Week 3

Welcome Noel!  Noel will be joining our class on Monday.  I’m sure everyone will make him feel welcome.

Hopefully we have seen the last of the wet weather for a while.  Thanks to all those who helped at our working bee on Saturday.  I spent the weekend in Tauranga for my nephew’s wedding. 

This week the Junior School will be hosting the Rosary on Wednesday morning at 8:45.  You are welcome to attend if you wish.

Swimming  There is no swimming this week.  We will swim again in week 4 (the week beginning 6 November).

Student Led Conferences This Tuesday the middle and senior school will be having their student led conferences.  The junior school will be having our conferences/celebration of learning on Thursday 30 November.  More information will follow closer to the time.

Notices from Director of Religious Studies :  Mrs Hall

All Souls/Saint Liturgy is this Thursday at 10:00 in the hall. Please can you invite your students to write names of their loved ones who have died. Bring the names to the liturgy and place in the basket as you enter. These names will be taken to the Church where they will continue to be prayed for. Let your kids know this:-)

Emmaus Icon Visits St Mary's Church this Thursday. The icon is travelling around the Diocese as part of Bishop Steve's 'Hearts Burning' focus. Father has invited and urged for classes and families to visit it while it is here and say a short prayer before it. Here is a link with more information whb.cdh.nz. 

Grandparents Day Mass  On Friday 10 November we will begin our day with a Grandparents/Grandfriends Mass at 9am.  All the new children will be welcomed during this Mass. The new children are asked to come up the front with their families and are presented with some rosary beads.  If you are able to get away from work for an hour or so, we would really love to see you.  Following the Mass, Grandparents/Grandfriends are invited to share morning tea with us.  After morning tea there will be performance by some of our school groups.

Here’s what’s happening for us this week:

Wednesday – 8:45 Rosary – led by the Junior School

Thursday –    10:00 All Souls/Saint Liturgy

Friday -         Sausage sizzle/Juicy can be ordered for lunch.  $1.50 each.  

Thanks to all those parents who supported the P.T.A. by purchasing a sausage or juicy for your child last Friday.  If you are ordering your child’s lunch, could you please still pack a snack for morning tea.

Swimming Fun

We have been having lots of fun in the pool this week.  I am really impressed with how confident the kids are in the pool.  This week we have been practicing safe entry into the water, lots of splashing and fun getting wet, as well as learning to hold a flutter board correctly to help us glide across the pool.  We try to have a few minutes at the end of each lesson for some free time.  This gives the children the opportunity to practice the skills they are learning.  It's great for those less confident swimmers to explore what they can do on their own.  Quite often they surprise themselves.

It was nice to see some of the children helping others to do up those tricky buckles on their shoes.  Hopefully we will all be able to do up our own shoes soon. 😄

Golden Time Fun - i is for ice blocks

Even though it was a bit of a chilly day today, we all celebrated the end of our second week of school by having ice blocks for Golden Time.   We were learning about the letter i this morning.

Pre-school Visit - Bread and Butter

B is for 'bread and butter'

This morning we decided to bake some delicious bread.  We put all the ingredients (yeast, flour, butter, milk powder, salt, sugar and water) into the bread maker.  We discussed how the yeast helped the bread to rise.  It smelt fantastic as it was baking away throughout the morning.

After lunch it was time to make our butter.  We poured cream into a jar and we all had to get busy shake, shake, shaking.... What fun!

Finally, after lots of shaking - we had made our butter.

Now for the best bit.  The tasting.  Delicious warm fresh bread with homemade butter.  Yummy!

Finally welcome to Anya who joined our class on Tuesday.  She has settled in beautifully.

Reminder   Each Friday the P.T.A. run a sausage sizzle fundraiser.  The children are able to order sausages and juicys for their lunch.  The cost is $1.50 for a sausage and $1.50 for a juicy.  Orders are taken in our classroom on Friday morning before school.

Week 2

Patrick Panda - This term the junior school is learning about symbols.  We will be looking at the use of symbols and what information they give us.  To help us learn more about symbols, our class travel buddy, Patrick Panda, will be going home with a different child in our class each night.  Patrick has recently visited Egypt and is curious about the symbols he has seen there.  If Patrick comes to your house, please help him find some symbols around your home that he can share with the class.  Nicely ask Mum or Dad to write in Patrick’s journal, explaining why the symbols are important.

Patrick spent the day with me on Saturday at Mount Maunganui.  We had fun searching for symbols around the Mount.

Sunhats – Sunhats are compulsory this term.  From this week on, if a child doesn’t have a sunhat, they will need to sit in the shade by the office steps.  I must say that I’m pretty impressed with the way the children in Room 9 have been looking after their belongings so far.  Keep it up 😊

Swimming – We will be swimming this week.  Yay.  I know the children have been looking forward to going to the pool.  We are fortunate that our pool is heated to lovely 30 degrees.  Our usual swimming time is 2:00.  On Wednesday we will be swimming at 12:00 so that we are able to spend the afternoon with our pre-school visitors.

A note from Mr Macmillan Next weekend we are have a working bee at our school. We have a number of jobs on our list ranging from handy-man jobs, spreading cushionfall under the senior playground, maintenance on the senior playground, replacing rotten palings on our boundary fences, repairing the tops of our garden plots, putting up the shade cloth and I am sure there will be plenty more jobs to do. Come along and meet other parents, enjoy a morning tea and a delicious lunch. Children are welcome also. For catering purposes please let the office know if you can assist, even if it is for an hour or two.

Teacher aide – We are very fortunate to have Courtney in our room Monday - Thursday from 8:45 – 10:30 to support with literacy.  Courtney is completing her teacher training this year.

P.T.A. Sausage Sizzle – Each Friday children are able to order a sausage as well as a juicy.  Orders are taken in the classroom on Friday morning. Sausages with bread and sauce are $1.50.  Juices are also $1.50

See you all tomorrow.  I am looking forward to another fun filled week.

Golden Time - 'T' is for treasure

Welcome to Sara who joined our class yesterday. 

Wow, we have certainly had a fun and busy first week.  I'm really impressed with how well the children give things a go. They have all worked really hard when they have been writing their stories.  Keep up the great work!

Today a few of the children decided to play 'trains' with the chairs.  It looked like a lot of fun, and it was nice to see some imaginative play.

Continuing on with the letter t, this afternoon we had our teddy bear's picnic, followed by a treasure hunt.  What an exciting way to end our first week at school.

Enjoy the long weekend and I will see you all back on Tuesday.  We will be swimming next week - yay!

Pre-school visit - Fabulous Fairy Bread

Room 9 had their first school assembly this morning.  I was very impressed with how well the children all sat and listened during the Rosary.  Well done!

This week we have been learning about the letters l, t and f.  Today we decided to make some fabulous fairy bread with our visiting children.  Everyone did a great job of buttering their own bread.

Reminder - On Friday we will be having a teddy bear's picnic for golden time.  Just bring along a teddy and your usual packed lunch.

Enjoy the rest of the week.

Mrs Groves

Our First Day

Here are a few pictures from our first day.  I’m sure Mr Macmillan will be posting the photos he took on facebook.

Homework  I sent home a poem as well as a reading book with your child today.  Please don’t worry if your child is too tired to spend much time on homework, especially this first week.  Just reading the poem together is a great start.   At this stage, the main focus with reading is to point to each word as they read.

I also sent home some alphabet cards and word cards.  Just pick a few letters or words to learn to start with.  A good place to start is learning all the letters in their name.  I, am, is, are good words to learn to read.  Again, don’t stress if they are not ready for this yet.  10 – 15 minutes is a good amount of time to try to spend on homework.  I do understand that some days this won’t happen.

Golden Time  - on Friday we will be having a teddy bear’s picnic.  Just bring along a teddy and your usual packed lunch.  Hopefully we will have time for a little surprise too….

Mrs Groves