Term 3 Week 10

Hasn’t the term flown by so fast. Only one more week and it’s holiday time again! Thank You all so much for your continued support and cooperation over the past few months. We have a busy week ahead.

Principals Luncheon

On Monday Mr Macmillan will be entertaining some lucky children who have been working hard this term. Well done to our students who have been chosen.

The children chosen from Kakano 2 this term are:

Christian, Alex & Lauren

Parent Input into 2022 Class Placement

Last week all students should have brought home a letter inviting parents to provide some information for consideration regarding the 2022 class placement of their child. A copy of the letter and form is here. Please note if you have more than one child at school we need you to complete a form for each child. 

 

Reminder: The final day for these forms to be returned is Friday 1 October. Due to Covid Level 2 restrictions, we suggest the form is returned to the Class Teacher who will then pass it on to the School Office.

Catholic Schools Day

This Wednesday is Catholic Schools Day. Catholic Schools Day is about celebrating our unique Catholic Character, in faith, excellence and service. It is another opportunity to celebrate the taonga of Catholic Education for which we are kaitiaki. The theme for Catholic Schools Day, 2021 is Tūrangawaewae: Catholic Schools - A Place to Stand. This will involve a day of fun activities for our students. Children are allowed to wear mufti on Catholic Schools Day - no donation required.

Baptism Course 

A letter was sent home last week to our Kakano families inviting you to consider having your child baptised. Mr Macmillan has requested the responses to be returned by this Tuesday (28th Sept.) please.

PTA Raffle Tickets

Our annual PTA Raffle Tickets will be sent home on Friday. This is such an important fundraiser for the year. Please try to support our school by selling your tickets. All tickets need to be returned to school next term.

Term 4 - Summer Uniform

With only one week left in term 3, now is a good time to get out your children’s summer uniforms to see what still fits. All children are expected to be in full NAMED summer uniform from day 1 in Term 4. HATS are a compulsory part of the summer uniform. If you need to purchase new uniform items, you can do so through the school app or through the uniform shop. The uniform shop is open Mon & Fri 8:30-9:00 and Wed 2:30-3:00 during term time.

The Week Ahead

Monday

Principals luncheon

Tuesday

Kakano 2 Library

Wednesday

Kakano 1 Library

Catholic Schools Day

Thursday

Kakano 3 Library

Cricket sessions for Kakano 1-3

Friday

End of term - school finishes at 2:45

Term 3 Week 9

It has been wonderful to see the sun this weekend, after what felt like a very long week with rain and wind. The children were so happy to be able to get back outside on Friday. The weather forecast for this week is looking a lot better for most of the week. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

Keeping Ourselves Safe

We have been learning what we need to do to keep ourselves safe. Three important pieces of information that we need to know are: our first and last names, our address (letterbox number and street name), and our phone number (either parents or caregivers mobile number). Constable Bryan and Bobby have helped learn what to do when we are in large spaces where it can be easy to get lost. We have also been learning the correct names for body parts. It is essential that we are able to give the true body part name/s - especially if we are injured or hurt and need to tell a doctor or nurse what hurts.

Wig Wednesday

Last Friday the Young Vinnies organised for everyone to wear wigs. Thanks so much to everyone who took part or made a donation. The Child Cancer fund will be receiving $580. This is such a wonderful amount to have been raised.

Term 4 - Summer Uniform

With only two weeks left in term 3, now is a good time to get out your children’s summer uniforms to see what still fits. We’ve definitely noticed the children getting taller over this term. All children are expected to be in full NAMED summer uniform from day 1 in Term 4. HATS are a compulsory part of the summer uniform. If you need to purchase new uniform items, you can do so through the school app or through the uniform shop. The uniform shop is open Mon & Fri 8:30-9:00 and Wed 2:30-3:00.

Our Learning 

Literacy = sounds in sequence. 

We are looking at how we use sounds, small words and bits of words that we know to make our reading and spelling easier.

Numeracy = reading the problem. 

We are reading word problems to look for clues about how to solve them. You can talk to your children about words that could mean add (join, more…) or subtract (take away, minus, disappear…). 

Religious Education = Church

We are learning to recognise that our parish, as it gathers, celebrates, lives and prays as a community, is a part of the Church which Jesus founded. It is a sign which brings about God’s presence and love in the world. 

The Week Ahead

Monday

Tuesday

Kakano 2 Library

Wednesday

Kakano 1 Library

Thursday

Kakano 3 Library

Friday

Term 3 Week 8

It was lovely to see everyone back at school on Thursday and Friday. There were many delighted giggles and lively conversations as the children reconnected with their friends. Thank you mums/dads/caregivers for following the level 2 protocols, helping to keep everyone safe. 

Te Wiki o te Reo Maori - This week is Maori language week. We will be learning some new phrases and waiata throughout the week to celebrate Te Wiki o Te Reo Maori. You may like to try these ones at home together - Mahunga Pakihiwi with Miss Nicky,  Maori Made Easy - with Scotty Morrison, Te Iwi E - an action waiata we sing during whanaungatanga time, Tena Koe - greetings waiata.

Our Learning 

Literacy = sounds in sequence. 

We are looking at how we use sounds, small words and bits of words that we know to make our reading and spelling easier.

Numeracy = reading the problem. 

We are reading word problems to look for clues about how to solve them. You can talk to your children about words that could mean add (join, more…) or subtract (take away, minus, disappear…). 

Religious Education = God

We are learning to recognise that God’s many gifts to people are a sign of God’s love. God’s creation is a sign of his love. Through the gift of life, we are also a sign of God’s love and are growing to be the best person we can be through God’s love.

The Week Ahead

Monday

Tuesday

Kakano 2 Library

Wednesday

Kakano 1 Library

Thursday

Kakano 3 Library

Friday

Wear a wig Friday - Bring a gold coin donation as we are raising money for the Child Cancer Foundation. Be as colourful and crazy as you like with your wigs and show your support for children, and their families, dealing with cancer.

Term 3 Week 7 - Lockdown Home Learning

What an amazing group of parents and kids we have in our Kakano 1, 2, 3 whanau. It’s been fantastic to see you online again and you’re all doing a great job with your phonics. We are blown away by the creations you are posting on Educa - keep them coming. We love seeing how your imaginations are taking off with our learning challenges.

This week is Tongan Language Week. Malo e lelei is hello in Tongan. Nofo a is goodbye in Tongan. Fefe hake? is how are you? These greetings are informal greetings in the Tongan language. If you would like to learn some more phrases this website - Useful Tongan Phrases - is helpful. Here is a link to the Tongan Alphabet Song and Tongan Welcome Song.

Level 3

We are staying in Level 3 until Monday when we will hear from Aunty Jacinda about what our next step is. We are all prepared for another week of online learning - if this ends up being the case. Should we be lucky enough to return to school during the week - we are prepared for this too. 

Help for others

There may be families in the community that you know of who need some help and assistance. Please let us know of any families you think we can support at this time.

Phonics online

WOW! The children have taken off with our structured literacy programme and are right into the new way of learning phonics. We are going to continue our phonics programme this week and move into doing a lesson a day. If you miss a day please don’t panic. Each new lesson recaps what was taught the previous day, before moving into a new skill to learn. Please let your child’s teacher know which times and days suit best for you and your whanau - you can book the whole week at once if you wish to or you can send a daily email. This will help us to know who to send the invites to, as each new meeting has a different code generated.

Sunshine Reading

Well done to those of you who have done your reading and reading activities in Sunshine Books. We will assign new books this coming week for you to try. 

Superkid Awards

St Mary’s School had another virtual assembly this week. These are the children from Kakano 1, 2 and 3 who received a Super Kids award. Great work Super Kids!  Here is the link to our online assembly.

Learning slides

The slides below will outline the learning for the week, update you on anything new and offer times for your child to meet with us online.  You are most welcome to join us for these sessions, especially the Monday chats. The Monday meetings will outline the learning for the week and will act as a check in to see how we are all going.  Please advise your child’s teacher which days/times you would like to join us. You can do this in one email or daily emails.

Term 3 Week 6 - Lockdown Home Learning

Well done everyone, we have all survived our first full week of Online Learning. It was so lovely to see your children's faces on our zoom/meet sessions. The children coped really well and shared lots of stories and fun. Thanks for helping your child to upload their wonderful stories onto Educa. This is an awesome way for us to interact with each other. Please keep uploading the stories and photos-we just love receiving them.

Level 3/4

We will be staying at Level 4 until Tuesday at 11:59pm. After this we should be moving to Level 3. We are waiting for the Ministry of Education to update Alert Level 3 guidelines which might be different from last year. Once we have received these we will let you know the plan. In the meantime, could you please complete a Level 3 survey for each child you have in a class at school. The survey needs to be completed by 9am Monday 30th August. Thanks to those parents and caregivers who have taken the time to fill in the form already.

The links to the survey are below:

Year 2 Classes

Kakano 1

Kakano 2

Kakano 3

Help for others

There may be families in the community that you know of who need some help and assistance. Please let us know of any families you think we can support at this time.

Phonics online

This week we will be trialing our new phonics lessons online from Monday to Thursday. Some of your children may find this a little easy at first. We would like them to continue with the programme to understand how it runs and reinforce the spelling rules that will be covered. Please, can your child bring a whiteboard and marker or a pen and paper, if you have them, to the session.

Sunshine Classics-Reading

It's awesome to see our students reading the Sunshine Classic books. This will be their reading until we return to school at Level 2. When your child has finished reading we would like them to complete the activities that go with each book. This will help their understanding of the story. There is an option to record their reading. We are enjoying being able to listen to the reading fluency and hear the strategies that our kids are using. We can use these recordings to give feedback and know what support to give.

Learning through play

Our ‘normal’ 9am-3pm day is jam-packed with learning. However, it is important to remember that only a part of this time, for your child, is in formal and intensive individual or small group teaching. The normal attention span of a 6-7 year old is only 12-18minutes so we don’t tend to stay focused on one activity for more than 20minutes. Learning through play helps your child to practice new skills, explore, experiment, discover, and solve problems in imaginative and playful ways. This week, we have included a curriculum slide so that you can see how our play activities link to the NZ Curriculum. Just going for a walk and talking about the things that you can see, hear, feel… helps build their science, social studies, maths and literacy skills. Cooking is maths, science, literacy and key competencies. Helping with household chores is social studies, key competencies, maths, technology… Stay calm and play on = you are doing a great job! 

Super Kids Awards

This week St Mary’s School had a virtual assembly. These are the children from Kakano 1, 2 and 3 who received a Super Kids award. Well done!

Learning slides

The slides below will outline the learning for the week, update you

on anything new and offer times for your child to meet with us

online. You are most welcome to join us for these sessions,

especially the Monday chats. The Monday meetings will outline the learning for the week and will act as a check-in to see how we are all going. The learning will be in a slide deck that will be embedded with this post. You should be able to move through the slides and click on the links. Let us know if you have any problems. On Friday our google meet sessions will be a Show and Tell for the children to share their news.

Online chat schedule for the rest of the week

Please email me with a day and time that you would like to join in - micheller@stmarysrotorua.school.nz 

Remember you do not have to be in a meet everyday. 

Term 3 Week 5 - Lockdown & Home Learning

We’re hoping to see you all at school later this week but, just in case, we’re planning for a longer lockdown and have activated Learning from Home Programmes. We’ve done this before and we will work together again to make this lockdown as easy, fun and entertaining as possible and we’ll still keep learning. 

Every Sunday we will send out a learning post (as usual). This post will outline the learning for the week, update you on anything new and offer times for your child to meet with us online.  You are most welcome to join us for these sessions, especially the Monday chats. The Monday meetings will outline the learning for the week and will act as a check-in to see how we are all going.  The learning will be in a slide deck that will be embedded with this post. You should be able to move through the slides and click on the links. Let us know if you have any problems.

We are well aware that many of you will be working from home and juggling a million other things. There is no pressure from us - we’re in the same boat. The learning that we send out will be largely play-based and independent. The reading is also an independent activity but, as it requires a device, half an eye on things is probably not a bad idea. We have some very clever tools for monitoring the reading from our homes but we need to be sure that the kids are doing the work by themselves or we aren’t going to be able to help.

K123 work as a collaborative team and we know what it’s like to spend all day with our little bundles of mischief and emotion. If you have any issues, worries or even a funny story that you just have to share we are only an email/post away. 

We are ready for online learning but need to know a few things from you.

• Did you read this on Educa or the class blog? 

• Do you have internet and a device that your child can use? If not, have you filled in the digital help form? Link Here

•  Is there anything else that we need to know that might help us support you and your child better?

PLEASE, respond by email to micheller@stmarysrotorua.school.nz. This will help me to check that I also have the correct email for you - I will need email addresses for online chats. If I don’t get a reply, I will have to assume that there is an issue accessing online learning and will start ringing around to check on you (that’s not supposed to sound threatening - hehehe).