Revisiting climate change, learning ball skills and developing a deeper understanding of how to learn were our Week 4 focuses here in Pekapeka!

Tamariki are eagerly discussing how to learn as we revisited our school values through writing this week. Last week the focus was on Whanaungatanga, this week Kaitiaki and Ako. The tamariki are developing an understanding of what this actually looks like in practice by sharing their experiences, whilst practising simple sentences independently. Today our Year ones wrote about a wee yellow bird that Miss Latham and Miss P rescued in the staff car park last night. This will be shared on Seesaw as a piece of WOW work early next week!

Structured Literacy: Tamariki are working hard learning their letters, spelling patterns and strengthening their phonemic awareness with a Term 4 intensive with Marina from RTLit. It is really exciting to see the tamariki progress and their ability to move through the stages with their reading. 

Maths: The year 1 tamariki are progressing through Book C and have been learning about doubles using numbers up to 10. The language we used was "double is when we add the number to itself." For example 2+2=4 and 8+8=16. Tamariki made the discovery that when we double in order from 1-10 the total goes up in twos and is always an even number. When demonstrating this on two, tens frames where the tamariki were then able to determine that an even number always had a 'mate'. 

The Year 0's have just finished Book A of MNP and will be revisiting concepts from this book for the rest of the year in order to consolidate our learning and apply it in different contexts. 

Inquiry: Shine-be the change: We revisited climate change this week in order to understand how we can be change agents and cultivate change for the greater good through our school values. We are creating some artwork to represent how climate change may affect our local area. We are exploring pollution, drought, rubbish and plastic and how impactful we as humans can be, whether intentional or not. The intention is to create awareness with our tamariki, how to solve problems and learn how to be responsible consumers and producers. We will then be coming up with solutions to solve these issues through the lens of 5 and 6 year olds. 

PE: We are tapping into our sporting abilities for the rest of the term across various codes. We will be teaching the tamariki adapted games relating to Cricket, Basketball, Volleyball and Tee ball through rotations. Here they will be learning ball skills and striking and fielding skills that will ensure success as they take the court/pitch! We are looking forward to seeing their competitive sides flourish with a mini Tournament at the end of the year and maybe even go head to head with a Syndicate who is willing to take us on! 

Reminders: 

-Beach Education: We need more parents for the Beach Education days in December. This is on the 12th and 13th of December. I have put a post on Hero with the appropriate forms that we need you to fill out as a parent volunteer. Apologies that the link for the police vet did not work in the Hero notice yesterday.  This should be resolved now so please go in and fill this out as soon as possible. Please bring in your driver's license so I can take a photo copy of your ID by Wednesday next week. These take up to 6 weeks to process so it is essential that is prioritised please. The links are also here:

PARENT HELPERS: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdmurdJtN6BoSWhG1erwLPqiJEjMj0CnNVI95li7IO3T3Pfng/viewform?usp=sf_link

Being a parent volunteer: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScMgGSoAFwPXuN-6VOj4ltMrCyM6sSd5mi9KhS2i-fbpuQSIw/viewform?usp=sf_link

POLICE VET: Please see below to fill out a digital POLICE VETTING FORM and email to Sally as soon as possible.

-Production: We are learning our National Anthem and One day a Taniwha as waiata for our end of year production. Please practise these at home Here are the following links:

National Anthem NZ Sign Language actions to learn

Taniwha Lyrics

-End of Day: Please could all whānau wait outside of our Pekapeka classroom at the end of the day. We are trying to support tamariki to be more independent and pack their own bags. It also means there is less congestion in the doorway for our tamariki to exit. Thanks for your cooperation! 

-Sunblock: Please sunblock your tamaiti each morning, as we re-apply at lunch time. We encourage the tamariki to put on the sunblock themselves and they have a big mirror to do this. 

Have a wonderful weekend team, and we look forward to seeing you next week! 

Ngā mihi, 

Penny, Juanita, Ella, Holly, Alison, Alice, Ida and Sally