July 2008. Classroom Newsletter.

Dear Parents,
Term 3 is here already! Thank you for your support last Term. It was really wonderful to have you there for the children’s presentation in the last week of the term. Our major focus for the Term is our Inquiry Unit. This term it is an integrated one that explores “Why do people all over the world share a need/ want to play or participate in game/sports and cultural activities?” Initially we will explore this through studying the Olympic Games and will have a Mini Olympic Games for the children to participate in. Later in the Term we will look at the cultural aspect.

Next week I am lucky enough to be going to visit schools in Christchurch and Dunedin to observe the use of Inquiry and ICT in other classrooms. Mrs Stupples and seven other teachers from Invercargill will be going too. This is a wonderful opportunity. Mrs Marley will be teaching the class and she will carry on teaching the programme that I have planned for the week.

Room 9 Programme for Term 3 will be:
Maths: We will be covering the following:
Geometry: focusing on direction & position
Numeracy: working on fractions and revisiting addition/
subtraction
Measurement: mass and time.

Religious Education: The first week we will look at prayer. Then we will focus on the Church and Sacrament Strands.
Literacy:
Writing Process: We will be focusing on letter writing and the ICT component will be e-mails to the NZ Olympic Team.
Reading will be as usual, with a focus on vocabulary and comprehension skills. Log Books will be given a sticker if completed on Fridays.
Current Events: With the our inquiry focus on the Olympic Games the children will be asked to bring items about the Olympics news from the paper to share.
Spelling will come home on Fridays and is tested on Fridays.
Visual language we will be studying Moving Advertisements

Physical Education: This term we will focus on Fair Play. Our fitness will be Jump Jam, which will involve 10-15mins of aerobics Monday to Thursday. Our Physical Education days for the Term are Monday and Friday.

The Arts: We will looking at pattern and shape this term through weaving and pastel work.
Music will continue with the Feel the Beat Programme and will include Maori song dance and drama.

A Reminder
We have some children who have allergies that are severe. For this reason it is important that there are no nut products brought into our class or in lunch boxes. No peanut butter sandwiches or nut bars, please. I would appreciate your co-operation with this.
We have a classroom blog this can be found at http://room9shsinv.blogspot.com/
If you have any problems or wish to speak with me at anytime please don’t hesitate to contact me. My e-mail is klieshout@shsinv.school.nz .

Kath Lieshout Room 9 Teacher.