Totara Times - Week 8

Totara Times – Term 2 Week 8 ending 23 June

We have begun handing out our Relating to Others key competency cards to students who show consistent team work skills and kindness to others. We have been acting out role plays to help us with this key competency to solve conflicts in the playground. We are super impressed with some of the solutions students have been coming up with.

Learning in Totara

Maths

We are moving into Multiplication and Division strategies for the last three weeks of term. We have a big focus on problem solving at the moment and students are showing their growth mindset development by challenging themselves to complex word problems.

Reading

The Daily 5 has undergone some changes this week with the addition of free writing time and a few changes to enhance spelling lessons. Students have adapted to these changes with ease and are super excited about their free writing time.

Writing

Our last information reports this term are focused around Matariki, with our field trip to the Stardome coming up we are interested to see what aspects of Matariki students are able to report on.

Inquiry

Our science inquiry is progressing wonderfully, Trish's group are observing the changes happening to their mould over time and adding interesting insights to their sways. Feel free to pop into the class to see what they are growing. Jordan's group have been looking at the molecular changes that happen inside a chemical reaction and are now thinking about how they can enhance the chemical reaction of baking soda and vinegar by changing the variables. 

Headphones

A reminder that students need to be bringing a set of headphones to school each day to ensure they have access to all learning opportunities.

Important dates

Wednesday 21^st June – Stardome trip
Friday 23rd June - Sausage Sizzle day 
- orders need to be placed via Wrap it Up by 9:15am NB: popcorn no longer available
Black out mufti day - gold coin donation to KidsCan
Wednesday 28th June - Skip-a-thon 9:10am first performance

Links to other Year 4 work examples :-)

Art Inquiry 1

Art Inquiry 2

Science Molecules

Francesca's Art Inquiry

Year 4 Cannon Singing with Mary

Jack's art inquiry

Let's make models of molecules!

The start of our science investigation into mould

Totara Times - Term 2 Week 6

Totara Times – Term 2 Week 6 ending 9 June

The term is racing by and everyone is hard at work.  Self-management is an on-going focus while working in flexible learning spaces. Our other Key Competency is ‘relating to others’ with an emphasis on collaborative teamwork.

Learning in Totara

Maths

Our current focus is on Addition and Subtraction strategies with booster workshops in Place Value. Our work on growth mind-set maths is continuing and we have added another activity into the independent work that everyone completes each week. This activity is a times table challenge with the children competing against themselves to improve their accuracy and speed as they work through all the times tables. It is important that the children learn the times tables by heart.

Reading

Non-fiction texts comprise the bulk of our guided reading sessions now as this complements the work we are doing in writing. Children should be reading at home every night and doing some Reading Eggs work.

Writing

We have been doing some excellent research and writing this term. We are writing information reports with a focus on putting capital letters and full stops in the right places. The success criteria includes grouping ideas into paragraphs and expressing our thoughts precisely.

Inquiry

We have successfully concluded our inquiry into art in the community and have moved on to a Science inquiry.  Jordan’s group are looking at chemical reactions and Trish’s group are studying mould. We are using ‘Sway’ (accessed through Office 365) to record our investigations and keep a note of our observations.

Headphones

Many of our reading activities require the use of headphones. Unfortunately, many of the school headphones have been broken so we are asking if children can bring a pair from home.

Important dates

Wednesday 21^st June – Stardome trip

Totara Times Week 4

Totara Times – Week 4

We had a wonderful cross county last Friday, we had all been training hard and each student competed well. We congratulate all students for their individual achievements in the cross country and to our overall winners.

Learning in Totara

Our key competency of 'Relating to Others' is progressing well and we are seeing some wonderful team work in different activities. Some students are still working towards earning their self-managing tokens which we will continue to hand out with our new relating to others tokens each Friday.

Maths

We are continuing to develop our Math program and are adding more workshops into the mix. Bevan will come in for a workshop on Fridays to promote problem solving whilst we will continue to run workshops on number knowledge and strategy work. We all so have a new program called 'Khan Academy' running in the classroom to further extend our high achievers.

Reading

We are working on non-fiction texts and information reports to tie in with our writing focus. We will continue to reinforce strategies to help with our decoding and comprehension. We are adding a sight word spelling program to run alongside our weekly phonics lessons.

Writing

We have begun to look at information reports in writing, we will be continuing on with non-fiction writing to fit with our science topic. We appreciate parents showing an interest in writing and seeking to see the final product that we publish on 'Kid Blog'.
We have also completed a self assessment for handwriting and are going to start running handwriting workshops alongside our literacy program.

Inquiry

This week we presented our Sway power points about our learning journey in the art inquiry. We had some wonderful presentations and have some fabulous pieces of art. We are moving now into our science inquiry section where we will be running two different science topics that students can self elect into.

Alongside our Inquiry we are running a Maori rotation in collaboration with year 3 to explore Matariki from different aspects. The groups will explore Matariki art, Maori star navigation, Matariki drama, dance and the significance of the seven Matariki stars.

Sausage Sizzle

There will be another Sausage Sizzle on Friday this week.

Important Dates

Wednesday 21^st June – Totara Team trip to Stardome
Monday 26th June - Friday 7th July - Trish away on leave