Term 4 Miniball at Pioneer Stadium

Next term, the children in Year 3-4 again have the opportunity to play miniball at Pioneer Stadium on a Thursday afternoon. The games are played at different times each week, from 3.30pm-6pm. At this stage, I am wanting to see how many children are interested in playing and if there are any keen parents that would be able to assist by either coaching a team or managing a team on a Thursday at Pioneer. Please note, there is a small team fee of $35 per person as this is an out of school activity.

Please fill in your details on the form (link below) to give me an indication of the number of children who are keen, and if we have enough parent support, by Friday 8th September. This will determine how many teams I can enter. Due to limited team numbers (8 per team). I will send another email to organise placements and teams in the next couple of weeks.
FORM: 

If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Kind regards
Paulette

Spring is in the air, and the children are loving being out at break times in the glorious sunshine!

Short Film Festival

Thanks to all the wonderful parents who came to support our trip last week to the Isaac Theatre Royal. The children had a wonderful time watching the movies. This has led us to create our own movies that we will share with you all at learning conferences! You will be in for a treat!

Spellathon

Spellathon testing took place last Friday, and now comes the business of collecting all of the sponsorship money back in. No pressure, but...! There is a prize for the whole class which has all of its sponsorship money and cards back into the office FIRST! Congratulations to all the children who have worked so hard to learn their Spellathon words.

Learning Conferences

Learning conferences are next week on Tuesday 29th August and Thursday 31st August. School will finish at 2pm on these days. Please make sure you have made a booking as the children have a wonderful array of learning they want to share with you.

To book your learning conference, please go to www.schoolinterviews.co.nz and log in with the code 'ay2w2'. Although the booking slots say 15 mins, please allow 30 mins for the conference.

Stationery

It's getting to that time of the year where pens, pencils and glue sticks generally start to deplete. Can you please talk with your child about which items they might need to stock up on and send them to school. Thank you very much.

Change of Clothes and Footwear

The park is now open and we are actively encouraging the children to use the park. However, it is very wet and muddy as the water table is still very high. If your child likes to play football or be on the grass, please send them with a spare pair of old shoes and shorts to change into.

Lunches

We are aware that the new cubbies are going to become quite hot for the children's school lunches. Over the next week, we will be creating a solution to ensure the children's lunches are kept cool. Thanks for you patience while we develop an effective system for this.

Writing

The children have been working on writing engaging texts that aim to entertain the reader by including precise vocabulary. Here are a couple of examples:

The marshmallow monster slithered through the water like a snake. He bubbled up to the surface and out of the water. Peering through the trees, his yellow eyes were watching someone. He slowly crept through the trees to the campsite like a spy. Quietly sneaking up behind the boy, he heard the boy’s marshmallow sizzle in the night light of the fire. The monster sniffed the air. He moved much closer. The boy turned around and he stared with unbelieving eyes at the monster.

By Dahlia

Swish! The waves washed up and over her feet. The girl was feeling sad as she walked along the beach. Suddenly the waves washed up a mysterious looking bottle. She opened it and hoped they would be magical bubbles. She blew a bubble and the clouds disappeared and the sun came out. “Wow!” she thought. She blew another bubble and this time she jumped on it. This made her feel happy.

She smiled as she jumped onto the other bubbles. All of a sudden, one of the bubbles went under the water. She saw two fish swimming under the sea. Then the bubble lifted her up and took her high up into the sky. She smiled as she looked down back at the beach. She spied a lonely a girl who was walking. She looked so sad. “Shall I help her? Would that be the right thing to do?”  the girl asked herself.

By Layla

Hi everyone,

Our news for this week.

Head lice
We have have had a couple of children who have had head lice over the past week. Please make sure that you have a look at your child's head to ensure these little critters have not decided to set up camp! Remember, once a head has been treated it is important to keep checking for eggs as they are sneaky creatures and it only takes one egg to start the cycle again. we highly recommend girls having their hair tied up and have discussed the importance of keeping heads apart while at school!


Inquiry- Changes
This term, our inquiry focus is on the concept of change. This ties in really well with the team moving into our new learning space. The children have been identifying the different types of change and how many things stay the same when changes occurs.
On that note, we would like to reassure you that we have continued with the same systems and groupings as last term to ensure consistency for the children. Although we are in a big space with five classes, the learning processes are still the same. Each child is in a target learning group for reading, writing and maths and these groups have been created based on the learning needs of the children. We have been working with our home groups for inquiry and  PE and start and finish in these groups too.
Over the next couple of weeks, we will be exploring how changes can occur in our body and what we need to do to ensure we keep ourselves healthy. The children will be learning about the importance of food, water, sleep, exercise and how we can look after our teeth and body by taking care of it and keeping it clean.

Inspiration Stations
Our focus over the past couple of weeks has been on using SOLO or help direct our thinking during Inspiration Stations time. SOLO is a tool that we use to help us deepen our thing and understanding about learning and work on our next steps. This week has seen the children being agents with their learning by exploring the organs, creating observational sketches and constructing body parts with Lego.


Parent Help Needed
We still need the assistance of some wonderful parents to help support some of our class programmes during the week.
Library- Each fortnight, each home room will have the opportunity to go the the Christchurch South Learning Centre to have a session with one of the children's librarians. As our library is unavailable this term, this will also provide the children with the opportunity to get books out. Please let us know if you would like your child to join the library.

Thorrington Rest Home- We need the help of a /some parents to walk down to Thorrington Rest Home each Friday. The children leave school at 10.30am and return to school at 11.40a. Please add you name to the parent help roster if you can assist us.

Pizza Making- Each Friday, the children have the opportunity to make pizzas. If you can help us with this, please add your name to the part helper roster. This is from 10.45am- 12pm.

Short Films Festival- We have been lucky enough to be asked to the Isaac Theatre Royal on Thursday 17th August to watch a variety of short films as part of the International Film Festival. This is a morning outing. Please let your point of contact teacher know of you can help.

Parent Help Link

That's all for now. Have a wonderful weekend ahead!

Dear whanau,