Week 7

Kia ora koutou!

 Star of the Week:

I'm pleased to announce Sam Gordon as this week's star. One of the comments the children made about Sam is that he is always doing the right thing. That is admirable indeed. I hope being in a class with Sam this year will rub off on me and help me be a little more like him.

Sam, shining particularly brightly.

Happy St Patrick's Day

On the 17th of March we learned an Irish song, in honour of St Patrick's Day.  You may have caught wisps of "Molly Malone" this week. We had some great discussions about leprechauns,
rainbows and even some interesting questions about Irish immigration and The Potato Famine.

You may notice the boys sing the first part while the girls hum, then vice versa :)


Run-a-thon

Well done to all in Nikau! Everyone took part in the Runathon today at Waitangi Park.  I was impressed with the determination and stamina shown by the students. A special mention to Sam G for an impressive 32 laps in 30 minutes! Thank you to all the parents who helped walked the children to the park and back, and the tireless PTA for their organisational skills.


Student Teacher

On Monday we welcome Ella Cavander, a student at Victoria, to Nikau. Ella will be with us for 7 weeks observing, teaching and developing her practice as a teacher. It will be wonderful to have her in our class and we look forward to getting to know her and learning from and with her.

Welcome Ella

Swimming

It was sad we all missed out on a free swim this week because of an 'incident' that closed the pool just before we arrived. This Thursday is the last swimming lesson of the term. Thank you to all who have come along to support the children. I also just wanted to acknowledge the effort that goes into making sure your child has their togs, towel, goggles, warm after-swimming clothes, hearty lunch and all the other things that need to be remembered on a swimming day. Thank you.

What We Are Learning: Literacy

To understand what the author means, we often have to infer or read between the lines. This week we have been having a go at showing what we want to say rather than telling.

Here is an example of what this means:

Telling sentence - He was angry.

Showing sentence - His feet slowly pounded across the room and his face was red, pinched in and wrinkled like a screwed up paper bag.

You can see that the second sentence never actually says that the person is angry, but infers it by the authors description.

This has been helpful inspiring the children's creative expression and also in thinking about how to understand what they read.


Parent/Teacher Interviews:

Still some spots available at  http://www.schoolinterviews.co.nz if you haven't booked already. Please see me if the times on Monday and Wednesday do not suit and we can arrange a time that will work for us both.