Welcome back to the Final Term for 2017!

OUR MISSION:

Maintain a challenging learning to learn community that responds to the interests, needs, and talents of our learners.

OUR VISION:

Positive difference, Creative learner, Effective communicator.

Week 1 Term 4     

Tēna koutou Tūhono whānau,

Nau mai, haere mai ki te wāhanga wha.  Welcome back to Term 4.  Our final term together as the first Tūhono hub in Frankley School history!  It has certainly been a fun and challenging past three terms and we are rearing to go for the next 9 and a half weeks.  We hope you have had lots of whānau time over the holidays and managed to get outside in between the showers of rain.  Mrs Cribb and Mrs Trinder have enjoyed sleep-ins, not having to make school lunches and catching up on overdue jobs.

Thank you for supporting our Cycle Safety initiative last term - both of us felt it was of real value to marry up the fun of bike riding with some actual guided experience on roads and in traffic. We were very lucky weather-wise to get the whole programme completed and we were so proud of the cyclists who really got out of their comfort zones - especially when riding downhill. Hopefully some of you have followed these sessions up with some great family rides together.

WEEKLY WĀTAKA

This is the name of our weekly timetable/plan that both the teachers and the students can edit and use to organise our daily lessons.  As each day can differ, we are setting aside time each morning to go through the timetable so that Tūhono clearly know what is happening and what workshops etc. that they are booked in for.  It is shared with each student through their emails on a Monday and it would be beneficial for you to discuss it with your child as it is also a way that you can see what we are getting up to each day.

WEEKLY TRACKING SHEET

In Tūhono, we are successfully using a tracking sheet each day for the students to reflect on their learning and set goals for the following day/session.  We have created a simple way for them to show evidence of their learning and a great visual way of making sure that they have a balanced programme when it comes to choices of workshops and learning activities.  Click on this link to see an example.  The hard copies of these live in their WIT books.

MATHS

We finished last term off focusing on proportions and ratios for our workshops.  Tūhono students have worked really hard at achieving their individual knowledge goals also and proving this to a teacher.  Ask your child to show you their IKAN analysis in their Maths folder on Google Drive so they can talk to you about what they are working on for their number knowledge.  You could find activities that you could do with your child at home to help consolidate this knowledge.  Remember there are many great resources on our Tūhono Online Classroom.  We will be looking at Measurement, in particular Time, for our first lot of workshops and moving into the practical tasks of length, perimeter and area. Number knowledge such as fractions/basic facts, is always interwoven into our learning as well.

LITERACY - READING

In our hub, we want to encourage and motivate the love of the written word through reading rich texts.  We also want to ensure that students have a choice over what they read, based on their interests, not just reading levels.  As part of our Daily Five programme, we would like to introduce Literacy Circles.  This approach aligns well with our beliefs about learning.  Reading groups are formed by book choice; structured for student independence, responsibility, and ownership; guided primarily by student insights and questions; intended as a context in which to apply reading and writing skills; flexible and fluid; never looks the same twice.

LITERACY - WRITING

In Tūhono, we have been working hard at independently following the Writing Process in our daily writing sessions.  This involves brainstorming/pre-writing/planning in our books using graphic organisers, drafting in our books or in google docs, re-reading, revising, editing through conferencing with peers first and then the teachers and finally sharing their writing with an audience in whichever format they choose.  We always share examples of good writing (eg in our class novels that are read daily) as well as work from our students.

WIT - WILDLY IMPORTANT TASK

We will be starting a new inquiry this term as well as a few other mini-inquiries that we will be working on as we have ‘Life Education’ (Including Harold the Giraffe) working on some ideas with us and also a little nutritional experience coming up early in the term. These are times when our students are exploring their questioning skills, negotiating tasks and collaborating with others.

We are very conscious that there have been activities for fundraising events that have asked families for money during last term and of course heading towards Carnival. Tūhono want to make sure that our WIT will not require any spending….it is a $$$$$ free WIT!!!!! Watch this space (well not this exact space but another space very soon………)

SCHOOL CARNIVAL

Our students will be involved with making a carnival craft for our upcoming Carnival. It is always exciting to work on our creations together and put our efforts towards the overall fundraising. We will be sharing some ideas with our students this week and may even need some help in our classroom as we get our treasures created.

REMINDERS:

• Term 4 means that the sun is on it’s way!  Therefore hats are to be worn by all students when outside.  It would be great to see all of Tūhono with hats here at school after Labour Weekend.
• A lot of tamariki have also worked so hard during Maths mahi that they have used up all of their books and now are needing another one.  If this is your child, please send along $2.90 to school to purchase one from the office.
• Touch Rugby is being played out at Bell Block tonight as the Devon and St Joseph’s Field are closed.  Any questions about this, please contact your coach.
• Cricket starts up this weekend too, so good luck to all of Tūhono students who are involved.
  

We look forward to having another awesome term with your tamariki.  With the weather warming up a bit we are expected students to be wearing a few layers so please try to name clothing. It is still amazing to see how much clothing is unclaimed at the end of each term.

Please contact us if you need to let us know anything that may help us to help your child to continue to be successful learners. Remember -  our door is always open.

Ngā mihi,

Anna and Kim