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.