Wow!  Week Four is over and we are almost half way through the term.  It is flying by.

Here is an update on what we are doing:

Reading
Everyone is bringing home a book four nights a week and their poem book on Fridays.  Please have your child read the book to you.  This reinforces their learning from the day which is things like using the picture and letter sounds to help them work out words.

Writing
We are writing recounts (retelling events) and started this week with a piece about our PE lesson with Mr R.  You are very welcome to come and look at their publishing folders in class before school.  If you can't do that, please contact me and I can send you a PDF of some of their work by email.

During writing, students talk about our topic, watch it being modelled, listening to the things I need to think about when writing. 

There is a focus on: finger spacing between words; capital letters at the start, and full stops at the end, of sentences; writing on the line from the left to the right.  

As well as this we are learning to put our recount in the right order with an opening sentence telling the reader Who, What, Where and When then three sentences detailing First, Next, Last followed by how the student felt.  

We then go back and edit our work, checking for a particular thing such as full stops and capitals as well as 'try lines' under the words we sounded out using our alphabet knowledge.

Maths
We are working on knowing our numbers up and down to 20 really, really well and are also learning our numbers to 100.  Learning what makes 5 (such as 1+4 = 5) or 10, for students who know the former, will also be explored during the term.

Handwriting
This is done four days a week and we have done the letters L, H and B.  We are also practising writing our first and last names as well as the day of the week and the short date (26.02.16).

PE
We are practising throwing, catching, rolling and playing with small balls and are working on our fitness.

Coming Up
Week 6 we are in the Art Room to explore blending colours which I am looking forward to very much.  

Week 10 we are running the Kea Assembly on Friday afternoon and are practising songs and dances for it.  Our dance is "Awesome Rainbows" - the link is below.  We also use this for fitness if it's too hot to go outside and run around the field.

Another link below is for making an origami boat that we tried in class.  We are doing something like this, or drawing skills, once a week to help develop our fine motor- and hand-eye skills.

Thank You!
Thank you for continuing to have students at school on time, well rested with good lunches.  Thank you too for having water in their drink bottles instead of cordial; it keeps them much more hydrated during the day.

Warm regards
Miriam