Saturday 14 February 2015

Class Letter to ALL


10 February 2015

Dear All,

Welcome to Week 2, Term 1, 2015. I am thrilled and excited to be back with you all this term and to be part of your child’s special learning journey.

Welcome to Neviah and J.P. who have joined our class from Room 10. All children started last week with positivity, perfect behaviour and a focused attitude which is wonderful as we have a busy learning schedule ahead.

Please feel welcome to visit at any time and to have a browse through your children’s books and a look around our classroom to see what activities are part of their daily learning life. Don’t forget to check the blog – www.room9loveslearning.blogspot.com  
It will soon have current photos of the children and their activities. Many of the photos are now being taken by the children themselves.

Our current Religious Education topic is Prayer. We have been talking about what is prayer, why do we pray, where do we pray, how do we pray and about different kinds of prayer. Lent begins next week.

Our reading incorporates all sorts of literacy learning and activities. Ask your child about the BIG BOOK we are reading this week and the activities they are doing associated with the story. Activities are based on creativity and critical thinking and encourage ‘hands-on’ skills, e.g. construction/modelling dough, or thinking ‘outside the box’.  For home reading initiate lots of discussion around the theme of your child’s book. Ask them questions that do not have obvious answers in the text or questions that your child has to use their imagination to answer.
At story-writing time we are concentrating on ‘recounts’ and last week we focused on holiday activities. Children plan their story by quickly sketching three ideas which may be pictures of what has happened at the beginning, middle and end of their story. They are also getting quite proficient at reading their own stories to the class.We are concentrating this term on improving handwriting skills and are focusing on the correct shape, size and placement of each letter.

Fitness this term is a circuit of exercises. The children have fitness for ten minutes each morning just before 9.30am. Gymnastics starts this Wednesday and continues each Wednesday for the next six weeks (six one-hour lessons in all).

For maths we are doing numeracy for the first 3 weeks. Encourage your child to do Mathletics for 15 minutes each day and practise basic facts for speed at every opportunity. If your password is needed I have these at school. If you want to know what next to help your child’s progress please have a look at the Numeracy Summary on the wall in the classroom.  

I am intending to take our class over to 9am Mass every second Wednesday starting tomorrow, 11th February. This is a beautiful, peaceful Mass. Please join us if you are able. It would be lovely if the children are here in the classroom by 8.45am.

Warm regards

:)

 

A GREAT BIG HAPPY HELLO

A great big happy hello and it's so lovely to be back on the airwaves, or strictly speaking the world wide web. To all our followers and to those overseas - lovely to have you keeping in touch with us this way - enjoy the visual images of our beautiful children and all the wonderful learning they are doing. :)