Room 8

3 February 2014

Dear Parents / Caregivers,

Welcome to Room 8 for 2014. This year Mrs Heather Tootill and Miss Racheal Andrews will be teaching your child. Miss Andrews will be in the room from 8.45 till 10.30 every day while Mrs Tootill takes Reading Recovery. Mrs Tootill will be in the room from 11.00 till 3.00.

This term our concept is Citizenship, and we will be focusing on Me/You/We in the context of Volunteers. The Concept is integrated throughout many other curriculum areas.  Our Religious Education Programme will be integrated throughout our daily programme; we will be working to maintain the Catholic Character of our school.  This term we will be focusing on the Fruit of the Holy Spirit of JOY.  We are also having a term focus on manners.  This term we are highlighting PLEASE and THANK YOU.

Our school motto is 'With Christ as our centre we strive for excellence’; we will be reminding the children of this and will be expecting the best from them.

This year we are going to do most of our communication with you via our class blog. Our blog address is: room8stmarysrotorua.blogspot.com . We will be putting something on the blog each week to keep you up to date with what has been happening and what will be happening in the following week.

Here are a few “Need to Knows/Reminders” for the term:

• Class Library:  Thursday 11.45am-12.30pm Children will be able to issue a book for the week.
• Whole School Singing: Wednesday 8.45-9.00am
• Class Swimming:  Everyday 12.00-12.30pm on odd weeks (1,3,5,7,9,11) Children are expected to participate, as swimming is part of the Physical Education programme. Please ensure that your child brings their togs on these days.

·         Uniforms: Children are expected to wear correct summer uniform, this includes a hat.  It is compulsory for all children to wear their sunhats while they are playing outside during the first term.  (No Hat, No Play)

Uniform Shop Hours:  Monday and Friday 8.30-9.00am

                                  Wednesday 2.30-3.00pm

          PLEASE name your child’s belongings clearly so they can be returned if lost.

• Newsletters are sent home every Wednesday to keep you informed of school happenings.  You can also visit the school website for more information. www.stmarysrotorua.school.nz.
• Absentees:  Please contact the office if your child is absent for the day on;

          348 1701 (a message can be left if it is outside of the office hours)

Office hours: 8.30am-3.30pm

Upcoming events:

Parent Information Evening:

Thursday 13 February 5.30pm-6.00pm

School Gala

Thursday 27 February

This term we will be having our Junior School Athletics on:

Thursday 27 March 11am-12.30pm

We will be practicing skills for this event in the weeks that we don’t have swimming.

Homework:

Reading

Your child will bring home reading every night.  Could you please set aside a few minutes to listen to them read.  If they are struggling with a word just tell them it.  We want to make reading as enjoyable and stress free as possible so your child develops a positive attitude towards reading. The expectation is that they will return the book each morning.

Spelling

Your child will bring home spelling words to learn each week. They will be tested on these words on Friday mornings.  

Here are a few suggestions on how to help your child learn their words:

·         Write them again and again.

·         Find the words in books, magazines etc.

·         Make the word out of dough.

·         Write each letter a different colour (Rainbow words)

·         Use a paint brush and water to paint them on concrete.

We look forward to meeting you and getting to know your child.  A Home-School Partnership is very important to help your child’s learning, and the key to this is a good parent-teacher relationship.  If you have any queries about your child’s learning or you want to tell us something about your child that may help us to get the best out of them PLEASE contact us.  Our email addresses are: heather@stmarys.rotorua.school.nz racheala@stmarys.rotorua.school.nz or you can pop in for a quick chat before or after school.

We look forward to meeting you this term.

Yours Sincerely

Heather Tootill and Racheal Andrews.