Kia
ora Parents/Caregivers
Welcome
to a new year at Eastern Hutt School and more importantly G4! I am looking
forward to the year ahead with enthusiasm and excitement. I hope your child is well rested and refreshed after the summer holiday break. I
feel very privileged to be your child’s teacher this year and look forward to
watching them develop into confident, creative learners.
This year you will be able to keep track of your child’s learning
through our class blog. This is a place where the children will upload their work so that they
can share their ideas, learning and progress with a wider audience. Over the
course of the year your child will build digital literacy skills and will learn
how to become a safe, responsible digital citizen. There are many activities
and games on the blog that your child can interact with that will enhance the
learning that is taking place in the classroom. Feel free to post positive
comments on any posts and encourage others in your family to do the same.
The
blog address is: http://roomg4ehs.blogspot.com/
These first few weeks will be spent establishing routines and
classroom expectations. Our library day is Friday at 9:30am. Please
ensure that your child remembers to bring back the previous week’s book and
that they take care of the books while they have them.
The office needs to be informed of any absences. If your child arrives at school late you will need to sign in at the office. If you wish to take your child home early, please notify me and sign out at the office.
Homework will start in Week 3, will come home on a Monday and be
due back on the following Monday. Feel free to explore our class blog or
studyladder before this time if you wish to become familiar with the format.
Our focus for homework will be practicing
basic reading, maths and spelling skills. In order to complete their homework
your child will need access to a computer and the Internet as most of their
homework tasks will be online (if you don’t have a computer at home, the class laptops
will be available to your child before school and during lunchtime.
Alternatively, I could print off the activities for you – just ask!). Your child will bring home a homework instruction
sheet each Monday where you will need to confirm, with your signature, that the
activities have been completed.
As mentioned above, most of the set
homework tasks require Internet access. Each child in the class has an account
set up on the free website studyladder.co.nz. Their account is linked to my
‘teacher’ account, where I select and update the activities that they can
access based on our current learning focus in class. This website is an
excellent way to build confidence and motivate your child to complete their
homework, as the activities that I select are engaging and follow up on class
activities.
During school hours (9am-3pm,
Monday-Friday) your child has unlimited access to studyladder activities.
However, outside these hours your child is limited to three activities per day
(however, your child will have unlimited access to the activities on our class
blog).
Every week either on studyladder or on our
class blog (depending on the task) your child will need to complete two
mastering numeracy activities (basic facts) and one maths game of their choice
and two spelling games and a spelling game of their choice. Your child will
also bring home a spelling list with words made up by errors from
their work, topic words, essential lists and lists based on spelling
conventions and patterns. Lastly, your child
will need to read for 10 minutes per night and write a reflective comment in
their orange home reading book.
To access studyladder at home:
-
Go to www.studyladder.co.nz
-
Sign in with the class username
and password given to your child.
-
Access activities from your
child’s overview page.
-
Fun Extras: Your child can
change their ‘avatars’ appearance. Your child will gain ‘virtual rewards’ when
activities are completed which they can use to decorate their ‘avatars’
bedroom.
If for any reason you are unable to access using the class login, you
can open a free home account for parents which allows the same home access to
activities. If you need help logging in or gaining access please email support@studyladder.com or me nickieslater@easternhutt.school.nz.
I am well aware that many children at
Eastern Hutt School have out of school activities, which can sometimes affect
how much time they can spend each night on their homework. A note from home
written in their homework book is all that is necessary if for some reason your
child is unable to complete their work. The most important aspect of homework
for this level is establishing good routines, and homework should never be a
burden or a source of conflict at home.
Important Information:
- Open Hours: School
officially opens at 8:30am, school begins at 8:55.
- Notices: Please
return the next day or the week they are given out as they are often needed
straight away to calculate numbers etc
- Book Covering: This
is not essential but will help the books life last longer.
- Emergency Food:
Please send this to school as soon as you are able.
- Tissues/Tennis
Balls: Please send a box of tissues to school and two tennis balls.
- Drink bottles:
Please ensure they are names and are filled with fresh water each day, students
often leave drink bottles behind at school.
- Plastics: As we are
a Silver Enviro-School we are aiming for no plastic wrap or plastics in class,
please keep the plastic at home and use Tupperware or snaplock bags wherever
possible. If our class has the least plastic in our lunchboxes we will win a
free pizza lunch!
- Parent Help: If you
would like to help out in G4 this year please let me know.
There will also be a syndicate newsletter coming home, which will
outline in more detail the events of the busy term ahead. I feel very confident
that there will be much achieved in G4 as I help your child to become a life
long learner. I would love to meet you all and am aware that the beginning of a
school year is a nervous time for children and their parents. Please feel
free to pop in and introduce yourself or contact me with any concerns or
questions you have at any time. I look forward to meeting you.
Nga mihi,
Nickie
Slater
Teacher
of G4
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