Kahikatea Newsletter Term 1 Week 9 2021

Literacy in Kahikatea

It was awesome to see so many families at our structured literacy information sessions with Caroline Morritt (Resource Teacher for Literacy). If you were unable to attend, we hope to have a recording of the session available soon. Caroline reinforced the importance of comprehension, during these parent meetings, with reference to  'Scarborough’s Rope'

Reading with your child

This is always a great opportunity to focus on comprehension skills. Here are some great ideas from www.speechpathways.ca/2018/01/12/reading-with-your-child/

“Use a variety of words to talk about the pictures

This means stay away from nouns (naming objects) and talk about words that describe (rough), action words (jump), locations (under) and words about time (later)

Highlight important words

Stress the important words or new vocabulary by changing your voice (make your pitch go up or down, change the rate of your speech by talking faster or slower)

Build on your child’s understanding

A great way to help your child understand is to relate it to a similar experience in his or her life. This will help them build a better connection between the book and something that has happened to him or her in the past.

Think outside the book

Encourage your child to think beyond the pages of the book to expand his or her thinking. You can help your child predict what might happen next, compare and contrast an object from the story to real life, make an inference and draw a conclusion, identify a problem and solution and sequence the events of the story by retelling what happened. These discussions will help your child to think, solve problems and imagine.”

Here are some photos from our literacy lessons and our library time: 

Team Hui 

Each week, we have a team hui. It is a special time, where we come together, connect and celebrate. As part of our hui, we say our karakia and waiata. We have noticed a number of our learners confidently reciting these off by heart, ka pai! We have attached these below, in case your child would like to practice at home.

Building Connections

This week we have been focusing on getting to know more about our peers. We have been connecting with a variety of people and finding out about our shared interests as well as our differences. It has been great to find out new things about each other and to practice our active listening skills.

Learning Conferences

Week 11 - Monday 12th April and Wednesday 14th April

School will close at 2pm on both days, to allow Learning Conferences to begin at 2:15pm.

Please go onto the School Interviews website and use the code kk64k to book your learning conference. The Learning Conferences are for 15mins each, except for Year 7/8 where you need to book a 15-minute slot, but allow 30 mins (it works!)

The focus of these Learning Conferences will be to update you on how your child has settled into the school year and the areas of focus they are working on in numeracy and literacy.

Have a fabulous Easter break, and we look forward to seeing you back at school on Wednesday 7th April.

Team Kahikatea

(Lisa, Katie, Amber, Charlotte, Michelle, Kate and Paul)