Kia ora, whānau,
We've had a wonderful fortnight, and once again, we've been very busy and our days have been full of fun.
Nicola and Chelsea's Home Groups have 'moved' over to Kōmanawa, where they are starting and finishing each day. Inbetween times, our Structured Literacy and Maths interchanges are still taking place. The children have embraced our new arrangements with typical flexibility and willingness! Teachers have been enormously impressed with the seamless and sensible way the children have moved between spaces, following the lead of one of their teachers whenever they need to transfer. Congratulations, tamariki - we are all very proud of you.
How cute were the children on Friday, dressed in their onesies and pyjamas for our Mid-Winter Breakfast at school! Thanks you very much to all of those families who were able to contribute a can of food for donating to the City Mission.
Kinetic Letters:
The children continue to work very hard on their handwriting skills through the Skip and Bounce handwriting programme. This programme involves practice in several areas which contribute towards children being able to produce legible writing with ease and fluency, including:
- correct pencil and pen grip
- finger strength and dexterity exercises
- core strength exercises
- tummy lying, with strong arms and straight legs, to help strengthen the shoulder girdle.
Our monkeys, Skip and Bounce, are always on the look out for those children who are putting great effort into their handwriting. Teachers are always thrilled to see children deliberately transferring their handwriting skills into their Structured Literacy lessons.
Learning Through Play:
We are always delighted to see the different forms of play which the children engage in. Sometimes the children's play might relate to different curriculum areas (for example, Science and Technology) and sometimes the play might take the form of 'role play'. Some of the children have created a game called 'Puppy School'. This game continued throughout last week, and as the days went by, the children realised that they needed more and more resources for their game, including their own karakia and karakia kai, some toys for the puppies (bones and balls), some stickers (!), and a computer for the puppy teacher.
Structured Literacy Parent Meetings:
We hope that those of you who weren't able to attend one of these meetings held earlier in Term 1, either have (last Thursday) or are able to attend on either Tuesday (7:00 - 8:00 p.m.) or Thursday (9:00 - 10:00 a.m.) this week coming. These meetings are being run by Caroline Morritt, our Resource Teacher of Literacy. Caroline is a mine of information and is very happy to answer any questions which you might have. She is also able to refer you to specific youtube clips and websites which will be of enormous value to you, as your children are learning to read and write. Here is the link to the video of a child demonstrating the pure sounds for each of the letters of the alphabet. We have shared this before, but thought it might be of help for those parents of children who are newer to school.
Have a wonderful week to come everyone!
Ngā mihi mahana ki a koutou,
Jo, Stacey, Nicola, Chelsea, Tracey and Elizabeth
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