EOTC Week 2011

Please find below the timetable for next week's EOTC week.

We require parent help on Thursday, fishing off the Eastbourne wharf from 11.00am onwards. If you are able to assist, please let the class teacher know.

Please click on the timetable to enlarge

Athletics Day Timetable

Timetable for Tuesday 15th November 2011

Term 4 2011

Term 4 Newsletter for Year 3 and 4

The year has flown by so quickly! The Rugby World Cup excitement over the last couple of months is much missed as the moment, particularly by Mr Wyllie, but with Christmas just around the corner, there are at least other things to look forward to.

At school, we are looking forward to Athletics day, E.O.T.C week, the silent art auction, ‘Child Labour’ day and the end of year Christmas concert.

Dates for your Diary:

November 15th: Athletics Day
November 18th: Y3-4 "Child Labour" Day
November 28th: Swimming begins (depending on the weather, not all classes may start on this date)
December 2nd: Silent Art Auction, 7.00pm. Money raised goes to The Green Gecko Project.
December 5-9th: EOTC Week
December 15th: Year 3-6 Christmas Concert, 1.45pm
December 16th: Last day. School finishes at 1.00pm

Looking back over Terms 1,2 and 3, it has been such a busy year filled with so many amazing learning experiences. The teachers hope that you are able to visit your child’s class blog from time to time and see for yourself some of the wonderful learning opportunities that happen in their classroom. Rocket building and launching, Dinosaurs, the digestive system, all have been very popular learning topics this year.

Room 7 enjoying "The day it snowed at school"

The flowing is an outline of what will be happening this term. Later in the year, extra emails about E.O.T.C week and Athletics Day will be sent by class teachers, so look out for those.

“Working Hard”

Term 4 is traditionally the time of the year when we look at the wider world and think “how can we make a difference” in the lives of others less fortunate that ourselves.

This year we are taking a look at the issue of ‘child labour’ in other parts of the world, and how this prevents children from going to school and getting an education. After investigating why child labour is not desirable, the children will be given an opportunity ‘make a difference in the lives of others’ by engaging in ‘child labour’ of their own. Unlike the children they have been learning about, the labour involved will be making a piece of collaborative artwork with other children. The Enviro-school group, lead by Mr Ray and Miss Berry, are organising for later in the term a ‘Silent Art Auction’ where these pieces of artwork will be auctioned off with money raised going to benefit the Green Gecko Project. Green Gecko is an organisation in Cambodia which takes street kids engaging in child labour off the street and gives them housing, an education and a safe place to play and ‘be children’.

Room 8 celebrating New Zealand becoming Rugby world champions!

READING AND WRITING:

Our writing focus for this term is Argument Writing. There is also the ongoing focus on embedding effective editing and proofreading skills into every piece of writing the children do.

Oral language will focus on the oral presentation of poems and stories orally, with a focus on using vocal expression and confident body language. This will lead up to the Christmas concert, where each year group will be presenting a small poem or Christmas story, alongside the usual singing of carols.

Reading continues in all classes, with particular emphasis on reading for meaning and (out aloud) for expression.

Room 9's amazing tie-dye T-Shirts!

NUMERACY:

We start the term in cross-grouped classes, re-visiting the addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and fraction skills learned earlier in the year. Ongoing basic facts practice and learning how to problem solve will also feature.

PE:

Each Tuesday and Thursday mornings in the lead up to Athletics Day, the children will be taking part in Athletics practice. The school’s Athletics Day is Tuesday 15th November (Week 4) here at school and at Eastbourne Rec. The PE team, a little closer to the time, will send an email about this.

Swimming is scheduled to start in Week 6, however in reality this date is weather dependent and we will not begin swimming until the weather has warmed up a little.

Room 10 painting the set, ready for the Wearable Art show.

ART:

We will be teaching your child how to sew this term! Most classes have already started teaching children how to thread a needle, tie a knot and sew a simple stitch. As the term progresses, children will learn to cross-stitch and sew some simple patterns on material.

E.O.T.C. Week:

Planning for E.O.T.C. Week in Week 7 is underway, and we are planning a fun filled week of events close to home, with a ‘Beach Fort’ technology challenge, a ‘make a fishing rod and fishing off the wharf for a fish’ challenge, as well as an arts, craft and science morning, among other events. A schedule of events will be posted on this blog over the coming weeks. Most of the events this year won’t require additional parent helpers, but if this changes, we’ll let you know via email. However you are always more than welcome just to come down and join in if you like ☺

Room 11 dressed all in black for "Black-Out Day" in support of the mighty All Blacks!

As you can see, it is a very, very busy term. To contact us, the easiest way is to email us (teachers surname @muritai.school.nz), or just pop in.

Kind Regards,

The Year 3 and 4 Team.

Mckenzie singing

Mckenzie, who is in Year 4 this year, took part recently in the "Wellington's got talent' competition. She is a wonderful singer as I'm sure you will agree!

Term Three Newsletter

Dear Parents,

Term 3 is now well under way, and we all hope you had a lovely time with your children over the school holiday. Teachers were busy planning the term ahead, and we have some exciting learning ahead this term centred around “Dinosaurs”.

Many Year 4 students are currently practising their singing and learning songs, ready for the Art Splash Choir performance on the 21^st September at the Michael Fowler Centre. This is a wonderful opportunity for our students to participate in a large-scale performance, and as many of you with older children know, the night is a very exciting one for all involved!

Room 8 performed some wonderfully acted plays.

Events for the diary: 

• September 21st, 7.pm Art Splash Choir performance at MFC.

There are no other major events planned for this term. 


Reminders:

• Slippers: Term Three is an indoor term. If your child does not yet have slippers at school, please help encourage them to do so. Slippers are worn inside to keep the carpets dry and mud-free.

• Clothing layers: With the particularly mild winter we’ve had, some children quite happy to wear just a t-shirt to school. However, we have noticed a number of children first thing in the morning shivering during fitness, just wearing a t-shirt, and with nothing warmer to put on. Please make sure your child is wearing ample layers to school, so they can add/take of as the day warms up or cools down. Thanks!

• Drink Bottles: Children are still to bring drink bottles to class. Encourage you child to regularly take their drink bottle home for a clean.
• Equipment: Some children are running low on essential supplies such as rubbers, rulers, pencil sharpeners, colour pencils. Please check with your child to see if they require a top up of supplies. If in doubt, an extra rubber and pencil sharpener is always welcome.
• Lost Property: It is crucial to have all clothing named so that it may be reunited with its owner quickly. Encourage your children to look for their missing clothing as soon as it is lost. If you go through the lost property after school, please ensure this is left in a tidy state. It is being left in a shambles quite often, and Room 7 children (who have the responsibility for looking after school lost property) have a hard time keeping it neat and tidy.
• Beginning of the school day: When the bell rings at 8.40, it is time to get ready for fitness. The focus changes as the year progresses, but at the moment on Mondays, Tuesday and Wednesday fitness times are spent on ‘core skills’. Students who are late miss out on this, so it is important that children are at school by 8.40am.

Room 7 made and launched some aerodynamic air-powered rockets.

Reading, Writing, Information Literacy and ‘Dinosaurs’ Integrated Study.
Reading and Writing will be strongly integrated with our Dinosaur study as the term progresses. Writing information reports and reading of non-fiction texts will be the main focus during literacy time, along with spelling and handwriting skills. Key information literacy skills, such as skimming and scanning for key words and ideas, note-taking and note-making, summarising and questioning, will be a big focus in both literacy and integrated study time.

The study of ‘Dinosaurs’ has already proved to be a highly motivating and exciting topic for most children. However, rest assured the focus will not be on stuffing children’s heads with dinosaur facts and figures! There will be some very solid teaching and learning occurring in the area of questioning (open vs. closed questioning skills), gathering and interpreting information from more than one source, and making judgements on the usefulness of the information gathered. Being a 21^st century learner is all about being able to find, use and evaluate the usefulness of information, not just memorising facts and figures.

Room 9 made some wonderful pop-up instructions!

Maths
In Term 3, children will be consolidating understanding of multiplication and division, and apply this understanding in problem solving situations and to work out the fractions of whole numbers. Recall of timestables features strongly this term, and you can assist your child by helping them practise their timestables as part of the homework programme.

The Arts
This term we will be learning how to make prints using a number of different printing techniques. Recently the Year 3-4 teachers attended an afternoon workshop run by Hayden Ray, and learned all about these different techniques. There will be some glorious printmaking happening this term, so keep an eye out on the classroom blogs for photos.

Room 10 and their buddy class went to the beach to collect seaweed to make compost for the school garden.

Physical Education
As well as fitness every (fine) Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the Year 3 and 4 classes are  learning large ball skills through games of Football, Rugby, Netball, Basketball and Four-Square. PE will happen on a Thursday or Friday (Each class will initially have a different PE time), but as always in Term Three, it is weather dependent.

Class Blogs
Please visit the class blog to see what has been going on recently in your child’s classroom. Feel free to leave a comment too!
The children would love to receive comments on their class blog from family and friends all around the world.
Here are the instructions so that you know how to do this.
1. Go to our school site www.muritai.school.nz
2. On the home page click on class blogs.
3. Click on the classroom number you want.
4. Have a look at the posts (the writing and photos) and decide which ones you would like to leave a comment on.
5. At the bottom of the post are the words “__ comments”.
6. Click on the word ‘comments’
7. A box will open and you now write a comment in it. Please try to give the students positive feedback about what they have been doing. What did you like? What did you find interesting? What did you learn? You could even ask the class or a student a question.
8. Sign your name.
9. Choose an identity – If you have a Google account you can sign in using this. Or you can click anonymous.
10. Now click on ‘Publish your comment.’
11. Your comment will be sent to the classroom teacher for moderation. Once they have approved it, your comment will appear on the blog.

Room 11 students mind-mapped what makes Muritai School and 'Green-Gold' Enviroschool.

As always, feel free to contact your child’s teacher at school by either emailing (surname@muritai.school.nz) or popping in before/after school for a chat.

Kind Regards,

The Year 3-4 Teaching team.

Term Two Newsletter

Hi Everyone!

Wow, Term Two already! The teachers have been busy during the holidays planning and preparing for an exciting and interesting programme for the next eleven weeks.  This term has a specific “Science” focus, with the children learning about the science behind ‘Flight” and ‘Weather’.  Speaking of weather, all the rain over the second week of the holidays has allowed the new shrubs in the ‘Poet’s Garden’ to thrive. Thank-you Mr Ray for organising and leading the working bee late last term that put the finishing touches on the Year 3-4 Poets Garden. It looks great, and is a real credit to the vision of the students who, late last year, came up with the concept and got the ball rolling.

Term Two is a very busy time. Student portfolios will come home on at the end of term, and will be discussed at Parent-Teacher interviews. The children put a lot of time and effort making each ‘artefact of learning’ that make up each portfolio, to provide a snapshot of what they have been learning so far this year. We hope that you will take advantage of the opportunity to meet with us and discuss your child’s progress and celebrate their achievements.

Room 10 students rapping about the digestive system

Dates for the diary:

June 2^nd: “Jump to it”- Performance in School Hall, 9.30am.

June 7^th : School Cross Country at Williams Park, 9.45am start.

June 27^th : Vector Orchestra performance at MFC.  9.30-12.30pm

Friday Week 10: reports and Portfolios come home.

Week 11: Parent Interviews during the week.

Room 8 students busy creating a mind-map

Reminders:

• Slippers: Term Two and Three are indoor terms. Please help encourage your child to bring to school a pair of slippers, which can be inside to keep the carpets dry and mud-free, and feet warm and cosy!
• Drink Bottles: Children can still bring drink bottles to class. Encourage you child to regularly take their drink bottle home for a clean.
• Equipment: Some children are now starting to run low on essential supplies such as rubbers, rulers, pencil sharpeners, colour pencils. Please check with your child to see if they require a top up of supplies. They will know!
• Lost Property: It is crucial to have all clothing named so that it may be reunited with its owner quickly. Encourage your children to look for their missing clothing as soon as it is lost.
• Beginning of the school day: When the bell rings at 8.40, it is time to get ready for fitness. The focus changes as the year progresses, but at the moment on fine days the children are participating in cross-country training. Students who are coming  late to school miss out on this important fitness time, so it is important that children are at school by 8.40am. If Children are late to school, they must report to the office and let Carole/Sue know, before coming to class. 

Room 9 made some amazing musical instruments in Term One!

What’s Ahead:

There is a major science focus this term. The children will experiment with the principles of ‘Flight’- air pressure, lift, thrust and drag.  It should be a very exciting and stimulating investigation! The key skills we aim to develop with the children are: principles of fair testing, prediction, observation and questioning skills. Later in the term the focus will change to ‘Weather’ – certainly by that time the year there will be plenty of it to investigate!

In Literacy, news-telling is the focus for oral language development. The children will be learning how to ask open and closed questions, and know the different purpose of each. In Writing, the focus is on children how to write a procedure, or set of instructions, carefully and accurately so others can follow. There is a specific skill in writing ‘how to…’ instructions, so the emphasis will be on writing with clarity and precision. As always, the children will also work hard at learning how to improve their writing by editing and revision. Your child’s teacher will provide your child with honest feedback on what they are doing well, and what skills they need to develop next. In Reading, the key skills of self-monitoring, questioning and summarising are a particular focus this term. These skills are taught within the context of Reciprocal Reading, a reading strategy that encourages and scaffolds deeper reading of text.

In Mathematics we continue using a cross-grouping structure from Monday to Thursdays. This will operate for most of the term. For the first 8 weeks the major focus is on developing knowledge and strategy in Addition and Subtraction. Later in the term the focus will turn to measurement and statistics.

In Art, the main focus is Painting, with an emphasis on experimenting with colour mixing, using different brush strokes. By the end of the term,  Ruth Hooke our Performing Arts teacher, will have worked with all classes for a block of 5 weeks on daramtic skills. The children just love working with Ruth and they certainly benefit from the school employing a specialist PA teacher.  There will be 2 perfoming arts experiences this term:

§       Jump To It – this is for Years 1-4 on Thursday June 2nd in our hall. It will start at 9.30.

§       Vector Orchestra – this is for years 1-6 on Monday 27th June at Michael Fowler Centre. It will start at 10.30 and be approx 1 hour long. We will be travelling to/from the MFC by bus.

The Physical Education focus is firstly preparing for the school cross-country, followed by ball skills later in the term. Training for the cross country will be first thing in the morning, from 8.40 to 9.00am. If your child regularly arrives to school after 8.40am, then they will miss out on this impritant preperation for the cross-country.

§       The school cross country competition is on Tuesday 7th June (Week 6), held at Williams Park, Days Bay. Postponement day is Thursday 9th June.

Room 11 reflecting on their individual 'term goals'.

Around the middle of term two, the second major round of data collection occurs in Reading, Writing, Maths and other key areas. This information will be used by teachers to give you accurate and up-to-date information on your child’s progress in the end of term report, and the mid-year interview.

As always, feel free to email your child’s teacher if you have any questions about your child's progress at school. Email is a very handy way of communicating if you are unable to get to school- each teachers email address is surname@muritai.school.nz. Each classroom teacher regularly updates the classroom blog, and these are an important way that teachers can communicate with you what is happening in the classroom. Please visit your child’s classroom blog to see what has been happening, and leave a comment. To get an email alert when the classroom blog is updated, become a ‘follower’ of the blog by simply clicking the 'become a follower of this blog' link on the right hand side toolbar.

Dr Beena Hedge teaching Room 7 how their digestive system works.

Finally, just a reminder to parents of Year 3 children that, from Year 3 onwards, there is no weekly newsletter as there was in the junior school. We feel that a combination of this newsletter, emails from teachers, classroom blog updates, and the fortnightly ‘Birds Eye View’ school newsletter, all contribute information on upcoming events.  

As you can see, we are planning to have a very busy term with a very solid academic focus. Thank-you for your support so far this year, especially is you have volunteered your time to help in different ways. We really appreciate this!

Regards,

The Year 3 and 4 teachers.

Richard Dobson (Team Leader, Room 7)

Pippa Grant (Room 8)

Hayden Wyllie (Room 9)

Hayden Ray (Room 10)

Karen Chao (Room 11)

Term One Newsletter

Hi Everyone!

With the start to the new school year well under-way, it was time to send out our first Y3-4 newsletter for the year. What a great start to the year each class has had, judging by the posts made on each classes blog. Have you visited your child's class blog lately? These blogs are a great way of keeping up to date with what is happening at school, and the teachers and children enjoy reading the comments visitors make.

You will have met your child's teacher at Parent Interviews already, but you may not know some of the other teachers in the Y3-4 Team...

Room 7: Richard Dobson/Ruth Holmes (on Fridays), Y4

Room 8: Pippa Grant/Sue Steele (on Thursdays), Y3

Room 9: Jess Savage, Y3

Room 10: Hayden Ray, Y4

Room 11: Karen Chao, Y4

We are also very lucky to have Sarah Richardson (Learning Support teacher) working with a number of our Y3-4 students each day.

Upcoming events later this term:

Tuesday 8th March: Year 3-4 Swimming Sports, 9.30-12.00 at Eastbourne Pool. We do require a number of parent helpers for the day.

Monday 14th March: All day trip into Wellington for the Capital E Arts Festival. A notice about this trip has already been sent to you.

Main theme for 2011

The school-wide main theme this year is "Standing Tall". This theme will help us encourage our students to be resilient in times of doubt, proud in times of achievement, and courageous to 'do the right thing'. Teachers will take a little bit of time each week to visit this theme and encourage the children to 'stand tall'.

Curriculum:

Literacy

Our focus for writing this term is recounts. Children will be learning to structure their writing by sequencing events chronologically, linking ideas in a variety of ways and adding an introduction and conclusion. During this topic we will also be focussing on the writing process and encouraging children to plan their ideas in a variety of ways before writing. Children will be learning to edit their own work by proof reading to check for meaning and by using simple dictionaries to correct spelling.

Mathematics

The major part of the term will be spent on number knowledge and strategies., particularly Place Value. This will include a focus on problem solving and algebra. Cross-grouping of students during Maths time will begin in Week 5 and continue for the rest of the term. 

P.E. 

Swimming is the main PE focus for the first 6 weeks, followed by large ball skills later in the term.We are lucky to have the skilled instructors of Swimming NZ taking each class for 8 lessons over 2 weeks. Their focus is on 'Water Safety and Survival', as well as fundamental swimming skills. 

Integrated Study:

"Happy Healthy Me" is a term long investigation into what makes us better learners. We will look at different learning styles, optimal conditions for new learning, and how to stay fit and healthy. Keep checking the classroom blogs to see what each class is doing. 

Keeping in contact

As always, we can be contacted by our email address (surname@muritai.school.nz), or feel free to pop in before/after school for a quick chat. Thanks for your support so far this year, it has been a wonderful start to the school year.

Kind regards,

The Year 3-4 Teaching Team.