Totara Term 3 Newsletter

Our school focus in 2014 is “Living The Way, The Truth and The Life”. In Term 1 we looked at how we live our lives as part of God’s Family at St. Joseph’s School.

In Term 2 the children chose a country they would like to find out more about. These individual inquiries were amazing!!!

In Term 3 we will be focusing on ‘The Commonwealth Games’.  I have ordered NIE (Newspapers in Education) which we will focus on during our reading/inquiry time. The children will be looking at the different sports at the games and the countries taking part. The children can  choose to follow a certain country or look at a particular sport they are interested in as their inquiry. They will be doing some of this at school as well as part of their homework. They can use newspapers and magazines at home for more information.

Resources they can use

Ø School Library

Ø Atlases

Ø Internet

Ø Class library books

Ø School Journals.

Ø NIE

Ø Totara Class Blog

Ø Newspapers/Magazines

Homework

Reading:

In class we are focusing on the different ways we read, silently to ourselves, reading with a partner and listening to someone read. The children are also reading Chapter Books in class at silent reading time. They should also be doing this at home. Please make sure the children fill in their reading diaries so I can see what they are reading at home. (Newspaper items on Commonwealth Games can be added).

Numeracy

His term we are working on multiplication and division. It is most important that the children complete the times tables activities sent home. There are some links on the blogsite that will help make times tables fun to learn. The children are very familiar with the ‘Teacher Tools’ website. We use this website in the classroom and it would be a very good one for you to look at and see what stage your child is at in numeracy.

Spelling

Every two weeks the children will be given 10 words to put into sentences (These words are also on Spelling City). There will also be some other words associated with the Commonwealth Games.

A BIG focus this term is for the children in Totara to take more responsibility for their own learning. I have spent a great part of the holidays planning and preparing our classroom to reflex this. We can discuss this at our interviews next week.

I am looking forward to a great term full of fun, learning and lots of happy faces J J J J J   

Ann Dooley/Totara Class Teacher J