Congratulations Rocio and Alexus!

Our first certificates of this term went to Rocio and Alexus - congratulations girls! Rocio gets her certificate for an excellent effort in writing. She has been working independently at writing time and finishing her work quickly. Well done Rocio!

Alexus' certificate is for an excellent start to Term Four. Alexus has begun the term with such a happy, positive attitude to school and it is great to see the joy she is showing for learning. Keep up the great work Alexus!

Congratulations To Our Budding Authors!

A big congratulations to Rosina and Aubrey who today received certificates for some fantastic writing they have been doing.

Room Six have been learning to write instructions and Rosina and Aubrey both wrote an excellent set of instructions about how to make jelly on Monday. Your instructions were simple, clear and ordered. Well done girls!

Teaching More Monsters How To Read!

Congratulations to Rosina and Tevita who both completed the first Teach Your Monster game. They have been working hard during reading time to complete the game and are excited to now be on game two!

Don't forget that you can help your child with their learning by setting them up to play the game at home. Ten minutes each day at home would really help boost their learning...and it's fun too! 

To access the FREE game online go to: http://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com/u/275052. Then help your child enter their name as their username and ask them what their password is and help them type that in too. (If they can't remember, just pop in and ask me!)

Room Six Students Showing The Key Competencies

Congratulations to Trelia and Joseph who receive certificates this week for participating and contributing well in class discussions. Trelia and Joseph have made a great start to Term Three by being diligent during class discussions. Both Trelia and Joseph always pay attention during class talks and add meaningfully to our learning by contributing thoughtful ideas and interesting questions.

Some of the questions Trelia and Joseph have been wondering about include: Did the Olympic flame come to New Zealand? (Trelia) and What was Mary MacKillop's mum and dad's names? (Joseph)

We've been reading 'Six Little Stories about Mary MacKillop; For her youngest friends'. When we read one of the stories we found out that Mary MacKillop's mum was called Flora and and her dad was called Alexander. We still haven't found out if the Olympic flame came to New Zealand on its way to Brazil. Do you know? If you do, maybe you could comment below and tell us!

Who got the most values vouchers in our class in Term Two?

Congratulations to Valentino and Ayla who got the most values vouchers in Room Two (we used to be in Room Two) last term!

The values we have at Christ the King Catholic School come from God. They are...

...respect, love, service, justice, peace and joy.

This term our focus will be on justice. We will be looking at what justice is and how we can play fairly. Part of our study will involve looking at the Olympic games and how fairness is shown in sport.

Help your child at home by noticing the Olympics in the news (papers, television and radio) and talking to your children about what you see and hear!

'Reading and writing float on a sea of talk'. 

- James Britton, educationalist

Deevon's Been Teaching His Monster To Read!

In Room Six we have been creating monsters and then teaching them to read! We are using the computer programme called 'Teach Your Monster To Read'. It complements our classroom programme by helping teach us all about letters, sounds, words and sentences. When we first went on it asked us to create a monster. Then we have been teaching our monster letter names and sounds. This is part of the first Teach Your Monster game called 'First Steps'. There are three Teach Your Monster games altogether:

1) First Steps

2) Fun with Words

3) Champion Reader

We work on the Teach Your Monster game during our literacy tumble after morning tea and we sometimes work on it during other parts of the day too. We love completing levels on it and are working towards completing each game.

A super-dooper congratulations to Deevon who has completed the first game and is now working on 'Fun with Words'. He receives a certificate with his monster on it - well done Deevon!

Encourage your child to work on Teach Your Monster at home. It's free, or you can download an app if you want to. Use this link and then your child can enter their username and password. Then they're off! (Their username is their first name, with one capital at the beginning and their password is a basic sight word which they all should know...and we've been learning should be kept secret! If your child has forgotten his or her password get them to come and ask Miss McKenna what their password is.)

Some Of The Royal Family Visit CTK!

Last week we had some special visitors come and visit our school. Iliyas (Room One) and Vincent's (Room Six) eldest sister, Azaria, came with her dance group to perform for all of us.

Azaria's dance group is really good and they are going to perform at the World Hip Hop Dance Championships later this year. We watched them dance and then they invited some children and teachers to come up and have a go!

At the end of their performance we took a photo with all the dancers and their coach. We used our hands to create crowns like they do. When we went back to our classroom we were talking so much about the dancing. We were so excited after seeing the performance and decided to write about our experience to tell you all about it.

Here are our stories:  

This morning we went to the hall to watch the people dancing. I saw Itu and I saw Isi when we got out of the hall when the people were dancing. By Aden

Today Azaria's Royal Family came to Christ the King Catholic School. I like the girl who was wiggling fast. By Ashleigh

Today we had a surprise. The man did a flip. By Valentino

I like the dancing. By Elena

The girl is dancing because they practise. By Aubrey

The girl is dancing faster. By Helina

Today we saw people dancing in the hall. It was cool. By Deevon

I like the dancing. by Ken

Today at school we went to watch a dance group and there were cool dance moves. By Rosina

I like my mum and my baby. My mum take a picture. By Ceazah-Blue

Azaria was dancing with her friends. By Tevita

Ashleigh and Ken worked hard on their stories and remembered their learning goals. Ashleigh spent time making sure her story made sense and used interesting punctuation in it (capital letters, full stops...and an apostrophe!). Ken carefully worked on his story - finding words on the word card and putting finger spaces between words. Well done Ashleigh and Ken!

As the best writing of the day, Miss McKenna chose Ashleigh and Ken to share their work with Mrs Kopua. They read their stories to Mrs Kopua and she wanted to give them a Principal's Award but didn't have any stickers left - so she gave them seven stars for Matariki instead. Cool!

Thank you to the parents who stayed to watch the show. I bet you enjoyed it just as much as we did?!

And The Principal's Award Goes To...

Congratulations to Rosina and Trelia who received Principal's Awards yesterday for their great stories about everyday heroes in their lives.

Keep up the good work girls!

Congratulations Rosina, Valentino, Aden and Trelia!

A belated congratulations to Rosina, Valentino, Aden and Trelia who all received certificates during the first two weeks of school this term. Valentino received his for good effort in reading. Like we all do, Valentino sometimes makes mistakes when he reads aloud. Lately he has been doing a good job of fixing those mistakes by checking what he has read 'looks right'. Well done Valentino!

Rosina got her certificate for being curious and asking good questions about what we are learning. Keep up the good questioning Rosina!

Aden received his certificate for improving the way he manages himself in the classroom. Aden is doing this in lots of ways - such as asking for help when he needs it. Good thinking Aden! Aden is also doing a good job of managing his responsibilities (such as putting out our lunchbox box each morning). Thank you Aden!

Trelia's certificate is for increasing participation in the classroom. Well done Trelia - you are joining in more confidently. Keep it up!

Who got the most Values Vouchers in Room Two last term?

Values Vouchers are awarded at Christ the King Catholic School to children who are displaying our school values which are...

...respect, love, service, justice, peace and joy.

Aden got the most Values Vouchers out of the boys in Room Two and Trelia got the most Values Vouchers out of the girls.

How many vouchers did Aden get altogether? Nine! Trelia got eight. Well done Aden and Trelia! Who will get the most Values Vouchers this term?

Congratulations Ayla and Rosina!

A belated congratulations to Ayla and Rosina who received awards at the end of last term. Ayla got her certificate for bringing joy and enthusiasm to all our learning. It is so great to see Ayla's positive attitude to school. She is always smiling and has so much energy for her own learning - and to give to others! Thank you Ayla.

Rosina received her award for managing herself by always being prepared for learning. One of the Key Competencies of the New Zealand Curriculum is 'Managing Self' and Rosina does a good job of this. She always makes sure she has what she needs for school by getting ready the night before and she was always especially well-prepared for swimming. Well done Rosina - you have been a good example for the other children!

Congratulations to...all of us!

Last week at our morning assembly Mrs Ashe stepped forward to award her certificates and gave one to...Room Two! Can you see Ashleigh holding it? She went up with Miss McKenna to accept the award. Mrs Ashe was impressed by our class blog and gave us the certificate for sharing our learning. She even gave us a special treat too (Tevita is holding them in the picture below) - yum. Thanks Mrs Ashe!

We hope you are enjoying reading about our learning in our blog. Please do leave us comments and Miss McKenna will read them with us. Have a great day!

Congratulations Aden and Deevon!

Congratulations to Aden and Deevon who received Room Two's certificates this week. Aden receives his for the effort he put into learning his passage for our Stations of the Cross liturgy last week. Like all the readers, Aden tried his best and did a great job. What Aden did especially well was working on using a loud, clear voice. Ka pai Aden - you did a great job presenting your station to the school with Miss Cahill.

Deevon receives his certificate for the way he is beginning to talk about how he is solving problems in maths. Lots of our maths work is based on problem-solving and the children in Room Two are learning to think about word problems, try ways of solving them and then talk about how they got their answers. Talking about our learning is really important and it's great to see Deevon begin to talk about his work in maths. Mahi pai Deevon!

Congratulations Valentino and Ceazah-Blue!

Valentino and Ceazah-Blue both receive certificates for their writing this week. Both boys have been learning to be more independent with their writing. Valentino did a great story this week where he remembered finger spaces and really thought about what sounds he could hear words starting with to write in his story. Well done Valentino!

Likewise, Ceazah-Blue is having a go at using finger spaces, full stops and identifying sounds he hears in words and writing them down without having to check with the teacher. He's also writing words he finds on the sound/alphabet card in his stories. (If we can read a word, we can write a word - by finding it and copying it down!) Keep up the good work boys!

Congratulations Cyprus and Rosina!

Congratulations to Cyprus and Rosina who received this week's Room Two excellence awards. Cyprus received his award for some great work in reading. He is doing lots of things that good readers do including thinking about the story and listening to his own reading. Listening to his own reading means Cyprus can notice when he makes a mistake and fix it himself (we call this 'self-monitoring') and it's fantastic to hear him doing it all by himself. Mahi pai Cyprus!

Rosina gets her award for growing confidence in writing. Rosina is building resilience in writing and has begun to have a go at writing words she wants in her stories all by herself. Well done Rosina - we are really impressed by how you are having a go all by yourself!

Growing Resilience and a Growth Mindset

Congratulations to Tevita and Ashleigh who are the Room Two certificate recipients this week. Tevita gets his certificate for always taking care with the presentation of his work. Tevita works hard to produce lovely artwork. He always makes an effort to produce his best work when he is drawing - and if he thinks he can do better he tries again and makes improvements. Well done Tevita - you are showing resilience because you keep trying!

Ashleigh gets her certificate for reading aloud with enthusiasm and expression. She is using punctuation and other clues in the story (such as exclamation marks and bold text) to read with expression.

Reading with expression means Ashleigh is making her voice interesting when she reads. She is reading the text with feeling that matches what it means. This really helps with understanding a text because it instantly increases a child's access to meaning as they read.

When Ashleigh realises she hasn't read part of the story with the expression it needed she goes back and re-reads the text again - this time with expression. Mahi pai Ashleigh - you are showing a growth mindset because you know you can try again and do better!

Congratulations Aden and Ayla!

A big congratulations to brother and sister Aden and Ayla who have both been working hard in Room Two and each received a certificate this week.

Aden's certificate is for always putting in a good effort at writing time by settling to work fast and trying his best. Aden has been learning to make sure he always puts a capital letter at the beginning of sentences, and punctuation (such as a full stop or exclamation mark) at the end of sentences. Aden has been concentrating hard on this and editing his work if he forgot to include capital letters or other punctuation when he was drafting.

Ayla was so excited to receive her certificate. It is for participating well at mat-time by sharing ideas and listening to others. Ayla always has an interesting contribution to make to discussions but she also listens well to the ideas of others which is just as important.

Mahi pai Aden and Ayla - keep up the great work!