Term 2 Week 3

We hope you had a lovely long weekend.  We are so lucky with this weather so we can get

outside to play and exercise. 
This week is a shorter week.  Tomorrow is a teacher only day, this is so teachers can

prepare the classrooms to work with social distancing.  Online learning will be posted again

on Wednesday, so a short week.  Once again thank you to all the families for supporting

your children on this journey we are taking. We understand it is difficult, especially with our

young ones!  As teachers we are missing the children and last week it was great to connect

with a large group in our video chat, we think it worked well and will invite families to join us

again this week. We also love seeing what the children are up to so thank you to all who are

posting pictures and stories on Educa or sending us emails with what the children have

been up to.  Remember there is so much learning that can happen in everyday life just with

conversations about what you are doing or allowing children to help cook dinner, bake,

decide where a walk may take the family, or just playing with their toys.

A reminder of our weekly timetable during the online learning period:

Wednesday - Reading Focus

Thursday - Writing Focus

Friday - Poem

Bingo Board - a choice of nine activities that you can do with your children throughout the

week. These cover a range of curriculum areas which reflect the play provocations that we

do in Kakano during normal class times.

RE - Our focus for RE this week is Sacraments. This week if you could send a photo of your

child’s Baptism and talk to them about their special day.  We will form a special display with

these photos when we return to school. 

Maths - We will set up a problem and some games for the children to work on for the week.

Just remember you are doing an amazing job with your children and please let us know if

you require any help! 

Sany-Joy (Mrs Mareroa) and I will be returning to school to support the children returning

and Sara (Mrs Mines) will be posting work on Educa for the children.  We are all still

available during normal school hours. It is a good idea to reach us via email first and we can

give you a call if needed.

Thank you again for all of your help. 

We hope that you have another great week.

Term 2 Week 2

Welcome to another week of online learning. Thank you to all of the families for supporting your children throughout these times. We understand it is difficult, especially with our young ones! We really appreciate all of the great parent stories uploaded onto Educa and have been tracking all of the students on Lexia. Some of you would have received your Lexia Superstar awards via Educa too!!

There has been some talk of reopening schools at Level 3. Please be assured that as soon

as a decision is made we will let our whole school community know.

A reminder of our weekly timetable during the online learning period:

Monday/Wednesday - Reading Focus

Tuesday/Thursday - Writing Focus

Friday - Poem

Bingo Board - a choice of nine activities that you can do with your children throughout the

week. These cover a range of curriculum areas which reflect the play provocations that we

do in Kakano during normal class times. This will be on Educa

RE - Our focus for RE this week is Holiness. We have included some activities that you can

do with your children.

Maths - We will set up a problem for the children to work on for the week.

Please let us know if you require any help! The teachers are all available during normal

school hours. It is a good idea to reach us via email first and we can give you a call if

needed.

Thank you again for all of your help. 

We hope that you have another great week.

RE

Focus on Holiness

Finish the sentences:

• Friends are holy people when they….
• Parents are holy people when they…
• Teachers are holy people when they…
• Priests are holy people when they….

You are holy. Children can have some quiet time and say this to them.

Be very still and quiet

inside and outside your body.

Close your eyes.

Put your hand on your heart.

Feel God in your holy place.

Let God’s grace fill you with

 God’s life of holiness and love

Activity:

Identify holy objects that we use to pray with and to use for our prayer focus. Set up a prayer focus.

Take photos of this to share with us!

Reading Logs.
Thank you to everyone who has sent a photo of your child's reading log.  If you can take a photo or send me a list of the books they read over the holidays they will go into the reading log draw.

Video Calls
I have really enjoyed talking to some of the children and look forward to talking to more this week. I will try and set up a group call so we can see all our friends in one call.  Please let me know if you are wanting your child to join in on this.  We will have this on Friday morning.

Have a lovely week and don't hesitate to contact me if you need any support. Best contact is email lorrainet@stmarysrotorua.school.nz I can then email you back or give you a call.
Lorraine

Term 2 Week 1

Welcome back to Term 2 2020.  It’s a wee bit different this term - we have had to make

some changes.  This term our concept is ADAPTABILITY - how and why do things change. We will send a Bingo Board of activities for you each week. It is not expected that you will complete ALL activities every week. Have a go at 3-4 in the week and be sure to share some of your learning to Educa.  

Learning activities will be posted to Educa for you and your child to access. The class blog will be used to share nuts and bolts information with parents and to celebrate home learning success.  Teachers will be contacting students over the next little while. We want to touch base, see how you are going and how we can help. If you have any questions or queries check the blog/Educa and then email your class teacher. We are here to help. 

Literacy

Monday and Wednesday are reading focus days.  On Tuesday and Thursday, we will focus on writing. We will send home some little activities and ideas for you to use the reading

resources we sent home at the end of term 1. You will also receive ideas about how to encourage your child to write at home. Lexia will be used to support their literacy development. We don’t want to see kids on Lexia for more than 15 minutes a day. Our children learn better through real-world play and activity.

Maths

We will include a maths challenge in the bingo board of activities each week. You also have Maths Whizz to support maths learning and development. Again, we don’t want to see kids on Maths Whizz for more than 15 minutes a day. There are many play activities that encourage and develop maths thinking. 

RE

We always begin our day with a prayer.  This week we are going to write a grateful litany. A grateful litany is like a list of all the things that we want to say Thank you for.  Each line says “For… Thank you, God”. Can you write one line each day this week. Share this prayer with your teacher so that they can make a class litany to share.

Birthdays
We wish Aryaa, Agnes, Julian, James, and Hayden a great big Happy Birthday.  These children all have celebrated there 6th Birthdays over the Holiday break.  We will have one big celebration when we are back at school.  These children will all get there special birthday cupcake on our return.

We miss all of the beautiful smiling faces of our Kakano students. Please, let us know if you need any support or guidance. We look forward to working alongside you in this unusual learning adventure.