Love of Learning - Literacy

Last term we completed our assessment for our structured literacy teaching and we have certainly hit the ground running.  We are beginning to see some exciting progress across reading and writing where students are beginning to apply some of the spelling patterns and decoding strategies in Reading and Writing.  

We are utilising a range of strategies throughout our ‘60 mins a day’ where students are able to practise and master different skills.

You might look at a simple task and wonder what teacher decisions are possibly at play with such a simple task.    

We got outdoors in the sun on Tuesday to practise our spelling, decoding and handwriting skills using chalk on the concrete.   Students completed a word chain with this week's BSLA focus.  

A BSLA word chain is grounded in scientific principles of how the brain processes language, especially in the early stages of reading. It targets phonemic awareness, a strong predictor of later reading success, by having learners actively manipulate sounds in a sequence of connected words.

Practicing word chains repeatedly helps consolidate the grapheme-phoneme correspondences.

They strengthen the ability to process and recall sound patterns, which supports decoding (reading) and encoding (spelling).

Children learn how changing one sound alters the entire word meaning, promoting flexible thinking about language.

This is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words.

In a word chain activity, students are typically asked to change one sound in a word to create a new word (e.g., "cat" → "bat" → "bit" → "big"). This develops the brain’s capacity to focus on discrete phonemes.

Our students practise word chains in their writing books daily.  This time we are also practising using chalk.  

There is a range of material that describes the benefits of using chalk as a medium for writing or handwriting.  In a nutshell, chalk gives students the opportunity to ‘master’ that correct grip needed for handwriting automaticity.  It also gives sensory feedback that helps with muscle memory and letter formation.  

If you would like to learn more about our Better Start to Literacy Approach please come along to our BSLA Parent Workshop on Wednesday 07 April at 3.15pm or 5.00pm. 

Maths - The Magic Within Rich Maths Tasks.

 

Rich maths tasks are a big part of our maths programmes and are important for several key reasons. These tasks are designed to engage students in meaningful, challenging, and thought-provoking learning experiences that help build a strong foundation in mathematics. 

So what is a rich maths task ?  

Rich maths tasks are tasks designed to be flexible and open-ended.  They have the ability to lead to many different maths ideas and pathways and they enable us to explore a range of concepts and strategies.  They are what we call 'Low floor, high ceiling".   They are accessible for a range of ages, stages and mixed abilities. 

These tasks encourage students to engage with mathematics in a deeper way. They allow students to start thinking more critically about numbers, patterns, and mathematical relationships.  These tasks require them to problem-solve, explore multiple strategies, and reflect on their thinking in a collective way. They create many great opportunities to develop oral language skills through having to articulate their flexible thinking or questioning to understand more.  

Being able to talk through a problem solving processes really does make our brains grow !! 

Here are some examples of our word problems for our end of term learning celebration:

1.  There are 44 kids.   We have 11 apples.  How would we need to cut them so that each kid has an equal share ?  (What fraction of a whole is each kid going to get?)

2.  We have small groups of 6 kids.  We have a cookie each and 36 jellybeans.  How many will each kid get ?

3.  We have made mousetraps.  (1 piece of toast with cheese) They are cut into 1/4s.  We have 44 1/4s.  How many slices of bread do we need ? 

How would our numbers change if we had 1/2s ? 

We used pictures to describe our thinking.

We used concrete materials - counters to help us with our equal sharing. 

We used our multiplication and division knowledge.

 

Celebrations in Tautoru

We are so lucky to have a rich and diverse community.  We have over 15 different cultures and ethnicities in Tautoru. We have had the pleasure this week of whānau sharing their experiences around Eid al-Fitr .  Eid al-Fitr is an important celebration for our Muslim whānau. The theme for Eid is unity.  This celebration reinforces the values of peace, generosity, and compassion.  Eid al-Fitr is not only a celebration of the end of Ramadan but also a time to reflect on personal growth, forgiveness, and renewed faith. It’s a reminder of the power of community, the importance of charity, and the blessings of life itself.  

We love to learn about our cultures and ethnicities that make up our Tautoru whānau.  

“Eid is celebrated when we can see the new moon in the sky.”