Home Learning Links and Activities Update:

Greetings Children, Parents and Whanau,

Si o ta alofa atu! From my family to yours. I hope you are keeping safe, well and taking care of yourselves and your family. 

I received a fantastic email about Agampreet and his home learning through Matific and various other creative outlets, so let's take a look below: 

Here Agampreet has complete his Matific lessons and is currently coming 1st place in the room 19 class competition! Congratulations Agampreet, you are an absolute super learner!! I will try to keep up and assign you more work on Matific soon, make sure you are putting time in with Sunshine Classics too!

Agampreet, it is good to see you are taking time to play with your cars and doing some writing also! Keep up the great work, including sharing your work and pictures with me :)

Next Wednesday the 15th of April will be the official first day of Term 2 with continued home learning due to the lock down continuing. Papakura Central Junior Team including myself are working together to provide timetables, resources, links, photos, videos and meet up links so we can continue supporting you parents and children at home during this time. 

Please watch this space for these updates, activities and information, that we will bring to you when we can. If you require any assistance, have any questions, want to share anything and catch up, please either comment on the blogs or email me: r.futcher@papakuracentral.school.nz. 

Until then, take care of yourselves, be safe, stay at home, and have fun. Aroha nui to you all from my family and I. As usual I send you all virtual hugs. :)

Reading Reading Everywhere!!

Kia Ora Children, Parents and Whanau,

Firstly I want to say a big thank you to all of you who have sent me emails, videos and pictures letting me know how you are and what you have been up to. It gives me big smiles and makes me so happy to hear and see you!

Here is Shayaan doing an excellent job of teaching a morning mat time reading session to his little sister. You are an amazing super teacher Shayaan - keep up the great work!!

And here is Elijah doing a reading session with Sunshine Classics which can be accessed here: 

https://www.sunshineclassics.co.nz/

For parents who want to extend their child's learning in reading: 

In order to gain confidence and fluency in reading, it is best that children read each evening for five to ten minutes. 

While levelled readers are listed on the Sunshine Classic App, your child certainly is not limited to reading just those! Some readers will be instructional (i.e. needing your support) and some will be independent (your child can read them to you without much support). There are different ways reading time can be enjoyed:

 • You read to him/her. 

• You read with him/her. 

• They read independently to you. 

• They read by themselves. 

Here are some suggestions to help your child when he/she is having difficulty reading the text on their own: 

• As you read, point to each word to make the oral language and print connection. 

• Give a few seconds of wait time to see what attempts are made. 

• Ask what would make sense in that sentence. 

• Use picture clues. 

• Skip the word and come back. 

• Go back to the beginning of the sentence and try again. 

• Sound the word out with your child.  

Jolly Phonics Song for sounding out letters

Always talk about the book with your child.

Reading Prompts & Questions:  

The following are some questions and prompts to help your child gain a deeper understanding of the text. 

Before Reading Look at the front cover: 

• What do you think this story will be about? 

• What makes you think that? 

• What clues does the title give us? 

• What could be interesting about this story? 

During Reading:

• What do you think will happen next? 

• How is the character feeling? How do you know this? 

• What is making the character feel this way? 

• What is happening? Tell me in your own words. 

• What would you do if you had this problem? 

• Have you ever experienced…? 

• Why did the author do this to the text? (E.g. bold writing, use of ellipsis, use of exclamation marks.) • What is another word for…? 

After Reading:

• What did you like or dislike about the story? 

• How did the story make you feel? Why? 

• Does the story remind you of any other story? 

• How could it have ended differently? 

• What was your favourite part? 

• What did you learn from reading this text?

Alternatively check out the Twinkle Learning Hub (https://www.twinkl.co.nz/home-learning-hub) for more interactive stories like this one: 

The Bear who came to babysit

As always stay safe, take care and keeping sending in your messages, pictures and videos.

Aroha nui and big virtual hugs from my family to yours!

Mrs Futcher