Week 6 update

Kia Ora Koutou Katoa,

Last week felt like a big one - it was only the second 5 day week since school started!

We had Mike Ogle in to talk about Blue Whales last week. He had some great slides, photos and an amazing recording of whale sounds - not to mention his phenomenal knowledge. The students were enthralled for a good hour and would have carried on asking him questions if there had been time. 

During the meet the teacher evening there were some really good questions about how to get the kids writing at home, particularly boys who might be reluctant to write and find reading and maths much more appealing. I'd say go for shorter tasks and give them the opportunity to feel successful early. One thing I like doing is list writing, here's a list of possible topics:

• favourite toys

• parts of a motorbike

• favourite foods

• hated foods

• how to scare mum, dad, sister, brother etc

• scary things

• list of things to do on the ideal weekend

• stuff I'd rather be doing if I didn't have to write a list

Also, making quizzes is a really popular activity. Take this quiz with your child to see if making a quiz is right for you.

Should You Create a Quiz - Quiz Do you like creating crazy questions? Do you like asking people to make choices? Do you like thinking up things for people to make decisions about? Do you like coming up with questions and a variety of answers? Do you like Quizzes? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above questions you will definitely enjoy creating your own quiz!

Mr M's guide to creating a quiz

Your quiz should have:

• 5 - 10 interesting questions.
• Appropriate format e.g., multiple-choice where you give the quizee several answers to choose from, a straight yes/no quiz or invent a scoring system.
• Your quiz can be as silly or sensible as you like.
• Don’t forget to include a scoring system

Good luck and rock on,

Mr M

Spelling Ideas

Kia Ora Koutou Katoa,

Bored with copying out spelling words over and over again to learn them? Here are some other ideas that you could try. Sometimes using different visual or tactile activities can be effective depending on how your child learns best.

Rock On,

Mr M

Week 5

Kia Ora Koutou Katoa,

Week 5 is upon us already. Here's the heads up.

• Great job with homework overall. Fantastic to see some really solid home learning going on. Just a gentle reminder to send your child's homework book to school on Monday as it's a real pain to set them up, check spelling etc if it isn't at school.
• I'm going to be testing essential spelling this week so you'll probably notice a difference in the types of words your student brings home in the next week or 2. Currently they're from inquiry, incorrectly spelt words from their writing or interesting vocabulary from around the classroom.
• We're starting numeracy in Maths this week. For this term in numeracy, we're spending roughly a 5 week block looking at addition and subtraction. Maths Buddy tasks will be set weekly that tie in with this so please make the most of that opportunity if you have the internet at home. If you don't, your child still gets plenty of time at school to complete tasks.
• Meet the teacher evening is this Wednesday. Room 2 is at 6.30 I believe.

Rock on,

Mr M

Welcome to Week 4

Kia ora Koutou Katoa,

Welcome to Week 4. Here is a quick heads up about what's happening.

• Statistics is still on the go. I think the settings on the quizzes that I sent through last week may have been wrong as I had feedback from a parent that they were unable to access them. Could you please click here and give them another crack for us? If you still can't access, please let me know. 
• Guitar and ukulele lessons are go. Had a fun first session last Thursday. If your child is participating, feel free to add that into the the 'Extra Curricula" section of the weekly homework.
• Please send your child's homework book to school every Monday.
• Meet the teacher evening is this Wednesday. Room 2 kicks off at 6.30pm. 
• The whale Inquiry is progressing. I'm looking at booking an expert to come in and give a talk soonish. At this point we're up to publishing a little presentation about Tooth Whales.

Rock On,

Mr M

Room 2's Amazing Questionnaires

Kia Ora All,

We've been learning about statistics by creating surveys and graphing the results. Here are our latest questionnaires which we created using Google Forms. Please vote for your favourites and keep and eye out for the results, which we'll share with you when we're done.

Rock On,

Mr M

Some photos of the first two weeks.

Here are some pictures of the beginning of our writing programme in week 1.

Here we are brainstorming what we already know about the focus questions that we're going to be learning about as part of our World of Whales inquiry.

 Learning how to play the maths game Four In A Row. Hopefully you've played this with your child as part of home learning.

Here we are doing our first piece of publishing: a desk mat displaying interesting information about ourselves. 

Rock On,

Mr M

Welcome to 2018!

Kia Ora Koutou Katoa,

Harere mai and welcome to 2018. It looks like it's going to be a cracker year with a great bunch of kids. 

I had a super holiday break, mostly hanging around the Bay with my family, taking the kids swimming every day and generally enjoying life in paradise. 

Class Programme

Maths: We're starting off the year with a statistics unit. We'll be surveying the class and school community about various favourite things, organising the results, graphing them and interpreting the graphs. If you're looking for home learning to fit in with this you could create a survey with your child, record the results on a tally chart and create a bar graph showing the results.

Reading: For the first two to three weeks I'll be doing some group work with the students and also the usual testing to see where they're at so that I can determine what their learning needs are. I aim to set the scene for a positive year of reading and actively model the enjoyment of books. 

Writing: For the first few weeks of the writing programme I have some fun and engaging writing activities planned, as well as some activities that will help me determine student needs. As with reading, the first few weeks are about getting to know the students as writers and setting the tone for a fun year of writing. 

Inquiry: The Inquiry topic that I have planned for this term is called The World of Whales. To introduce the topic, Mr Cullen came into class the other day to show the students some of the amazing photos he's taken while diving with whales and also some pictures of local whale strandings. I've planned about 5 weeks of worth of different learning activities covering various aspects such as: what whales are, how they live, and why they are becoming endangered. After we complete the first 5 weeks of learning, students will decide on their own questions to research. We'll post some writing and videos of what we're up to on the blog as the term progresses. 

PE: Swimming is the main for focus this term - please send togs along with your child every day. We'll also be working on small ball skills.

Te Reo Maori: We had our first whole school Kapa Haka session on Thursday, the students were really enthusiastic about it and I thought they made a great start. We'll also be learning a basic mihi over the first few weeks. A great home learning task around this would be to talk to your child about a significant river and mountain associated with wherever they are from as this is part of the mihi. For example, those from Takaka will talk about Parapara as their mountain and Parawhakaoho, Takaka or Motupipi as their river. If you don't know the te reo Maori names for the mountain or river, it doesn't matter - we can look them up at school. 

Homework: Those parents who had students in my class last year will notice that I have a more prescribed homework system this year. I've reverted back to a system I used a few years ago before starting a blog for my classes as I hope that it will be more accessible to the parent community out here. I understand that there isn't always time for homework, but I do hope that you all take advantage of the homework I send home regularly. Please send the homework book along to school every Monday. 

Guitar / ukulele lessons: This year I'm going to run guitar and ukulele lessons once a week during a break time. If you'd like to sign your child up for lessons, please send me an email at: tmcarthur@motupipi.school.nz. I'll be in touch when I've got an idea of how much interest there is - if there is a lot of interest then I may have to put some students on a wait list. The lessons will suit beginners and students who have some experience. You will need to have a guitar or ukulele at home to practice on. The lessons are geared towards giving students an introduction to the instrument. The lessons are free, but it is expected that there is a commitment to practicing regularly.

Communication: As always, we have an open door policy here at Motupipi. Please feel free to pop in and say hi. If you have questions, concerns or similar you can email me, ring me at school or pop in to see me. There is also a parent / teacher communication section on the homework sheets, which I'll try to make sure I read weekly. 

Rock On,

Mr M