrow.

Poi Rākau

For Golden Time today, Room 14 played Maui/Matou. This rākau game is a lot harder than it sounded. The "That's too easy" was very quickly replaced by moans and groans and a few squashed toes. In this game the rākau are placed standing up on the ground. A caller yellls Maui or Matou and the players leave their rākau and move quickly to the left or right trying to catch the rākau before it touches the ground. 

It was great fun - Mrs T had quite a few laughs, anyway.

Hey Warrior

We have been reading the story 'Hey Warrior' by Karen Young.  Hey Warrior is a book about anxiety. It explains how strong and healthy brains work to keep us safe. 

We learned that the amygdala takes over when we are feeling stressed. The amygdala floods our bodies with oxygen, hormones and adrenaline so that we can stay safe when faced with danger. The amygdala is like a smoke alarm, though. It senses danger and acts. A smoke alarm can't tell the difference between burnt toast and a classroom fire, it just acts when it senses smoke. Our amygdala can get confused between real danger (like an angry tiger) and something like a tricky maths problem and it just acts. 

When the amydala takes over we are in fight-flight-freeze. What does fight-flight- freeze look like in the classroom?  

Fight = throwing pencils, slamming our books closed, shoving chairs out of our way, growling at our friends for no real reason.

Flight = going to the toilet every five minutes, wandering around the classroom, following Mrs T and asking a million unrelated questions, sharpening every pencil in the classroom

Freeze = hiding away in a corner, sitting quietly and hoping no one notices we haven't done anything, leaning over our work so no one can see it.

When the amygdala takes over we stop thinking clearly. We need to take charge of our bodies again. Sometimes we might need to go for a run to burn off the extra fuel the amygdala gave us. Deep, slow breathing is always a great idea. Positive thoughts work really well, too.  

Lots of us said we get anxious when we are trying to come up with ideas in writing. So, we are learning to use storyboards to plan and organise our ideas in writing - just like the teams at Pixar and Nickelodeon. It makes things a little bit easier and less stressful (or they will when we get used to them). We are trying to simplify the Hey Warrior story so that younger kids can learn about their amazing brains, too. Look at us all hard at work.

Room 14 you are awesome!

 Hey Whanau. Here is a little clip about Hey Warrior. You might like to use this as a jumping-off point when you talk to your child about their worries or about their learning today. 

Week 3 Term 1 2022

 Wahoo! The power is back on so I can get my blog post up.  You've got to love the wild weather. Let's hope mother nature allows us a little more summer in the weeks to come. I'm not quite ready to let my lake days slip away just yet.

We had a fabulous start to the year last week.  Things are taking a little longer than we had planned but we're probably still warming up. We will be starting some of our required testing this week to give us an indication as to where our tamariki are and how we can support them. We will be starting up with our maths, writing and reading programmes over the week and encourage you to talk to your child about what they have been doing in class.

Maths - We will be looking at addition and subtraction. A fun game for the car is to have the kids ask you math questions, sometimes answer correctly sometimes wrong see if they can catch you a point for the person who guesses correctly. start at first with simple questions to 10 5+5=10, 4+3=7, 9-5=4 try and answer as quickly as possible.

Reading - having an audiobook in the car is a great way to get in some extra reading. Try working on recalling a few events in sequence, personalities of the characters. etc. We will be starting our readers in class. For some groups, these may start to go home. We have found that students are more, willing to read at home if they are interested in the book/subject, we will work hard on finding the appropriate books to read when the library opens next week.

Writing- this week's focus is on having capital letters at the start of each sentence and correct punctuation at the end. We have also noticed that many of our tamariki still need work on the correct formation of their letters. We'll teach these in groups of similar shaped letters. This also helps with reversals.

Note from Mr. Macmillan,

Our School Mass is scheduled for this Friday. Fingers crossed and a prayer to Saint Joseph for fine weather. The Mass will need to be outside so we are planning on having Mass on the school field at 9.00 am.

Sanitising and washing hands is important so the habit of children sanitising each time they come into the classroom/learning space is important. If a child complains of a sore throat then the child should be sent home and parents need to have the child Covid tested.

Swimming Sports 2022

We will be holding our annual Swimming Sports 2022 on Thursday 10th March. This year only Year 4-6 students will be attending. Please click on the link below to ensure we have the correct details for all our students. We need

all the help we can get, please.

   Swimming Sports Form

COVID

• All students need to have a face mask. Please, make sure that your child knows how to wear their face mask to avoid too much handling. It should be pretty well sealed around the face - or it doesn't really do the job.
• With the current covid advice that has been given your child is to remain home if they are sick or have a sore throat. I understand that this is difficult but in order to minimize the risk of infection. 

Uniform

• All students need to have a blue sunhat for school (these can be purchased at the uniform shop and are a required part of the uniform). 
• Please label all of your child items as even after only 4 days we have lost property that isn't named.

Technology

• Many of our tamariki didn't have headphones last week. These are required on a daily base and we ask that the students have a pair that stay at school. There are hangers in the classrooms to help protect them from getting wreaked. You just need a simple, affordable pair of headphones. We can help to point you in the right direction if you need help.
• Please encourage your child to check their Chromebook to make sure it is charged for school. This needs to become part of their nightly routine, as they are used frequently at school

Other

• The library will not be open again this week, encourage your child to read at home still. This could be done on Epic, Sunshine classic, from a personal book or take a trip to the Rotorua Library and check out a book.
• No swimming until 29th Feb. We have the wonderful Henk coming to see us and will swim everyday for several weeks in a row.  

We hope you have a fantastic week, please contact us if you have any questions.

Welcome Back

It was really lovely getting to chat with you on Thursday-Friday and I really appreciate your openness and positivity. We have a really lovely little team and I’m looking forward to seeing what the year brings us. 

There are a few common questions that came from our chats this week and I’ve tried to answer them all below.  I hope I covered everything.

Communication

I will post each week's plan of attack here on our blog but it’s also a good idea to check the school newsletters for reminders and extra bits of information. I know that you are all busy families so I will try to give as much notice as I can for events etc.

I’ve been teaching and parenting for a looooong time but I am not a mindreader. Please, keep in touch and don’t be afraid to ask for info or guidance. I am only an email away.

We will post learning stories to educa each week.  Your child is going to take a little more responsibility for this so be patient with us while we figure it all out.

Our Learning

The classroom doors will be open at 8:30am. We have before school jobs to complete and need a little time, each morning, to re-establish relationships and get ourselves sorted. Please, arrive by 8:45 to give your child the opportunity to settle into their day. 

We work really hard from 8:45-3pm. Some of our work will be in books, some will be on Chromebook and some will be hands on or discussion. By the end of the day our heads will be spinning and we will be tired. Home learning should be relaxed, fun and easy (revision of old learning - not new learning). Our home learning will consist of a little spelling, reading and some maths games. If things get a little tense - just leave it and let me know. Card games, board games, cooking, audio books… are all great ways to revise and practice our learning. I’ll post some of my favourite games etc throughout the year.

Healthy Brains

Our brains are pretty complicated but taking care of them isn’t. Good food, water, exercise and lots of love is pretty much all that they need. Year 4s are in a funny space - they’re still only little kids but they think that they’re big.  They’ll need lots of reassurance and lots of patience. My kids were more likely to share their thoughts and worries with me when they had me alone and ‘trapped’ - journeys in the car, cooking together, in the middle of a movie… Quiet times when I wouldn’t put a spotlight on them but they knew I wouldn’t rush off anywhere. Rushing is a bit of a problem for us, as adults.

At school, we will encourage the kids to drink water often and will break our learning blocks with exercise breaks. We have meditation, circle time and quiet spaces for kids to unwind when stressed and make ourselves available to the kids whenever they need us (sometimes we need to be prodded but we do try to be aware). We will be doing a lot of work around our school values this year.  Courage to try, perseverance, respect for others and kindness were all themes discussed in our meetings and will be a big focus for us this term. 

Swimming

We will be swimming, with Henk, every day from Thursday 3rd March - Monday 28th March.  After our Henk sessions, we will continue to swim during the rest of week 8 and in week 10. 

Reminders:

These things need to be returned to school as soon as possible, please

• Bring Your Own Device agreement

• Whare Tapa Wha sheet

• Reading Log (if you need a spare, let me know)

I’ll have folders for these by the door (setting them up independence)

The weather isn’t looking great for outside work but bring a raincoat so we can zip across to the hall a few times for a run around or have a quick run outside when it’s not too heavy AND don’t forget your water bottle.

See you tomorrow beautiful people.