Pippa - Our Reading Therapy Dog in Training

Pippa is now six months old.  She has started official training with Shelley.  Pippa enjoys her time at school and we can already see she is going to bring many benefits to our children.  

Newsletters

Remember, you can view any past or current newsletters by clicking on the tab at the top of our blog entitled 'newsletters.'


Extra items included in our newsletter today:

Dear families,

In Term 1 2015 we will be running a major fundraising drive to raise money towards the curriculum: Health Education visit, Classroom furniture for Rm 7 and 8, Music programme for Year 5 and 6, Line Marker for the field and the purchase of junior readers. We are hoping to raise $5,000 and need your help and support.

Each family will be given a carry bag containing 20 boxes of Disaster Plasters to sell. We’ve chosen this product to promote healthy, family-friendly fundraising.

For those of you who aren’t aware of School Aid’s Disaster Plasters, they are beautifully designed latex free sticking plasters designed entirely as a better way for schools to fundraise without having to sell confectionery.  It’s an opportunity for every family in the school to make a difference.

What is it and how does it work?

Each family will be issued with a named bag containing 20 boxes of Disaster Plasters.

Each box sells for $5.00 of which $2.00 goes directly to us.

If each family could sell their pack of 20 boxes we would raise upwards of $4,000 which would be an incredible help towards our goal.

Prizes

On top of this, SchoolAid has partnered with retailers like North Beach and Rebel Sport to provide some really great prizes to help motivate the Kids. Our aim is to raise money but also to make it a fun experience. We have a Longboard Skateboard, a $75 Rebel Sports voucher and a $50 Rebel Sports voucher to give away to our top sellers, plus there will be 3 spot prizes per classroom up for grabs.

Thank you for your support. We are grateful for your involvement in helping us fundraise for Kaurihohore School.

Beach Trip Notice

First day back - 3rd of Feb

Looking forward to seeing everyone back bright eyed and busy tailed on Tuesday the 3rd.  Don't forget to have stationery at school and ready to go, normal classes will swing into action straight away and children will need their books.

Sunflower competition

How is everyone going with their sunflower?

Remember to measure it from bottom of the flower, level with the soil, to the top of the flower.  Take a photo, similar to this one.  You can post the photo on our face book page along with the height, email it through to us at reception@kaurihohoreschool.co.nz or print out the photo and write the height on the back.  When the flower has finished, cut of the head, saving some of the stem so that your child can drop it into the office.  We will measure the head and dry this at school, so we have some more seeds for next year.

Parent Information - Helping Numeracy Development

A useful video can be viewed here

Looking for sites for your child to use?  Click here.

Homework - Numeracy

*In the juniors children will be given specific number goals.  A lot of those can be done out loud, wherever you are.  Children enjoy playing games to help them practice their goal, so having flash cards of numbers ready is a great way to help.  Children also enjoy using window markers to record answers and small whiteboards or chalkboards.  Physically practising a number goal is always a great idea, if it is backwards counting, a child could jump backwards as they count along a number line to help them understand the concept.  If it is about numbers that come before and after, they could physically jump to the number that comes before or after a number that you call out.

*Children also enjoy a bit of competition, if you can make it a competitive game somehow, this will build up their speed of recall.  Using a fly swat to swat the correct answer first is something we use in class and children love doing this.

*Children do need to have instant recall of the knowledge they are working on, this can take time, don’t be in a hurry for them to rush through number goals as taking time to consolidate knowledge will be better for them in the long run.

*As this knowledge is vital to a child’s strategy development at school it helps to go back through old number goals from time to time to ensure children have not forgotten these.

*At all levels it is a great idea to use playing cards for practise, deal two cards and add them together, subtract the smallest, multiply them, or practise a specific times table or division by dealing one card and multiplying or dividing by that number.

*Playing catch while doing the number goal is always a great way to make numbers fun.  You can take turns counting in 2’s, 5’s, 10’s as you throw the ball, or you can you can practise basic facts with the person throwing the ball posing the fact and the person catching answering.  

*Middle and senior children will also have a goal focus to practise and all the ideas listed above work just as well for these. If in doubt practising addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are always a good idea.  Basic fact knowledge is crucial for children to have instant recall of, this is vital to support their learning in class.  Nothing beats good old rote learning when it comes to basic facts.  Children all seem to have difficulty developing speed with subtraction.  If they do not have a goal to focus on, this is always a good thing to work on.  Subtraction to 10, 100, 1000 etc, as far as your child is able to go.

*Remember - number goals focus on knowledge, the idea is for children to have instant recall of this knowledge.  The more they practise the basics, the more confident they will be when working in class.  This leaves children better able to develop strategies in class.

Websites/Apps to help:

Sumdog - www.sumdog.com

https://www.nessy.com/tablesofdoom/  (you need to pay to subscribe to this)

There are numerous apps out there for free download or payment through i-tunes account.  The EdAlive series are always good and are available on the app store.

There are also a lot of songs based on multiplication on i-tunes, and loads of maths related songs on youtube.

For lots of good ideas based on the New Zealand Curriculum please visit:

www.nzmaths.co.nz and click on the link that says families.

Ways to help your child with maths at home

If you want to know more about how to help your child at home with their progress in maths, nzmaths is a great site.  This is based on the maths curriculum that we teach from.

Click here to find out more.