Kia ora e te whānau,
Welcome to this week's Koru Blog!
Book Character Dress Up Day: Friday 16th May
As part of our Readathon, we are excited to have a Book Character Dress Up Day on Friday, 16th May. All children are invited to come dressed as a book character, or if they prefer, to come in their usual school uniform. We can't wait to see all of the fabulous book character costumes- they can be as little or as big as you can make, find or create!!
Cross Country: Friday 23rd May
Our whole school cross country event will be on Friday, the 23rd of May. There will be more information to come about what time our Koru children will be running. Tamariki will be able to wear their house tops for this event. We are training most days for the Cross Country, so it is helpful for the children to wear comfortable running shoes. Our race will be between 11.30am and 12.00pm. The first race is the Year 8 runners, which will start at 11:00am, and the whole event should be finished by 12:00pm. See below for a map of where our Koru children will be running.
Literacy:
Our Koru children need to bring their Literacy Folders back to school EVERY day and put them into their group box in the hub. When the children learn a new letter, this will be added to their 'sound pack' of flash cards. When a literacy group has read a book a few times together, they are ready to take it home to read. If a child does not have their folder at school, we unfortunately cannot give them the book to take home, as each reading book costs $9 and we need to look after them by keeping them in literacy folders and returning them to school.
Phonemic Awareness Instruction
We are learning to blend words. We use the left hand to say the first word, the right hand to say the second word, and then clap our hands together when we say the compound word. eg. out - side, outside
'out'
We are learning to segment words. The teacher says the compound word and place both hands together with palms up. Students repeat the word and then segment into two words, by separating their hands. eg. raincoat, rain - coat.
'raincoat'
'rain'
'coat'
Literacy Group Lessons
Each lesson covers revision about letter sounds (phonemes) and Heart Words that the children have already been taught. This helps to increase confidence and knowledge of the letters to know their sound when reading and how to write them. As the children work through the Stage 1 sounds (m, s, a, i, f, t, p, c), they learn the name of the letter, the sound (phoneme) and how to write it (grapheme) and read it. Before being given a book, they need to know the first 8 letters and the sounds they represent, as well as the skills of segmenting and blending sounds. This is to ensure success and accurate reading, rather than guessing.
Writing a list of Heart Words
Literacy group lesson time! Writing heart words: I, my, the.
We read sentences and then write them. We check that they start with a capital letter and end with punctuation, and we read them back to ourselves to check that they make sense. Can you see a Heart Word? Does it finish with a full stop or a question mark?
Reading back the sentence together.
Here is Milo the Monkey, the letter 'm' makes the sound /m/. What do your lips do to make this sound?
Listening to a sound and writing the grapheme for it.
Writing the first 8 letter sounds.
It takes lots of concentration and practice to learn how to make our letters the right way!
Literacy helpful links
Cybersafety
The HDCA for Parents and Whānau
The Harmful Digital Communications Act (or HDCA for short) is an act passed by the Government back in 2015 to help people dealing with serious or repeated harmful digital communications. It covers anything digital like text, emails or social media content.
The most useful thing for parents to understand about the HDCA is the way the 10 communication principles define what is good or bad behaviour online.
If you’re ever concerned about your young person (or you just want to brush up on your knowledge!) visit Netsafe’s Guide to the HDCA.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Ngā mihi nui,
Stacey, Elizabeth, Katie, and Niquita
