Term 3 News

Term 3 News

Welcome to term 3. It is going to be an exciting term. 

Starting this term, Pohutukawa Syndicate is participating in several key educational innovations. 

Modern Learning Environment Approach in V4/V5

V4 and V5 are picking up the Ministry of Education’s challenge to implement a modern learning environment. 

These environments align better with what we know about children, their learning and the New Zealand Curriculum. V4 and V5 will be utilising both classrooms and the skills of both teachers. Students in these classes will be able to move between the two rooms as the participate in the learning programme.   

The programme emphasises the important curriculum key competency of ‘managing self’. We are encouraging children to take greater control of their learning to ensure learning is more personal and relevant. 

We will be running a Wednesday to Tuesday week so we can include the Friday programme more naturally into our learning programme.  Those children not involved in extension programmes can continue on with their normal class programme.  

We have conveniently merged our two blogs together so the children can go to one place to access their workshops and for them to share what is happening in the classroom. 
The new address for our blog is v4-v5learners.blogspot.co.nz

Please take the time to pop in during the week and see our learning programme in action. The children are wildly enthusiastic and we have been pleased to note their application and thoughtful decision making. 

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) V6

V6 students have been given a unique challenge in term 3. Reflecting the vision of the Board of Trustees, Island Bay School will shortly invite all Year 5/6 students to bring a digital device to school to use for learning. We are currently planning for this to occur and developing information about this for parents. We will start our BYOD invitation (optional) in V6 in week 4. V6 parents should look out for the BYOD invitation home shortly. 

Inquiry

Our shared inquiry asks the question ‘How can we bring books to life?’. We are studying many different kinds of books and considering ways we can be innovative to make books even more exciting.

Deep Understandings

Innovative ideas can be made real by using a design process

Books come in many forms; they are not just text on a page. 

In addition, the children are also going to be involved in a passion inquiry focused on a personal topic of interest. In this inquiry they will be asked to create a question, plan their research and implement it.

Literacy

We are going to continue learning our essential words as part of our homework. The children will also have spelling strategy workshops in class time that will teach them about how words are constructed. 

Our writing programme is going to be linked into our class inquiry. We are going to learn about books and how to write different types of stories and text that can be turned into books. We will use our reading sessions to learning about the reading comprehension strategies of inferring, analysing and synthesising. We will also study different text types that will help us write excellent books.

Math

This term our number focus is going to be multiplication, division, fractions, ratios and proportions. In strand we are going to learn about perimeter, area, volume, reading different kinds of maps and creating nets of shapes. Children need to continue to learn their basic facts at home.

P.E.

On Tuesday 29th our we have our school swimming sports. We will also have a focus of touch rugby and netball. We are also using the beep run to increase our fitness for camp.

Snow Camp 

20th to 22nd August

Team Pohutukawa is going on snow camp week 5 of this term. Over the next few weeks we need to start to collect in our camp fees. In the next week your children will be sent home a note with how much their camp fee will be.

Personal Gear - individual check

Could the bolded items please be brought to school on Tuesday 5th August. We need to see this gear as part of our Risk Assessment Management Systems. We will have the Risk Assessment Management Systems available to you next term to view.

Warm sleeping bag
Plastic/metal bowl, plate, cup, fork, spoon, knife, tea towel (the children are going to be responsible for looking after and washing their own dishes, could you please help your child to name them)
Toothbrush, toothpaste, small soap, sunblock, lip balm
Towel and togs (We will go to the hot pools in Tokaanu if the mountain is closed)
Waterproof jacket (to use in the snow)
Waterproof pants (to use in the snow)
Waterproof gloves (to use in the snow)
Sunglasses or Goggles
1 trackpants
1 pair of extra long pants
Pjs
2 warm jerseys (Polar fleece and wool are best)

1 warm long socks (These will be warn on the mountain)
Polyprop/Thermal top and leggings
Beanie
2 long sleeve tops
Undies

Socks
1 pair of sturdy walking shoes
1 pair of camp shoes
Small day pack
2 water bottles