It's Science Week!

Today is the first day of Science Week at Christ the King Catholic School. During writing time today Room Six did an experiment with Ms. Chan. It involved mixing different items to get a reaction. The reaction we created was making a volcano erupt - a pretend volcano that is!

After we had fun doing the experiment we wrote instructions for how to make a volcano erupt. Here are the instructions we wrote:

Look out for more experiments each day this week! 

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!)

Showing The Values Of Our School

Congratulations to Timnet, Ceazah-Blue, Joseph and Cyprus who were all lucky enough to get their names picked out of the draw today to win Duffy books. The four of them got their names in the draw by earning values vouchers during the last week or so. 

Values vouchers are given to children who are showing one or more of our school values, which are:

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

Each values voucher earned gains one entry into the prize draw. Well done for showing our school values Timnet, Ceazah-Blue, Joseph and Cyprus!

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.)