Health -

All students will take part in the Keeping Ourselves Safe programme in the middle of this term.

Keeping Ourselves Safe is a comprehensive child abuse prevention programme for schools, developed in conjunction with NZ Police. Its purpose is to:

teach students a range of safe practices that they can use when interacting with other people, both online and face to face
teach students how to recognise the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships, and encourage students who have been or are being abused to seek help
prevent abuse by making parents and teachers more aware of their responsibilities to help students avoid abuse.

We work with our Community Constable, Tania Wansink, to deliver this programme. Tania is hosting a parent information meeting on Thursday 15th August at 9:00 am in the school staff room. You can also access parent information here: KOS Parent Information

Inquiry Learning Area - The Performing Arts

The Big idea:

We can share our feelings, ideas and stories through the performing arts.

Lines of Inquiry:

In music we explore sounds as ways of expressing ourselves.
In drama we use our imagination to tell stories.
There are key elements that we use to create dance so we can tell a story.

Students will explore, refine and communicate ideas as they connect thinking, imagination, senses and feelings to create works and respond to the works of others.

Literacy -

Reading:

We are noticing that many children are not reading every night - please try to read with your child every day.

Why is daily reading with or to your child important? It enriches their language development on multiple levels. The most obvious benefits: better language skills, helps with reading comprehension, listening skills and overall literacy. Shared reading can teach children many new skills.

This term we have a focus on locating information from text and pictures with both a fiction and non fiction emphasis. Don't forget your child has a poem in their poem folder on Mondays. Please feel free to revisit and read through all of the awesome poems there already.

Writing:

This term, we will be focusing on:

Writing a sentence using a capital letter, finger spaces and a full stop.

Writing sentences using “and, but or because”.

Checking to make sure our sentences make sense.

Using word cards and/or a dictionary to check for spelling of words.

Weeks 1-5 Narrative Writing

Narrative writing will include:

Characters - The people, creatures and animals that are in the story. These can be real or make-believe.

Setting - The place and time in the story

Problem - Something goes wrong or creates a problem for the character/s in the story

Solution - How the problem gets better - it could be fixed or solved.

We will take a look at Fairy Tales and other book characters.

Weeks 6-10 Descriptive Writing

Descriptive writing will include all of the 5 senses: sight, smell, touch, hearing, taste

The children are enjoying sharing their writing with you every week on Seesaw - please feel free to comment back on their writing. Look out for their progress posts - these will have a progress sticker on them.

Handwriting: Every week we focus on a new letter and number and practise writing our names correctly. Each child has a Stepsweb handwriting book and their own book to practise in. We also use mini whiteboards to practise and in our books.

StepsWeb: Your child uses StepsWeb during class time and this is also available for you to use at home. We are noticing a great improvement in spelling for those children that use this regularly. If you are having difficulty accessing StepsWeb at home, please contact your child’s teacher.

Oral Language: This is linked in with our Inquiry - talking and sharing in both small and large group discussions.

Library Day:

Mondays for Matai C, Matai W and Matai B.

Fridays for Matai M

Maths -

Number:

We will continue to focus on number knowledge. We will also be learning about multiplication and division. 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 Mathematics - Weeks 1-3 Time/Measurement/Weight and Length:

We will be learning:

Days of the Week

Months of the Year
Ordering our day - what time we wake up, have breakfast, go to school, have dinner/bedtime
How to tell the time (o’clock)
Quarter past/quarter to/half past - discussion on “past” and “to” and the 24 (digital) hour clock.
We will make our own clock.

Chat with your child about your day and what happens when. Make a schedule at home of what your day looks like using time.

Weeks 4-10 Multiplication/Division:

Please practise multiplication at home - starting with the x0, x2, x5, x10 times tables. How quickly can you answer? Can you answer the problem out of order and is 5 x 3 the same as 3 x 5? Remember multiplication is “groups of”.

Geometry: As we didn't get through all of our unit on Geometry last term, we will continue with Position and Orientation:

Up/down

Right/Left

North/South/West/East

Half turn/quarter turn

Specialist Subjects (Monday) -

PE:

Focus: Earn to Fern - Paris Olympics and Run, Jump, Throw

NZ Curriculum Key Concepts:

Experience creative, regular, and enjoyable physical activities and describe the benefits to well-being.
Describe how individuals and groups share characteristics and are also unique.
Learning about cultures through the games they play
Identify risk and use safe practices in a range of contexts
Identify personal qualities that contribute to a sense of self-worth
Practice movement skills and demonstrate the ability to link them in order to perform movement sequences

Music:

Focus: Identifying and playing along with cultural expressions in Music like rhythmic patterns and tempo; expressing Spring music through movement and singing.

NZ Curriculum Key Concepts:

1: Practical Knowledge: Keeping in time

2: Developing ideas: Making different musical patterns

3: Communicating and Interpreting: Working together.

4: Understanding context for different purposes and cultures. By acting and moving to songs.

Art:

Focus:Introducing form through sculpture. Extending their colour knowledge through exploring painting techniques.

NZ Curriculum Key Concepts:

Practical knowledge through exploring wet and dry media techniques
Practical knowledge through learning about 3D form with sculpture.
Developing ideas through creating their own individual artworks

In this issue

Welcome to Term 3 in Matai Team