Newsletter # 3

Room One News

Term Three

Welcome to Room Ones 2013 Kura Kid newsletter.

July/Aug, 2013

Important Dates:
Thur 1 Aug Wed 14 Aug Fri 16 Aug Thur 29 AUg Mon 23Wed 25 Sept Student Conferences Katikati Museum Trip Sports Prize-giving Digi Awards Reading (Book) Fair

Term Three
The year is speeding by and Term Three is already upon us to those of you busy with calving I hope things go smoothly and the mild weather continues. Term Three sees a time of exciting change for Kuranui School with the arrival of Mrs Hastings as principal. Room One will be privileged to have Mrs Hastings teach one block per day in our classroom for the first half of the term. I know the children will all make her feel very welcome and show her their multitude of talents. During the term one of our reading focuses is determining the authors purpose and showing how we work this out. Later in the term our whole school is holding a Reading Fair to demonstrate our growing understanding of the authors purposes and showcase a combination of reading, writing and oral skills. Each child will create a display about their favourite book and present a short persuasive speech convincing an audience of how wonderful the book is. Our General Knowledge quizzes worked well and provided some interesting discussions so will continue again this term.

Thur 27 Sept

Agriculture Day

Where to find us:

http://room1kuranui.weebly.com http://room1kuranui2013.blogspot.com

e-mail:

katreenad@gmail.com or kuranuikids@gmail.com

Newsletter # 3

Term Three

Building Blocks for Success

Reading Spelling Writing - Maths
Spelling: Between three and ten words will come home on Friday afternoons in an Own-Work book, please help your child practise reading and writing these. Suggestions on ways to do this can be found at the front of their own-work book. These books should return to school every day with testing being on Fridays. Writing: Term Three sees us experimenting persuasive writing, this will include writing arguments, some of which will be presented orally. We will continue working on correct letter formation, using our spelling words accurately in our personal writing and reading our Reading: Monday to Thursday home readers will come home with your child. Please take the time to listen to your child read, discuss the text and sign your childs Read It book each night. Poem books will come home on Fridays, these need to be returned on Monday. Remember that having the same book more than once helps build fluency and encourages greater discussion and exploration of texts. To work towards the 100% club children need to read a minimum of five nights per week and get all their spelling words correct each week. work back (aloud) to check it makes sense. Poetry, personal recounts, emails, letters and questionnaires will also be a part of the programme. Our aim is to publish another class book this term so watch this space. Math: The alternate math strand this term is Geometry with a focus on shape and transformations. Once a solid knowledge base is formed we will apply these skills to create art work masterpieces. Ongoing work on developing knowledge of how numbers work, place value, addition and subtraction and instant recall of basic facts form the basis of our maths programme.

Topic Back to the Future

Our key question this term is How do our yesterdays impact our tomorrows? The context is imagining that if we were an explorer what would we have seen yesterday, today and tomorrow. The ultimate aim is to develop awareness about what life was like in our parents and grandparents era compared to our own and to then imagine and predict what life might be like in the future. How you can help? We are aiming to delve into different types of technology (children being able to choose their area of interest) and see how they came about and why, how they have changed over time and then create what we think they might be like in the future. Discuss what things were like when you were a child e.g. entertainment, school, travel, communication, etc. Help them talk to grandparents about this topic too