Week 6 Update

Tena Koutou Katoa,

I can't believe how fast this year is whipping by. The speech competition was fantastic. The standard was really high this year and Room 2 had a large number of students representing the school in the inter-school competition at the library: Aonghus, Louis, Emily, Rosy, Malika, Kiva and Saxon. I thought that all the students in the class were excellent though and would have been happy for anyone in the class to represent the school. It was great too see so much parental support too, so well done you guys!

Here's the heads up for a few things that are coming up over the next 2 weeks.

• If speech cue cards have been taken home, please send them along to school again. I have plans to get the students to film and edit their speech into a movie as a way of learning how to use iMovie.
• Daffodil Day is this Friday. We've started to make plans in class. Please ask your child what they're doing and help them organise anything they need to organise before the day. I've told them that they will have time in class to make posters and other similar stuff. If they want to bake cakes or similar activities, this will need to be coordinated in conjunction with a supportive parent... Let me know if there are any problems. 
• Science Fair is the week after. We will have time in class to work on experiments. The students have a couple of options for experiments that I can coordinate at school. Most have opted to do other experiments. If your child has opted to work on their own experiment, they need to source the required stuff and bring it in to school. Please check with your child ahead of time and let me know if there is any confusion. They will need to have all the stuff for the experiment at school next Monday.
• Year 4 students go to hockey on Tuesday.
• Year 5 students go to hockey Wednesday.
• Year 5/6 maths competition is on Tuesday. Room 2 has a couple of teams entered in conjunction with Room 1. 

Rock On,

Mr M

Week 4 update

Kia Ora All,

Great job to all those hardworking parents who dedicated home learning time to helping their child out with their speech. It's a big job and I think all the students have done really well. I'm looking forward to hearing them next week. I'll video them and put them up on the blog for everyone to appreciate, so stay tuned.

The next writing topic we're going to have a crack at is a character portrait. The difference between a good character portrait and a less interesting one usually boils down to subject choice. Please have a chat to your child about whom they might like to write about. Someone special or significant in their lives who they know quite well is ideal. Grandparents, parents, past teachers, aunts, uncles or similar are all great choices. Classmates, friends and siblings aren't generally good choices because they're a bit too close to them and, as such, hard to write about with any clarity. If they have a picture or something that reminds them of their special person, it can be helpful to bring it in and have it on their desk as they write. I'm happy to photocopy or print photos off at school.

Rock on,
Mr M

Speeches

The Tamariki of the mighty Ruma Rua have been assiduously working away to complete their oratorial masterpieces. I've been guiding and modelling as they've progressed, but also want to let them have ownership of how they go about putting their speech together so that they produce something that is genuinely theirs and that they can be proud of. I've shown them how to craft an effective introduction and talked about how to put facts into their own words. The main thing I've focussed on is putting personality into their speeches. Using exciting words and putting a little humorous comment in after every fact are two things that I've modelled and encouraged. As we only have one week left, I respectfully encourage you to ask your child to read you their speech and give them some feedback. Year 4's need to have a 2.30 - 3 minute long speech, Year 5's need 3 - 4 minutes.

Rock On,

Mr M