18 Jul 2025

Kia ora e te whānau,

Whānau Puna (Rooms 9, 10, 7/8) have had a lovely start back to Term 3. Unfortunately this week we did not make it to the Auckland Zoo, however our new date is Monday 28 July.

Children are enjoying their learning in literacy. The Room 9 and 10 literacy this week was focused around Firewise. We have also been learning about synonyms in our literacy. In Room 7 and 8 we have been writing about the Firewise programme.

In maths this week we have been working on:

Room 7/8 - Looking at number bonds to 4, 5 and 6 and use maths language and format for addition.

Room 9 - Comparing Length in Metres, Comparing Length in Centimetres, Comparing the Length of Lines and the Chapter Consolidation

Room 10 - To be able to recognise four basic 3-D solid shapes: spheres, cubes, cuboids and pyramids.

We had a fantastic visit from the Devonport Fire Fighters today, who came and helped us complete our Firewise programme. In our programme the children have practised what to do if they need to call the emergency 111 number. Please make sure your child knows how to say their name, address and phone number. This will help them in an emergency situation. Please also talk to your child/ren about using 111 only in an emergency situation.

Whānau Puna team

Tracy, Sasha, Gerry, Wendy, Bev and ClaireS

 

18 Jul 2025

Kia ora koutou,

Welcome to Term 3! We have hit the ground running with lots of good learning happening this week. We have also welcomed a group of international students, who will be with us for the first 4 weeks of term - this is a great opportunity for our tamariki to learn about another culture.

Math
Year 4 - We have had whole class activities looking at number families for multiplication and division. Check your child's knowledge by asking them to draw a triangle and to write a number family along with the four equations written next to it. 
Year 5 - We have been continuing with our learning around. multiplication and division.
Year 6 - We have been learning to solve word problems. We have practiced reading the problem and then figuring out what information we need and what steps we have to carry out to solve it. We have then applied previous learning in solving multiplication and division problems to find the answers.

Literacy
Rm 2 - In spelling we have completed the letter team of 'ew' and next week, we'll will be moving onto a new list of homophones.
We are reading 'The Bat that Walks on the Ground' by Marlene Bennetts, exploring the Pekapeka or Lesser Short-tailed Bat. We were lucky to also watch one of TVNZ's documentary's called Endangered NZ, taking notes on some of our forest creatures that also included the Pekapeka. In writing, we have been learning about the text type of 'narratives'. Each child chose one activity that they did during the holidays and have been writing down who their characters are (along with their personalities), as well as the setting or location and a problem that will be solved by the ending of their story.
Rm 4 - We have been reading and discussing the pros and cons of a zoo, which is helping us to develop our skills in persuasive writing.
Rm 6 - We have been reading a story called 'Zookeeper for a Day'. We have been continuing to practice our summarising skills. We have also discussed what kinds of jobs zookeepers do, and what the pros and cons of this job would be. We have created our own zoo including looking at and creating maps, and thinking about what animals we might have in our zoos.

In Rm 2 and 4 they have also started creating pieces of artwork using different animals. This and a lot of our literacy learning links in to the whole school mantle we will be doing this term, which we are excited to launch soon. Unfortunately we did not make it to the zoo this week, but we are very excited to (hopefully) go on Monday July 28th instead!

We are all looking forward to another fantastic term.

Ngā mihi,
Whānau Kokoru - Maddy, Grace, and Brad

17 Jul 2025

There is a bad gastro bug in the area.  Please make sure your child is using good hygeine practices.

Stay well!