Swimming
The forecast at this stage is not looking great for our swimming days but please send the togs along just in case - Monday, Tuesday and Friday. Optional lunchtime swim for Year 1/2 on Monday lunchtime as well.
Welcome
This week we welcome Fabiana Preston to Kohara as part of her teaching requirements at the University of Canterbury. Fabiana will only be spending one day with us but will be in at Waimairi one day a week over the next few weeks, spending a day with various class levels.
Reading Reminders
Thank you for encouraging your children to put their reading folders in their tote trays each morning before school - this makes it so much quicker for our groups at reading time. Poetry folders go back in the green boxes on top of the tote trays on a Monday morning as well.
Projects
Many children are now underway with an individual or group project of their choosing. Our class name Kohara means 'to enthuse or be passionate about' and this is a big part of our class programme. The children drive the projects from their own interests in consultation with us, and we help facilitate or guide this for them. The end product is not necessarily the most important element as throughout the projects the children are learning many valuable skills - collaboration, problem solving, perseverance, sharing, oral language, taking a risk, trying something new, developing detail, observation, and many skills from across the curriculum.
Projects can be anything - you'll see a great variety over the year. They can be:
- box construction
- art
- science experiments
- woodwork
- gardening
- musical
- dance
- drama
- singing
- sewing
- making a game
- teaching others an activity - the list is endless...
When the children are not working instructionally with the teachers, they can work on their projects. Some projects are finished in a day and others take a few weeks. Some even develop into the next project! The children have to follow a structured sequence to complete their project.
1. Plan their idea and draw what it might look like.
2. Discuss it with a teacher (list what they need and talk about the purpose of it and the skills they will be developing).
3. Once they have the tick of approval they can make a start.
4. Once it's finished, they get a photo of it for their book and also for our class blog.
5. They share it with the class (great oral language opportunity) and then it is displayed on the trophy cabinet in class for others to admire and be inspired by.
6. Then they write about it in their writing book and reflect on how it went and any next steps or improvements they would make in the future.
The children do not have to work on their project everyday - some like to do a little bit every now and again and others like to work on it until it's completed. We are enjoying seeing the first round of projects starting - watch out for the finished ones on the blog!!
Scooters and Bikes
We have recently moved our scooter stand to the end of the walkway outside Kohara. We are working very hard on encouraging the children to take the time to park their scooters neatly in the stands so they are not left spread out across the path where people walk. Children with bikes can stand these up in the wee gap to the left of the scooter stand (bike helmets hanging on the handlebars).
Word Lists
We have been re-testing the children on their high frequency words. It is quite normal for children to forget a few over the long holiday break so we will be redistributing word lists over the next week. Some children may have previous ones to revise. Please feel free to use these however you'd like - you can cut the words out and use them as flash cards, stick different words in places around your house (putting a tricky one on the bathroom mirror to look at while brushing their teeth at night etc). We recommend that children who are just starting a new list don't try and learn all of them in one go. Start with the ones your child knows and just add a couple of new ones in with those, then as they become known, add a couple more. It is really helpful to continue to practise the words they already know as this keeps these fresh in their minds and helps them recall these more quickly within their reading and writing.
Thank You
A big thank you to everyone who came in over the last two weeks for parent teacher interviews. What a busy time but it was so lovely to meet up with you all and find out more about your child and your family. Don't forget you are welcome to pop in before or after school to chat or drop us an email. If you have an urgent message regarding your child please ring the office and they will let us know as we do not always check emails during the school day or when we are out on playground duty at break times.
Have a great week.
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