Final Weekly Notice Week 6 Term 3, 2017

Ooh it feels quite sad to be posting my last weekly notice at St Mary's.  I would like to take this opportunity to thank you again for being such a great class and a super group of parents.  I would have preferred to have stayed on and seen the year out with these little darlings but it just didn't happen that way and I am sorry about that.  I do believe I am leaving them in capable and caring hands with Mrs Kusabs and I know they will treat her with as much love and respect as they have me.  It's not very often a teacher can say their class is the best in the school and really mean it, but Room 13 this year certainly has been.  I really scored the jackpot this time round and have loved my time with your kids.  They are unlike any class I have had and I truly am going to be sad to say goodbye to them.  I know they will continue to make me proud this year and that they will all go on to make amazing progress during their very special time at St Mary's.  
I have had many happy years at this beautiful school and even though it is time for me to go, I will remember it with fondness as my school, my girls school and a very special place that I got to spend some time for a while.  Please look after yourselves and your gorgeous children and hopefully we can catch up in the future, I am sure you will see me around at St Mary's in my new role.

"May the road rise up to meet you, may the sun be always at your backs and until we meet again, may God hold you always in the palm of his hand."

Thank you and God Bless
Annie

Marist Colts Visit

Today the touring Marist Colts visited us at school.  They are a group of young Marist men from all around NZ who get together once a year to go on tour.  They talked to us and some of us got to do a line out with them and then we all played outside with them.  It was really great and some of our kids might just grow up to be Marist boys too.

         

                                    

                                Here is Oli in the Marist Line out.  Cool Oli.

Hard at work in Room 13

Look at these little darlings hard at work today.  It is so great seeing them take responsibility for themselves in the classroom, they are certainly a hard working group.

Espie

Bronson

Alice

Greens and Ebbie

Sophie

Noah

Tasiana

Weekly Notice

Week 5, Term 3, 2017

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Week 5.  Hopefully everyone received the letter from Mr MacMillan regarding my new position.  It has been a really hard decision for me to make, made even more difficult by the fact that your kids are just so wonderful.  I will miss each and every one of them and while it will be super sad leaving them and my dear school, it is time for me to try something new. I have been at St Mary's for nearly 18 years and now that all my own children have moved on to JPC and beyond, it's my time to set myself some new goals and take on a new adventure.  Thank you all for your amazing support this year and for all your kind words and gestures.  St Mary's is certainly a very special place and you the community make it that way.  I will definitely stay in touch with Room 13 and will hopefully be able to sneak in for a visit from time to time.

Ok, now on to Week 5........

*R.E - we will wrap up our unit on Jesus this week and begin looking at the Church.  The kids have learned some really interesting facts about Jesus and what his life was like, talk to them about it, you might even learn something you didn't know before.

*Maths - This week in Maths we will be looking at Measurement and more specifically, Time.  This unit complements our Concept Study on Cycles - regular repeated sequences.  We will look at days, weeks, months, years, minutes and hours.

*ALim - our group is working so hard and making some great progress.  Please check the homework books as I will be sending home the odd practice sheet to help reinforce some of the knowledge needed at Stage 4.   This week we will continue to look at Place value - tens and ones as well as identifying numbers to 1000 and adding tens.

*Writing - this week we are going to do some writing around our rocket launch.  We will write a recount and an explanation which will outline how you can launch a rocket at home.

*Reading - We have been working on Comprehension over the last few weeks.  The children have been searching a piece of writing for facts and using their research to help them answer comprehension questions.  I have to say, they are becoming excellent researchers!  You can see some of their research assignments on the wall in our classroom.  Keep up the great reading at home.  This week we will also continue practising and performing plays.

*Go4it continues on Thursday at 1:30.  We are having a great time with Tim and are practising some really important sports skills.  We have also begun playing soccer in the afternoons which is great fun.  Although your bully children did push me over last week and I hit the deck in spectacular style - all great fun!

*Sadly our little mate Oliver is leaving at the end of this week.  His family have decided to go to Scotland, where his mum Nadia is from and spend some time living with family there.  It is super exciting for Oli and I know he will take it all in his stride.  To celebrate our friendship with him, we will have a shared lunch on Thursday.  Please send a plate of food to share and feel free to join us at 1:15.  We will also have a special presentation for Oli on this day.

Keep up the great work with those super kids and have a fantastic week,
Annie

Rocket Launch!

Today we finally got to launch our rockets.  We started off with 6 but only 3 launched - that's Science!  It was great fun and we learned that the best way to have a successful launch is using a cork, not a balloon.

Assumption of Mary

Today we celebrated the Assumption of Mary - when Mary went to Heaven, body and soul after she died.  We had a Liturgy in the Hall.

Jesus Feast

We have been learning about Jesus and comparing his life in Palestine 2017 years ago with ours today.
Today we had a Jesus feast where we tried some of the food he would have eaten way back then.  We had figs, dates, cheese, grapes, olives and bread.  Some were a hit, others not so much.  Here we are....

Week 4, Term 3, 2017

Hi everyone, I hope you have all had a super weekend with your families.  Lots of Winter sports drew to a close over the weekend which is exciting because it means Summer sport is just around the corner and so is warmer weather!  Yipee.  

This is what week 4 will look like in Room 13....

*Go4it - we will continue Go4it with Tim on Thursday afternoon.  The kids are having a great time during these sessions and are practising some great skills.  Please send shorts with the girls on this day.

*Assumption - we will have a Liturgy at 10am on Tuesday in the Hall to celebrate the Assumption of Mary.  All are welcome.

*We will definitely be setting our rockets off this week.  First we had Hiwi the Kiwi, then it rained all week...poor kids come to school every day thinking we are sending a rocket to Mars and I put them off.  This week will most definitely be rocket week!

*Golden Time - this week we will be having a pj party for Golden Time.  Please send pjs with your kids on Friday.

*Reading - We are rocketing along with reading in Room 13.  Please remember that reading to your child every day is  an absolute must.  Firstly it shows the kids that reading is important to you and  secondly it models good reading to them.

*Writing -  seeing as we didn't set our rockets off last week, we didn't get the writing done either.  This week we will be writing recounts about our rocket launch as well as explanations so that others can follow our instructions and set their own rockets off.

*Maths - Alim is going very well.  I have added another student to our group so we have 5 alim kids now.  We spend the first 15 minutes of the day on maths with this group and they are making great progress.  This week in maths we will continue on addition and subtraction.  Some of us are focusing on counting on and back to solve maths problems and the rest of us are splitting hundreds, tens and ones  as well as counting on and back in tens to solve problems.  Please, please, please, practice counting forward and back from any number within 100.

*R.E - we will continue our learning around Jesus this week with a Jesus feast to compare the foods Jesus ate with those we ate as well as looking at how Jesus can be a friend to us all.

Things are going very well in Room 13.  I am very proud of the work that is being produced and the way in which the kids are supporting each other.  Thank you once again for your continued support.

Have a great week

Annie

Hiwi the Kiwi

Today the Minstrel and his wife came to teach us all about fishing, water safety, keeping our oceans clean and making sure we have enough fish in the future for everyone to enjoy going fishing.  He sang songs, played some silly games and gave out some cool prizes.  We had such fun!  Bianca even won a prize.

Thank you to Sebastian who was our photographer today.