Thursday, October 26, 2017

YEAR 3 AND 4 NEWSLETTER - TERM 4 2017

Kia ora kotou

Welcome to Term 4!

The year 3 and 4 teachers hope you had a lovely break from routine and that you were able to enjoy some of the beautiful spring days that Wellington can give us.

This will be a busy, action packed term, filled with learning and new opportunities.  We know it will speed by.

Farewell and Welcome

As you know we said goodbye to Mikaela Cody at the end of last term, She has left us to take an exciting new role in Early Childhood Education.  We would like to welcome Kate Salisbury to the Year 3 and 4 teaching team.  Room 8 are lucky to have Trish Theobald teaching on Fridays.

Term 3 Round Up

What a fantastic term of learning we had last term!

We finished the term with a fantastic Arts focus.  Congratulations to all our students for the amazing artworks they completed for the Muritai Art Exhibition.  We hope you all managed to come and see the work,  your children are talented young artists.

Many of our students were part of the Artsplash concert held at the Michael Fowler Centre.  This is an amazing opportunity to participate in a performance of this size and one the students will always remember.  Thanks to Ruth Hooke for all the work she put in to this special event.

TERM 4

Our theme this term will be Fairy Tales.  Fairy Tales will give a context for our learning activities.

Inquiry Learning

This term we will have a Technology/Makers focus.  Children will work collaboratively with practical, hands on experiences, designing and building solutions to a problem.  We will use a mixture of modern technology, eg robotics and practical making during the term.

Literacy

We are taking part in Chapter Chat again this term.  Our book is The Wild Robot, the story of a robot who is washed up on a deserted island and has to survive in the wild.  Our students enjoy the many activities around the story and sharing their work during Twitter Chat time on Fridays.

Image result for the wild robot












Numeracy   

This Term we are focussing on Fractions and then spending time consolidating learning in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  We have been impressed with the improvement in the student's knowledge and recall of Basic Facts and we will continue to focus on these as well.

PE

Our PE skills focus will be Athletics, the skills of running, jumping and throwing.  Classes will have a 45 minute session with Kelly Sports each week.  School Athletics Day is Monday 30th October.  Students will move, with their year group, around different activities in the morning.  Then we all gather at the Rec after lunch for class and house relays.  You are more than welcome to come down for all or part of the day to watch your child.  More information will be sent home closer to the date.

EOTC

Planning is underway for our EOTC week near the end of the term.  When we have confirmed dates and times we will let you know all the details.

Art

Fabric and Fibre is our art focus this term.  This will fit in beautifully with our Makers focus.  watch out for some wonderful creations.

THINGS TO KNOW


Term 4 is sunhat term.  All children need to wear a sunhat when they are outside, if they do not have a hat they will have to stay under the shade at lunch and playtimes.  Sun hats should have a wide brim or be a legionaire style cap.  Caps are not suitable for school.  It would be good if your had a named sunhat to keep in their desk, sun hats taken home every day tend to get lost and forgotten.



Your child also needs a drink bottle every day as the weather warms up and we get outside more often the need to stay hydrated increases.  Having a drink bottle, rather than needing to visit the fountains all the time is a lot less disruptive.


Finally if you have any questions or concerns regarding our classroom programme or your child's learning, please do not hesitate to contact us.  Feel free to pop into the classroom before or after school or send us an email:

Kate Sailsbury: ksailsbury@muritai.school.nz
Karen Chao: chao @muritai.school.nz
Heather Mawby: mawby@muritai.school.nz
Jamie Power: jpower@muritia.school.nz

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Nga mihi nui