"Believe you can, and you are halfway there."

Wiki tuarua

Kupu o te wiki - Taumāhekeheke o te ao (Olympics)

Values/Disposition of the week: Whanaungatanga

Kia ora e te whānau

We welcome new student Otis to Y1.  Nau mai, haere mai ki Te Kura o Manga Kawari.

Wiki tuarua: What a fantastic start to the third term! We were all proud of how the ākonga arrived back in our spaces, with growing independence, stacking lunches, ensuring their drink bottle was in the right place, and helping their friends put out the chairs. It is a great way to start the morning, and we love to see the children demonstrating whānaungatanga by being team players. The junior team is excited to start the 2024 mid-way journey with a fantastic group of positive, hardworking students.

Dispositions and Values: We will examine different aspects of the school values and work together to achieve and understand them as a community. 

This term will focus on reflective learning, which is a process where students describe their learning, how it changed over the course of the term, and how it might relate to future learning experiences. Reflection is about students becoming aware of their own thinking processes, and being able to make those transparent to others

Cyber safety/We are digital leaders: We will be revisiting our cyber safety and digital leaders expectations from Term 1. Each child will resign the class document indicating that they understand the rules of how to use an electronic device safely. It is a good time revisit this learning with our new Y1s moving into the space. The ākonga may talk to you at home about this which is a positive first step to supporting them, if they are worried about using devices.

Literacy: The new children that joined us seem settled and keen to begin their accelerated learning. The reading groups have been rearranged to accommodate each child’s needs, whilst helping them to progress successfully in a timely manner. We do this so that when they reach the next stage of their literacy learning, each child has the tools to use a wide variety of vocabulary and sentences appropriate to write expressively in many different forms. (stories, poems, reports)

Genre writing: This term our focus will be on writing to inform. This is usually enjoyable as the tamariki can act as journalists, finding information, persuading an audience, with or without bias. Writing to inform is fantastic for getting pupils to think carefully about how they present information to their audience. The main aim of any piece of informative writing is to pass on information from the writer to the reader.

Maths: Students will be continuing the MNP (Maths No Problem) method of leaning in the math curriculum. The tamariki have been gaining tools and skills to work on challenging problems, to include word problems, that relate to real life situations. During this term we will visit. Pupils will be reviewing concepts on writing and counting money in addition to extending their knowledge of how to represent money using $ and c. They will be reinforcing previous counting methods using fives and tens to count quickly and efficiently, so please continue to practise skip counting at home.

P.E.: This terms P.E. will be on students focus on improving and applying their basic skills in games. They play simple games that demand simple choices and decisions, such as using space to avoid opponents, keep the ball, and score points. The ākonga love this type of friendly competition, it teaches them how to be a good sport, and a team player.

Inquiry: Inquiry will have a major scientific lent this term. During the first five to six weeks, we will be looking at ‘Floating and Sinking’ It provides opportunities for children to directly observe how everyday objects behave in water and to investigate the factors that determine whether an object will float or sink. As you can see from then newsletter photo, the first lessons this week have been a hit!

Term 3 Reminders:

Hot kai (food): Hot kai is back from Monday to Thursday. Ākonga can bring to kura (school) precooked kai, wrapped in tin foil with their name clearly on it for heating. This is placed in the oven and slowly heated through the day. Please note there is no hot kai on a Friday.

Pātara wai (drink bottle): Please ensure your child has a drink bottle at school

Whare pukapuka (Library): Library Day is Friday

Hākinakina (PE) : PE is on Monday and Friday, please ensure your ākonga has correct footwear to take part e.g. gum boots are very hard to run in!

Ngā mihi nui

The Junior Learning Team