It’s been a full and vibrant start to Term 3 here at school. We had a pōwhiri on Tuesday to welcome new students to Homai. After our lesson with Matua Tewairaka last term, we were all able to join in the haka to welcome them as they entered the hall. We’ve gotten straight into our learning with our iDeal Spelling, Literacy, and Maths activities. We are really blessed this term to have Whaea Tupe, Whaea Sophia, and Matua Sione coming into Room 7 at various times to help us with our learning. We have also been refining our Digital Fluency skills by learning how to use Voice-to-Text in Google Docs on our ipads. This will really help us as we transition into the seniors next year.

We had our Waka Assembly this week, where Zavier, Faraaz, and Hazelpreet received GIVES certificates. Faraaz was also awarded Tama the trophy this week! Well done on your successes!

Hooray for school holidays! It’s been a busy term and we are all due for a well-earned rest. That doesn’t mean the end of learning though. Remember that we still have home learning available on our class site.

Waka Ahuru got to visit with Whaea Hera and Matua Te Wairaka from Te Moana Nui a Kiwa this week and learned our assembly haka, karakia and school waiata. We really impressed the kaiako from TMNaK.

Our school dog, Koko visited our classroom and stayed with us while we did our learning. We were all able to pat soft fur. She took a liking to our teddy bear and took it out onto the playground with her. We decided to let her keep it because she loved it so much.

We did quite a lot of digital learning this week. We were able to use our school emails to log onto our Google Accounts. We learned how to open a Google Doc and save it in our files so that our teacher can see it. We also learned how to use Suno to create our own songs. Some of us wrote songs about Koko. We really enjoyed this.

To celebrate the last day of school, we had a pyjama day. Most of us wore the pyjamas we had been given on Thursday. Whaea Angela bought us pizza and we watched a movie. It was pouring with rain outside so it was a good day to be snuggly and warm in our pyjamas.

Have a wonderful break everyone. We can’t wait to be back at school on Monday 14th July.

Another busy week of learning has gone by. Every morning we work hard on our Spelling. This is very explicit teaching which will benefit our Reading and Writing. We have been learning about two-syllable words with blends this week. We have also been practicing for next week’s Whare Chant-Off Challenge.

Matariki has been a hot topic this week and a few early birds were able to share in the Matariki Breakfast hosted by Te Moana Nui a Kiwa.

This week, Tama chose to go home with Trisha for the weekend. Well done, Trisha for showing all your Homai G.I.V.E.S this week.

Kia Ora Whānau,

Room 7 students have shown great enthusiasm while learning about Money, thanks to Esther from ASB. We also proudly supported Jumping June and had our skipping session (between showers) on the Junior Courts. A shout-out goes to Faraaz and Steffi, who hosted our Waka Assembly yesterday where Trisha, Hazelpreet, Shalom, and Kiyansh received certificates.

Congratulations to Shazneen, who was awarded Tama for the weekend. We look forward to hearing all about his adventures with your family on Monday, Shazneen.

We may have had a short week this week but that didn’t stop us from packing a whole lot of learning into it. Of course, the highlight was our trip to the zoo with Rooms 2 and 3. We loved having some of our parents helping to keep us safe. It was also Samoan Language Week. We were visited by the Manurewa High School Samoan Group who performed at our assembly on Friday.

It was a tough decision for Tama to choose who to go home with for the weekend. There are so many wonderful learners in Room 7. Congratulations to Steffi who has taken Tama home with her. Steffi is a very helpful student in the classroom. We hope you enjoyed your time with Tama, Steffi.

We are now just over half way through the term. We’re all getting excited for our trip to the zoo on Thursday. This trip is to align with our Inquiry theme, Manaakitanga (caring for ourselves and others). We will be able to see how the animals are cared for in the zoo environment. We will learn about their habitats and the food that they eat.

We are also working on our film entry for the Manaiakalani Film Festival. This is being filmed with a green screen so we will see how a different background can be added to make our film more interesting.

In Maths, we have continued our investigation into Measurement. We have been using non-standard measurements to describle how long or tall things are. Steffi’s foot was measured with Jenga blocks, and we found out that Zavier is five homework books tall.

Tama is spending the long weekend with Mya, who consistently shows intergrity in the classroom. She always puts her best into everything she does. Well done, Mya!

Kia Ora Whānau,

Another week of learning has flown by. We all looked very smart in our uniforms for our class photos last Friday, so we celebrated anti-bullying with Pink Shirt Day a week late. Whaea Angela loved seeing her favourite colour all across the school.

We’ve been learning about Measurement in Maths and decided to explore the school for things we could measure. Some of our girls got very creative measuring the courts, with cartwheels and splits. It was a very interesting exercise!

We have also been busy making our film entry for the Manaiakalani Film Festival later in the year. We’ll let you all know more about that nearer the time.

Congratulations Shalom on receiving Tama for the weekend. We’re looking forward to hearing about your weekend on Monday.

This week we celebrated our wonderful teacher aides. We are blessed to have Whaea Tupe and Whaea Hope visiting our classroom. They should be called “Teacher Angels”. Room 7 got busy making them cards and flowers to show appreciation for all they do for us. Our Structured Literacy approach seems to be positively affecting students wanting to model to their peers. It was great to see Aerhyl and Shalom teaching each other some Orthographic Mapping. We had a Waka Assembly on the courts this week. Well done to Zoie, Soraya, Adisree and Ujjith on receiving certificates during the assembly. And a special shout out to Adisree for being this week’s Tama recipient!

Kia Ora Whānau,

Summer seems to have left us and we are starting to get into the cooler weather with some periods of heavy rain. This is the time to make sure that our tamariki all have jackets and shoes and socks to help keep warm. It is still important to stay hydrated though so please make sure that your children bring their water bottle each day.

As part of our Health and Safety procedures, we had a whole-school fire drill on Thursday. We all did very well, with everybody being out on the field within four minutes. It’s reassuring that we all know what to do if there is ever an emergency.

I would love you to try this read-along platform with your children. It may ask you to register with your Google account. You can access it at readalong.google.com, or click the link below.

Read Along Books

This week’s Tama recipient is Qeuban. This is well-deserved recognition of your helpfulness in Room 7. I hope you enjoy your weekend with Tama, Qeuban.