Health -

Students will learn about nourishment and food choices.

Inquiry Learning Area - Technology

Big Idea: People’s different choices in food reflect their family, culture, location and available resources.

Lines of Inquiry:

People choose, prepare, cook and eat food in different ways.
Our family, cultural background, location and resources influence the food we eat and how it is prepared.

For this inquiry, we will be looking at different food from around the world.

Literacy

Reading: Our ‘Terrific 10 Comprehension Strategy’ we will be focussing on is Asking and answering questions. Here is a great link with information on how to practise this at home: Asking questions

Writing:

This term, we will be focussing on Narrative writing. Students will work on writing stories, and learning about the characters, setting, problem and solution.

Character Descriptions

We will start with character descriptions. We learn about adjectives, and will use adjectives to describe our characters. We also focus on including similes and metaphors in our character descriptions.

Setting

After working on our character descriptions, we move on to the setting part of the story. Students work on writing descriptive settings—they need to paint a picture with their words.

We learn to use some of the 5 senses to help us with describing the setting.

Things we might see: Long, droopy branches; dark, spooky cave; dazzling blue river.

Things we might feel: warm breeze; rough pebbles; wet sand.

Things we might hear: gushing water; howling wind; rustling leaves.

Things we might smell: Salty air; sizzling sausages.

Phonics & Spelling: Spelling tests happen on Fridays. If possible, spelling words should be practised throughout the week. Encourage students to spell the words, and to use them in sentences. Spelling can also be practised on StepsWeb during the week.

Mathematics -

We will continue to focus on number knowledge and + - x ÷ number strategies. Please practise the times tables at home. Here are some good websites to help with learning the times tables:

Times Tables

Multiplication Fruit Splat

Multiplication Mayhem

Strand - Geometry:

Shape

We will be learning to:

Sort, compare and classify 2D and 3D shapes.
Explore and describe faces, edges, and corners of 2D and 3D objects.

Position & Orientation

We will be learning to:

Describe where objects are using the language of position.
Give and follow instructions using the language of position and direction.
Follow and give directions involving ½ and ¼ turns.
Give and follow directions using left, right, up, down, North, South, East and West.

Students will gain experience in using everyday language to describe position and direction of movement. Spatial understandings are developed in four types of questions: directions (which way?), distance (how far?), location (where?), and representation (what objects?).

At home, do some activities to extend your child’s knowledge of position in space. Look at maps in books or online. Make sure they understand words such as over and under, near and far, between, left and right. We will also be looking at North, South, West and East.

Digital Technology -

Students will be introduced to basic coding this term, using the Ozobots.

Te Reo Māori -

We are learning to use Te Reo Māori. We practise every morning, doing our daily timetable in English and Te Reo Māori. We practise our Waiako songs after the timetable.

PE (Thursday) -

Gym Fun and Fit for Life

NZ Curriculum Key Concepts:

Demonstrating safe practices when taking part in physical challenges.
Developing a wide range of movement skills in a gymnastics context
Developing long distance running skills
Exploring basic scientific principles of body function when exercising

Please ensure your child has suitable footwear for sport on this day. They are also welcome to wear the school PE uniform if they have it, but this is optional.

Music (Thursday) -

Focus: Music from different cultures makes us move and play differently in ways we can enjoy at school and at home.

NZ Curriculum Key Concepts

1: Practical Knowledge: Simple notation is a window into different kinds of Music

2: Developing ideas: We can play songs on a range of instruments.

3: Communicating and Interpreting: We communicate Music in ways we and our audience can enjoy.

4: Understanding context for different purposes and cultures. Each culture has a dress, sounds and movements that express their environment and traditions.

Library (Thursday)

Please remind students to return their library books on their library day, so they can get a new book to read.

In this issue

Pohutukawa Team Dates To Note