The last week of term 2 already is here and the children have certainly achieved a lot in the past ten weeks. We hope that when you read your child's report last Friday you gained a clearer picture of their areas of strength and also the areas that need further development. We are looking forward to meeting with parents and caregivers this week to discuss the progress that your child has already made this year and show you where their next learning steps are and how you can help them with these. We will also be discussing their report and sharing their portfolio of work samples with you. Please feel free to ask your child's teacher any questions. Any parent who has had a child turn six this year and has not already seen their six year old testing and would like to, please call our office to make an appointment with me during conferences this week.
Special thanks to the children who have been hosts or presented items at each of this term's Junior Assemblies. You have all done very well standing up in front of about 120 people.
This week
Just a reminder - School will be closing early on Tuesday and Wednesday so please pick up your child at 1.20 p.m. on each of these days. Any child who cannot be picked up early will be supervised in the hall. They will be watching a movie until the usual hometime.
Book Fair
This will be open on Tuesday and Wednesday from 1.30 - 7 p.m. in the library. Purchases you make at this time mean that your child can take the book or books away immediately and that a percentage from each sale also enables us to purchase more books for our library which in turn benefits your child further.
Senior Students Science Fair
Throughout this week some of the year 7 and 8 students will be bringing their science exhibits over to our classrooms so they can explain them in more detail to our younger students. Room 24 is still open this week for adults and families to browse the science fair projects.
Thursday
There will not be any preschool visits this week.
Friday
'Dress up green' day - this is an opportunity for your child to dress up in green and donate a gold coin to the Orphans of Nepal Trust. Money raised will be used to purchase seeds and vegetables for the orphanage garden.
Lost Property
Please have a look through the clothing and take anything that belongs to your child. Any clothing left at the end of the term will be donated to charity.
Head lice
We have had a few cases of head lice lately. Please check your child's hair regularly and treat if necessary. If you are not sure what to look for please ask or visit your local chemist for advice.
Mrs Mills Smith
On Friday we say fond farewell and thank you to Margs Mills Smith who has been teaching in room 1 this term. She will be teaching in the senior school next term and will be returning to teach the next New Entrant class later this year. We sincerely thank her for all the work that she has done with the children in Room 1 and for our Junior team.
Full School Assembly
You are cordially invited to attend our full school assembly in the hall at 1.30 p.m.
School closes this Friday at the usual time. Planning for next term has been completed. We have planned a new event for early next term, a duathlon, which we know the children will enjoy. We also look forward to our school wide production. Further details about these will be given next term.
Parenting Courses
Recently I gave out information about the Incredible Years programme. I now also have information about a different parenting programme. The next course begins in term 2 for parents with children aged 6 to 12. They also have courses for parents of children aged 0 to 6 and 12 to 18. If people are interested in any of these courses, please email me and I will pop the information into an envelope and put it in your child's bookbag to bring home to you this week.
Parent Workshops
Recently I held workshops for parents to explain a little about what their child does in maths, reading and writing each day at school. The following are some of the points mentioned during the sessions.
Numeracy
What you say and do can make a very big difference to your child's success in mathematics. Here are some ways in which you can encourage them and help them learn.
1. Discuss the numbers you come across ( e.g. numbers on letterboxes when you are out walking) Ask them what the next number would be, ten more, one hundred more, the number before, ten before, one hundred before.
2. Explore counting in lots of ways - count forwards and backwards from different starting points. e.g. start counting at 5 instead of 0 or 1. Count in twos, fives and tens both forwards and backwards.
3. Play mathematical games at home. e.g. board games, adding scores together
4. Help your child to manage time and money. Ask them the time in o'clock, half past and also in digital. Give them 50 cents to spend and they have to work out what they will buy and what change they will get.
5. Work out problems around your house. e.g. there are 20 biscuits in this packet how many will each person in our family get?
6. Take an interest in how your child figures things out and ask them how they worked it out so they can explain their thinking. There is usually more than one way to solve a problem. If your child uses a strategy that works, praise them. If yours is different, that's OK.
Your child will be working through the different stages of number development in their mathematics programme along with the strands of geometry, measurement and statistics. In Number, they will be learning to solve a range of mathematical problems and calculate these in their head whenever possible instead of using a calculator or pen and paper. To reach the stage of working out problems in their head it is essential that they have explored new mathematical ideas with a range of equipment e.g. their fingers, pegs, blocks etc. They will also be showing that they understand maths using diagrams and pictures as well as equipment and they will be explaining and recording their ideas in a variety of ways.
Children in their first two years at school progress through stages 0 to 4.
O - Emergent - Students at this stage are unable to consistently count a given number of objects because they lack knowledge of counting sequences and/or the ability to match things in one-to-one correspondence. 1, 2, 3, 5, 9,
1 - One to one counting - This stage is characterised by students who can count and form a set of objects up to ten but cannot solve simple problems that involve joining and separating sets, like 4 + 3.
2 - Counting from one on materials - Given a joining or separating of sets problem, students at this stage rely on counting physical materials, like their fingers. They count all the objects in both sets to find an answer, as in “Five lollies and three more lollies. How many lollies is that altogether?”
3 - Counting from one by imaging - This stage is also characterised by students counting all of the objects in simple joining and separating problems. Students at this stage are able to image visual patterns of the objects in their mind and count them.
4 - Advanced counting - Students at this stage understand that the end number in a counting sequence measures the whole set and can relate the addition or subtraction of objects to the forward and backward number sequences by ones, tens, etc. For example, instead of counting all objects to solve 6 + 5, the student recognises that “6” represents all six objects
and counts on from there: “7 , 8 , 9, 10, 11.”
Each of these four stages contain the areas of addition and subtraction, multiplication and division and proportions and ratios.
Reading
Each child progresses through the stages of emergent, early and fluent. The emergent stage is the magenta coloured books and is where your child consistently learns to read from left to right, learns all the sounds of the alphabet letters, builds up a bank of at least thirty known words and matches their finger to each word as they read.
They then move to the early level which is the books on the colour wheel from red to yellow to blue to green. The text gets longer, smaller in size, there is less recurring patterns and not all the clues are found in the pictures. We expect our children to reach level 12 ( green) by the end of their first year at school. The fluent level is Orange and above.
On the report you will see Instructional reading age which is the guided reading age. If your child is aged five and has 6.0 - 6.5 then they are above their chronological age but if your child is six and has 5.0 - 5.5 then they are below.
At each of the levels your child is taught different skills and strategies to work out unknown words. They are asking questions of themselves as they read like - does that make sense, does that sound right or does that look right? If not they are expected to use strategies like go back and reread to work out their error or read on to the end of the sentence if they are at the fluency level.
At each stage there is discussion which could involve prediction skills, retelling of the story in the correct sequence, in depth inference questions to discussion of characters.
Books are graded according to colour and also according to approach e.g. S for shared, G for guided and I for independent. This means that your child may read the same book three times over their two years at school as sometimes it is shared with the class or group, or it could be when your child is working with the support of their teacher or they can independently read it themselves.
Each day your child is involved in reading rotations where they are doing a wide range of literacy activities. These include listening post, library books, rereading familiar books, making something in response to a text or instructions, alphabet sound activities, role plays, Letterland and Smartphonics activities, writing activities, working with dough and magnetic letters to name a few.
You can help your child by ensuring that they learn all the letters of the alphabet, both upper and lower case and their corresponding sounds. The sooner that they pick up this knowledge the sooner they progress in reading, writing and spelling. It is imperative that they practise their home reading each day and that you are the cheer leaders saying how fantastic they are as learning to read is a difficult process. It is also vital that you read to your child every day so that they can enjoy books in a calm, positive and relaxing environment. Five minutes reading aloud to your child on a daily basis makes a huge difference to their progress.
Writing
Each child moves through different stages in writing as well. The first stage is the emergent stage and contains the scribble stage. This is where children make marks on paper, dots, dashes and random shapes. Following this they learn to write their name and a mixture of letters and numbers that do not relate to the picture they have drawn. Later on they begin to write a mix of all letters but although their story has meaning, it is lost over time. At the next stage, they then begin to put down some words that they can spell e.g. I am or I like or I went (where they go through a safe stage) and some initial letters for other words they try to write. Their written story matches their brainstorm. (this is a picture of their idea that they have drawn).
They then move to the early level where they are using letter sounds to spell all unknown words, adding adjectives (WOW words), increased output and stories showing structure of a beginning, middle and ending.
The next stage of the fluent writer encompasses all of the above as well as writing in different genre like reports and explanations.
Learning to write is also a difficult process as it involves lots of different things all at once. First the child has to decide on an idea and then draw it. They then have to compose a story to match this. They need to think of an interesting beginning to interest their audience. Before they start their first word they have to remember what it starts with and how to actually form the letter accurately and then remember to write it in sequence as well as hold the pencil correctly without forgetting what their story is about.
How you can help at home involves the provision of a wide range of writing materials e.g. felt pens, vivids, whiteboards, fancy papers, chalk and blackboards, glitter pens, magnetic letters, plasticene, dough etc, Encourage your children to write a letter or make a card to thank a person who has given them a gift. They can write in the sand at the beach or paint words with water on the concrete outside. For those of you who enjoy messy play there is always goop and shaving cream. Also encourage them to learn the letter sounds and write them. Remind them to pinch their pencil so that the grip is correct and that letters start at the top and go down so that they can practise the correct formation as well.
Be a role model yourself and let your child observe you reading and writing in a range of contexts.
The above are just a synopsis of mathematics, reading and writing, which I hope you find useful but if you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask.
On behalf of the Junior Team, I wish you a safe and enjoyable holiday with your children and look forward to hearing about their many adventures when they return on Monday July 19th.
Kind regards
Maureen Buckley
Deputy Principal
