Week 10 Term 2 2022

Half way through the year! How did that happen? Mrs Dinniss and James have landed in Canada and are already enjoying time with family. I'm sure that they will have a wonderful time. The rest of us have to knuckle down for one more week. This week we are going to spend a bit of time wrapping up some loose ends and learning some games to play over the holidays to keep our brains ticking over.

Thanks to all of the Mums, Dads, Grandparents and other whanau members who visited us on Friday.  The kids were so excited to share their learning with you and we had a wonderful morning. We might have to book in another open morning for the end of next term - I believe some of you will need to work on your cup stacking skills before then.

Last week, Room 14 had a little discussion about whether there is such things as "a big brain" or "a smart brain". It led to some very interesting theories and we're going to do a little learning about the brain this week to combat some strange ideas that popped up in our chat.  So, here's how the brain works, in simple terms, so you can chat to your kid about their amazing brain, too. We tend to split our learning into strategy (knowing how to figure something out) and knowledge. Knowledge is stored memory that we can call on whenever we need it. Many scientists believe that there are 2 levels of memory. The first stage is short term memory or working memory. It's where we store the info for just long enough to use it - following instructions, reading and dialling a phone number... It lasts about 15-30 seconds. The second stage is long term memory. Information can last in long term memory from a few days to years or even a life time. Repeating and practicing a task connects new learning with old memories and helps the brain to strengthen the connections it has made. Playing games and having fun with things like basic facts helps the brain to see the same information lots of times, in lots of different ways to strengthen the connections. There is no such things as over learning. Going back over things we've learned this year, last year and even in Year 2 all help to keep the connections in your brain active and strong.

Monday: PLEASE BRING YOUR LIBRARY BOOKS. We want to be able to check out some new books for holiday reading

Wednesday: Principal's lunch - for a lucky few.