Term 2

Dear Room 3 children,

I hope that you are all enjoying the holidays as much as I have been. I have been enjoying lots of time doing the things I really enjoy doing like spending time with family and friends, going snowboarding and relaxing. I must say, I do miss all your beautiful, happy faces though!

Make sure you play lots, create lots and learn lots while you are on holiday!

I look forward to you coming back on Monday in Term 2!

xxx
Miss Kraan



Dear Parents,

I hope that you too are enjoying the holidays, although I imagine some of you are still working during this time. Just a quick message from me, the first 4 weeks of term 2 we will be working on a social studies unit called 'passport to the world'. This is a very exciting unit for the children as they will be taking their very own journeys to other countries in our classroom.

I thought I would share with you what the timetable for this unit will look like because some of the things the children will be learning and doing may require some of your clever ideas and helping hands.

Week 1:  Passports
During the first week we will be looking at what a passport is, what it is used for and we will be taking a closer look at who we are individually.

You may be able to help your child enjoy this week by talking to your child about where their parents and grandparents are from and what country they were born in. Also, what countries your child has visited (if any) or what country your child would love to visit in the future.

We may have a chance to look at a family tree maybe and the children create their own family trees.

Week 2: France
This week we are going to journey to France. We will be looking at one thing per day.

Monday-general information about France

Tuesday-Traditional clothing

Wednesday-Food (During this day I thought it would be really cool for the children to have a little taste of some French influenced food articles, this is where I welcome any ideas!)

Thursday- Dance and Music

Friday-Visual art (we will be looking at a famous artist from France and try to imitate their art work)

Week 3: Japan
(See week 2 plan)

Week 4: Samoa
(See week 2 plan)

If you know of anywhere where I could locate articles of clothing, food, etc from any of these countries please let me know! I would love to give the children as rich an experience as I can during these 4 weeks.

Also, if anyone is knows of people who can come in as guests to talk about the country they came from other than the ones we are studying, please let me know!

Look forward to seeing you all in Term 2!

Ka kite ano,
Joy Kraan

The near future of technology

This is a very interesting youtube clip about what could well be part of our everyday life in the next 5-7 years. Keep in mind that the technology already exists, all that needs to happen is for that technology to be released. It's a matter of time...

Our kids will grow up surrounded by this technology and will be part of their everyday lives in the future. However, I believe that we need to guide our children towards becoming creators of technology and not mere consumers of it.

Enjoy and please leave me any of your thoughts in response to this.

Cheers,
Joy

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=6Cf7IL_eZ38&vq=medium&safe=active

Apps to support learning

I have been collecting a list of applications that are useful to support your child's learning at home using mobile devices such as iPads.

I apologise in advance for anyone who has a PC based mobile device such as Samsung because I am not familiar with their app store and these apps are not able to be downloaded off the itunes store. This is not to say there there wasn't a PC version created, I just can't guarantee it.

I strongly encourage the use of these apps at home. In today's technological age, children naturally gravitate towards technology. I believe that we need to show children the use of technology in a constructive way. Rather than just knowing how is works and playing angry birds on mobile devices, I would like to use iPads and other ICT resources in supporting my learning program both inside and outside of the classroom.

Below are some apps listed that I believe have educational value for your children:


Literacy

• Word monsters: this build awareness of the reading strategies taught at school. Great support of the reading program in the class.

• Futaba: this is a multiplayer game. Great reading activity and the boys will love the competition.

• ABC farm: this is great for children who may need more practice in recognising the name and sound of letters in the alphabet. The more exposure the better it will be for their reading. Even if they know most of the letters, you may be surprised they all need constant reminding or this knowledge slips away and they fall back in their reading.

• Kids' vocab-mind snacks: great for vocab building and expanding. Building a network of words will greatly enhance their reading abilities.

• Bob's books #2-reading magic HD: develops reading ability

• Alphabytes: develops letter sound associations and develops early spelling skills.

• Word wizard: another apps to encourage early writers to use their letters-sounds associations to spell and write.

• Montesorri crosswords: great app. This app also goes into more advance sounds and will be useful for those children who want to extend knowledge of more complex sounds they may encounter in reading.

• Alphabet fun: this is good for the development of writing. Children trace letter and numbers.

• Spell + friends by tap to learn: exposure to correct spellings of english words. Children can compete in spelling bees. Encourages spelling ability and skills. 

• Spell Board: encourages spelling through word finds and words scramble and missing letter puzzles.

• iwrite words: for children who struggle to formulate letters. 

I will be adding onto this list...watch this space!!

Fence art-our progress so far

Throughout the year, Matakana School has theme week's. This term our theme week is on fence art. Every classroom in the school will be working on painting their fence panels and these will be displayed on the fence bordering the main Matakana road.

If anyone is able to come and help us do the painting, this would be greatly appreciated. The outlines are almost done, after which we are going to do the painting. We have 7 panels to paint and 3 children painting each panel.

Ideally, having one parent per panel to oversee the painting would be effective. Hence, having about 7 parents would make this process a lot easier.

I am going to schedule in the fence art everyday from 11:30am-12:20pm. Please e-mail me if you can come and help so that I can organize this during the week. 

Below shows our progress so far.

Enjoy!

Kind Regards,
Joy

 Our practice run on paper

Warm fuzzies

Our fuzzy jar has been collecting lots of fuzzies!

We are only 12 fuzzies away from celebrating the kind and caring behaviours of the children by means of a class party. I welcome any suggestions from you as to what we could do for this.

Cheers,
Joy

Writing

Please check out the writing tab on our blog. You will find a piece of your child's writing on there for you to have a look at and comment on. This makes the purpose for writing real for your children and will encourage them to continue to progress in their writing.

Many Thanks,
Joy

Fence art

Theme week is next week! Our theme is fence art! We are going to be painting our fence panels throughout the week and there will be a display of these.

Watch this space!!!