Aaaarrrggghh, I forgot to do the blog!

Most importantly...Cross Country tomorrow at 1.30pm if the weather holds.  Bring PE uniform, if you do not have a PE uniform just bring a pair of shorts.

A reminder...

Remember to bring your booster seats tomorrow for our trip to the fire station.  See you all in the morning, and a massive thanks to the parents who have agreed to help with transport.

Week 9

Gosh, almost the holidays again!! My how time flys.

We had a great treasure hunt on Friday, the clues were pretty tricky, however they managed to figure them all out and find the treasure in the end.  A big thanks to Oli and Elizabeth who teamed up to get the treasure out of the tree.

As the clues were all over the school, there was a lot of crazy running around, and they looked awesome in their dress-ups.  It's just the way a Friday should be.

A reminder that this Friday we are going to the fire-station in the middle block and we still need a little more help with transport, if you are able to help from 11.00am and 12.30pm, please let me know.

Also, remember that the Junior School Cross Country will be on the 23rd of October at 1.30, just in case you need to arrange some time off work to come and watch:)

The New Zealand Ballet visited on Thursday and two of their dancers came to talk to the children, we even got to practice a few moves...adorable.

The focus this week in the class will continue to be our writing and maths,  
We are learning how to solve maths problems using counting all or counting on strategies with numbers within 10. For example 4 and 5.
The most important thing is for the children to understand that when they are presented with a problem, they need to do something or get something to help them figure it out.
They can get something and make a set of 5 and a set of 4 and then join them together to find the answer, or they can put the bigger number (5) in their head and count on 6,7,8,9 to find the answer.

Thankfully, most of us have stopped guessing what the answer might be, if you get a chance to practice joining two sets to find the answer at home, that would be great.

 I am so impressed with the great reading going on at home and at school, well done to you all. We will continue learning how to take risks when we write and how to find words we need around the room for our writing.  
A great exercise to do at home is to help your child write one sentence about the book they were reading, something simple like "Who was your favorite character?" or "What colour was the cat?"  They can draw the picture and then "help" you with the spelling of the words. Nice and short, four or five words is ample.

I will be away at a course on Wednesday, so there will be a reliever in the class,   Have a great week eveyone.

Wednesday 9th September

Kia ora  whanau!!
Friday is mufti day...remember your gold coin donation.  
This works perfectly for our Golden Time as we would love to dress up.  
So it is up to you, come to school in your dress ups or we can put them on at lunchtime.  We will also be going on a treasure hunt, how exciting!!!

We went for a visit to the Church today and had a good look around.  In religious education we are learning about what it means to belong, we belong to a family, our school and our church. 

At assembly this morning, Pita-Pit from the Redwood Centre came to visit and let us sample some of their menu that will be available to order as of tomorrow.  I have included the details below, it is a good healthy option for a bought lunch.

We are very excited to announce that we have partnered with Pita Pit Rotorua to

provide a Healthy, Nutritious, Delicious and Affordable lunch option. Lunches 

will be available from next Thursday 10th of September 2015. Pita Pit Rotorua 

have put together a competitive menu for us, including 7 different flavours to 

choose from ranging from Happy Ham to Falafel, and the full range of salads that 

are available at their store. They will also be able to provide Charlies Juice Packs, 

Charlies Sipper Water, Cookies,  Brownie and sliced Apple. A Kids Pita including 

Lettuce, Cheddar Cheese, a choice of one sauce and two salads will cost $4.50.

Pita Pit will be using the www.lunchonline.co.nz platform for parents to order 

from. The cut off time for orders is 9.00am on the day, and you can also order in 

advance for up to 20 days. The lunches will be available on Tuesdays and 

Thursdays for the remainder of term 3 and term 4. Please go to 

www.lunchonline.co.nz register your children and link them to St Mary’s Catholic 

Primary School. Once you have set up your account you will need to make a 

payment of a minimum of $20 before you can order (credit card or bank account 

transfer options are available) and then you are set to order from the Pita Pit 

menu.

The team from Pita Pit Rotorua will came to the school on Wednesday before the 

launch with samples of some of the salads for the children to try and everyone 

agreed it was delicious!!

A Lovely Spring Day

What a gorgeous day...
We had some fun making our Spring trees in class today and the children were outside making the most of the beautiful weather.

Firstly, our visit to the Fire Station is scheduled for Friday the 18th of September and it will be in the middle block, we will leave school around 11.00am and be back for lunch.  If you think you can help with transport please let me know.  A notice will be going out later in the week.

Also, the School Cross Country will be on Wednesday the 23rd of September at 1.30pm, let's hope the weather stays fine.

Lastly, a big thanks to Cooper, who brought in an ostrich egg this morning.  It is always great to see new and exciting things that can get conversations and questions started.

See you all tomorrow.

Week 8

The children enjoyed a special Mass on Friday celebrating not only the birthday of Mary, but celebrating also joining the St.Mary's whanau.  A big thanks to the parents who came along for the event.

There a a few things happening this week at school, be sure to read the Classroom Notices page so you are up to date with what is happening and what might be happening:)

Rayray, Roman and I enjoyed a walk in the Redwoods this morning- this is an event that I could write about by asking 3 simple questions...When?, Where?, and Who?.  This is what we are working on in our writing.  For example, I could write...

On Sunday morning, Rayray, Roman and I went for a walk in the Redwood forest.  Roman and Rayray were fighting over a stick.

We call this type of story a Recount, it talks about something that has happened, it can be real or imaginary.  By asking those key questions When?, Where? and Who? the children have a map that they can use to help them write simple stories that make sense. We will be working on this in our Monday Recount writing.  

In maths we will be looking at which number is bigger, this will help us to count on from the biggest number instead of starting at 1 each time.  We will be working with cards, dominoes and dice to practice.  Please keep practicing counting backwards from 20...practice makes perfect and it helps so much when counting back to subtract.