Word Power

We have been learning to write words 'off-by-heart'. We are doing this because when we know how to write simple words without having to sound them out or find them to copy then we can write them quickly in our stories. This means that we can spend more time working on the content and ideas in our stories.

So, we get eight minutes each Friday to write all the words we know. Each week we try to beat our last score. It's a competition against ourselves - not against each other. 

If we write 15 words correctly we get a bronze certificate. 30 words gets us a silver certificate. And, if we write 60 words correctly we'll get a gold certificate (something to aim for at the end of the year!). John Paul, Tausala, Rhoda and Matthias have all already got a bronze certificate - well done you four!

Four more children will be receiving their bronze certificates at our next assembly. I wonder who they will be?!

This term, as well as other areas of mathematics, we are studying statistics. So we made graphs of how many words we know how to write. Miss McKenna made the scale go from one to 25 but already Tausala has had to colour above the graph - last week she wrote a fantastic 26 words. Way to go Tausala!

Come into our classroom to see each of our graphs and see how we are doing!

To try and learn more words that we can write automatically Miss McKenna and Mrs Nobre have been talking with us about our work and we practise so that the next week we can get more words than the previous Friday.

Some of the things we are learning and practising when we write words are:

• putting letters in the correct order
• writing letters the correct way around 
• using little letters and capital (big) letters in the correct places

You can help us at home by writing to us, writing with us and writing around us. Here are some ideas for how to make this fun:

• let us see you writing (you can use your first language) because when we see you do something we know that you value it and we will learn to value it to
• include us when you're writing shopping lists and let us write them with you
• help us make birthday cards for friends and family instead of buying them
• put magnetic alphabet letters on the fridge and help us make words with them like our family member's names (or 'mum' and 'dad')
• take a paintbrush and water and write words together on the path outside 
• write little notes to your child and pop them in their lunchbox so they get a surprise at lunchtime and can write you back
• encourage your child to write notes and cards to their friends at school - they can pop them in our class letterbox

Whatever you do - make it fun!