Posts By Miss Helsham

TUMANAKO SYNDICATE NEWSLETTER T1 2021

16 February 2021 · by Miss Helsham

Greetings Parents and Caregivers,

Welcome to a new year and a new term. Welcome to the Tumanako- Hope syndicate. There are three teachers in our team. I am the team leader, my name is Ms. Patricia (Pat) Helsham and I am in Room 14. Also in our team we have Mrs Maureen Gass who is in Room 15 and Mr. George Latu who is in Room 16. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for entrusting your children to our care. We will do everything we can to ensure they are learning at their ability levels and will challenge and extend them where possible.

We welcome all our Year 3 children and their families who are new to our syndicate. We pray that you will enjoy being in the Tumanako syndicate and also in our school.

Room 14	Room 15	Room 16
Maaimoa Latu	Taumai Autagavaia	Lauryn Brbich
Eden Mati	Lindon Coe	Aryadne Fata-Paulo
Madison ‘Ofanoa	Ariana Hall	Sophia Fonoimoana
Atu’ila Sevele	Angelin Karimpil Renso	Poerani Karena
Cena Ale	Finau Kautai	‘Aloisio Sole
Abel Joseph	Daniel King	Tupou Vea
Edward Pritchard	McCayla King	Patience Eseloma
Bass Tuala	Jason Latu	Marius Georges
Evan Vili	Landen Luamanuvae	Mason Mulipola
	Isabelle Maharaj Bennett	Buchanan Tuiogo
	Tessa Shybi
	Holy Tuivaiti
	Olivia Younis
	Emmanuel Prasad

We welcome the new children to our school who will be joining our syndicate, and their families.

Room 15	Room 16	Room 16
Emmanuel Prasad (Year 3)	Lusia Enosi (Year 4)	Breeyah Tupe-Faleali’I (Year 4)

TERM 1 UNITS:

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION:

PRAYER/ HOLY CROSS CHARISM/ GOD STRAND/ LENT STRAND/ EASTER STRAND

ASH WEDNESDAY 17^thFebruary / ST PATRICK’S DAY 17^th March/ EASTER SUNDAY

LITERACY:

WRITING: WRITING SAMPLE/ RECOUNTS (every Monday)/ DESCRIPTIVE WRITING/ INFORMATION REPORTS (about a sea creature)/ POETIC WRITING

READING:

Children read at their ability levels and will be encouraged to read for meaning, and to gain mileage. We also have a library lesson once a week. Children are encouraged to have their book bags at school every day so that they can take home a reader each night. It is school policy that every child from Years 0-6 has a book bag. Please ensure your child has one. These are available from the school office.

SPELLING:

All children will have a Schonell Spelling test at the beginning of the term and also a test from the You Can Spell series which we use in school, to determine which level they are on. Every week the children will do a pre-test on the Monday, complete set activities from the You Can Spell activity books on Tuesdays to Thursdays, then have a post test on Fridays. Children will take home a word list on Mondays to learn as part of their Homework.

HANDWRITING:

We follow our school Education Plans for Handwriting for years 3 and 4.

MATHEMATICS:

DMIC MATHS: We are trialling a new form of Maths called DMIC (Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities) Maths.

INQUIRY UNITS:

SCIENCE: LIVING WORLD: TREASURES OF THE SEA/ ANIMAL HABITIATS. We will study the life cycle of a sea creature. We will also be going a trip to Kelly Tarlton’s as part of this unit.

SOCIAL SCIENCE: IDENTITY & ORGANISATION

Holy Cross Charism: Celebrations- Special Events.

HEALTH:

SAFE ENVIRONMENTS:

Class rules and routines/ Friendships/ Cultural differences.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION:

HOOPS & ROPES/ LARGE BALL SKILLS

ART:

SKETCHING- SELF PORTRAITS/ PLANTS

CRAYON & DYE

OTHER EVENTS HAPPENING THIS TERM:

Week 2:

Tuesday PARENT EVENING & MEET THE TEACHER 7pm in the McKean Centre.

John Parsons will be talking about ‘How to keep your children and yourself safe online’

Week 3:

ASH WEDNESDAY 17^th February.

Week 4:

Sacramental Meeting for all Parents of Year 4 children. In the church at 6pm

Week 5:

SWIMMING COMPETITION-

Week 6:

Tumanako syndicate leading Friday Mass.

Week 7:

St Patrick’s day: 17^th March- Mass 9am, Tabloid sports 1pm

Week 8:

Kelly Tarlton’s trip Wednesday 24^th March

Week 9

HOLY WEEK

Thursday 1^st April: HOLY THURSDAY. Children will return to school on April 7^th.

Week 10:

School resumes on Wednesday 7^th April after Easter break.

Week 11:

Year 4’s First Reconciliation- Tuesday April 13^th at 6pm

School term ends Friday April 16^th

A FEW REMINDERS…

Year 4 children will be making their First Reconciliation this term. Dates to be arranged soon.

BOOK BAGS: It is school policy that every child from Years 0-6 has a book bag. Please ensure your child has one. Book bags are available from the school office for $2.

HATS: In Terms 1 and 4 it is compulsory for ALL children to wear a school hat during break times. School hats are available from the school office.

SCHOOL FITNESS GEAR: All children from Years 3 upwards are required to wear school fitness gear. School fitness shirts are available from the school office. Children need to wear plain black shorts as part of the fitness uniform as well. It is also important that the boys wear black shorts for fitness and not their school shorts.

JEWELLERY: children are allowed to wear studs in the ears. No necklaces or cultural necklaces are allowed to be worn. No bracelets as well. Children are permitted to wear a watch.

We thank you for entrusting your children into our care and look forward to your support through the year. Please don’t hesitate to come in and see us if you have any questions or concerns.

Have a good term.

May God bless us all

From the Terrific Tumanako team

MAUREEN GASS/ GEORGE LATU/ PAT. HELSHAM (team leader)

Jacinda Ardern- Our Hero

17 June 2020 · by Miss Helsham

What an awesome surprise for Room 14 this morning when we received a letter from our Prime Minister- Jacinda Ardern.

A few weeks ago we all wrote letters to her expressing our thanks for getting us into lockdown early and saving lives especially ours. We thought she would be too busy to reply but this morning with much delight, we received her letter. You can imagine how excited we all were when Ms Helsham told us about the letter. We were even more excited when it was read to us.

Thank you for replying and all the best Jacinda we are so proud of you and yes if we were old enough to vote you’d have ours.

Good luck for the upcoming elections… You got this…

From your biggest fans… Room 14.

TUMANAKO SYNDICATE DISTANT LEARNING Term 2 2020

15 April 2020 · by Miss Helsham

Kia Ora, Talofa lava, Malo E Lelei; and Welcome back to Term 2 (with a difference)

Hope you are all keeping well and safe during this time of lockdown. We hope you are safe in your bubble and are embracing the positivity around this unprecedented situation. We are all in this together! Hope you all had a great Easter with your family.

Welcome to our first ever Distance Learning hub. Term 2 has started. While we are still in Level 4 lockdown and until the government says we can go back to school, this is how we will be doing our learning for now.

I’d like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all you parents in advance, for taking on this new role, an extra role, in assisting in your children’s learning. This is a new experience for all of us and we pray that together we can exercise patience and give our children all the encouragement they need.

It’s exciting to see that we have support from the media (TV) where there are learning programmes to engage our kids. (9am -3pm-T.V.2, 1+, Sky 502)

In our plans for the week, you will find a range of online and offline tasks. Children who are waiting for a device will have these by next week hopefully.

A quiet space and a device for your child will help support the learning to be more fun and engaging. If your child doesn’t have a device, encourage them to watch the news, keep a news log, write a diary in a book and participate in the learning programmes on TV which starts today. Children can find other offline activities to do in each class’s google slideshow such as making up graphs, writing in their ‘lockdown’ diaries, spelling tests.

Hopefully by now you would have received the online learning plan from your child’s class teacher if not please get in touch with them to see the learning plans.

Room 14 children will find a google. slides show called ‘Room 14- Online Learning Term 2 – Week 1’ in our shared folder.

I will be emailing the google slide show link to parent’s emails and putting the activities on seesaw for the children to complete.

Either way I will keep in touch with parents.

Room 15 children will find a special google slide titled ‘Term 2 Week 1 Lockdown’ in google drive.

They will log on using their own login details and go to ‘shared with me’, Room 15 folder, 2020 Lockdown to find their google slide. Children can then open the slide and work through each slide at their own pace. They will then go to ‘student folder’ to record their answers, write their Diary etc., Mrs Gass will email/seesaw every child’s login details to recommended websites.

Room 16 children “will have access to their online learning slides through Google Classroom.”

Finished Work:

Children’s work can be put in their google folders, on a google.docs and shared with their teacher or in seesaw.

Children can leave comments in their google classroom or email their teacher.

If there are any concerns or hiccups as we know there will be, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with your child’s teacher.

Thanks for your continued support. We are all in this together…

Remember to be safe, be kind, be patient and stay home.

MRS GASS/ MR LATU/ MS HELSHAM

AN EXAMPLE OF THE DAY IN THE LIFE OF A TUMANAKO CHILD ON DISTANCE LEARNING…
R.E.	LEARNING A NEW PRAYER: THE ANGELUS: (prayer and picture supplied on slide) TASK: Learn this prayer. Can you find out where it comes from, who says it and why they say it? Find out what time of the day is it said? Is there anything special about this prayer?
MATHS	IXL doing a starred activity. Challenge to complete the activity to the end… Make a graph using the following information… 1. How many forks, knives, spoons and teaspoons are in your kitchen drawer? Which has the most? Which has the least/ lesser amount? If everyone in your bubble has a set of each item, how many pieces of cutlery are left? 2. How many chairs do you have in your house? Count all the chairs including dining room
WRITING	CREATE A LOCKDOWN JOURNAL: This Lockdown is a historic moment for our country and our families. You will always remember this moment in your life. It will be one of the stories you will share with your friends and family members when you get older. This is an awesome time to start a lockdown journal. This is a book or a google doc where you write what happened in your day, how you are feeling and what’s going on in New Zealand or in your area and how might that affect you? Take your time, don’t rush this. Good writers always write in silence. This journal is the COVID19 Lockdown through your eyes.
READING	Choose a story/ book to read and summarise. Look for blends/ compound words etc Go on SUNSHINE ONLINE or READTHEORY or POBBLE 365 read the story and do the activity.
CRITICAL THINKING	Design a Creature using the alphabet from the newspaper or a magazine.
PE	Les Mills for children at 3pm

TUMANAKO SYNDICATE UPDATES FOR TERM 1 2020

29 February 2020 · by Miss Helsham

Greetings Parents and Caregivers,

Welcome to a new year and a new term.

We welcome these new children and their families to our syndicate JONA TAI’I SA’U, JOSEVA HUNI, JORY JAVIER & ROSARY HARRIMAN. We pray that you will enjoy being in the Tumanako syndicate and also in our school. May God bless you all and your families.

We have a trip this Wednesday 4th March to the Papatoetoe Community Gardens. This corresponds with our Science unit on “Plants”. The children will have the opportunity to learn about the Life cycle of a plant from seed to a fully grown plant and what is needed to help the plant in it’s growth. We are very privileged to have the wonderful people from the Papatoetoe Historical Society assisting us while we are there.

TERM 1 UNITS:

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION:

PRAYER/ HOLY CROSS CHARISM/ GOD STRAND/ LENT STRAND/ EASTER STRAND

ASH WEDNESDAY 26/2/ ST PATRICK’S DAY 17/3/ EASTER SUNDAY 12/4

This term the Year 4 children will start their Sacramental programme with Reconciliation. First Reconciliation will be on March 24th at 6pm in our church.

We have our Catholic Review Office visit this term on April 1st and 2nd.

LITERACY:

WRITING:

WRITING SAMPLE/ RECOUNTS/ DESCRIPTIVE WRITING/ INFORMATION REPORTS/ POETIC

READING:

Children read at their ability levels and will be encouraged to read for meaning and to gain mileage. We also have a library lesson once a week. Children are encouraged to have their book bags at school every day so that they can take home a reader each night. It is school policy that every child from Years 0-6 have a book bag. Please ensure your child has one.

SPELLING:

All children have a Schonell Spelling test at the beginning of the term and also a test from You Can Spell to determine which level they are on. Every week the children will do a pretest on the Monday, complete set activities from the You Can Spell activity book from Tuesday to Thursday, then have a post test on the Friday. Children will take home a word list on Mondays to learn as part of their Homework.

HANDWRITING:

We follow our school Education Plans for Handwriting for years 3 and 4.

MATHEMATICS:

ADDITION/ SUBTRACTION Weeks 1-4/ MULTIPLICATION/ DIVISION Weeks 5-7/ STRAND: STATISTICS Weeks 8-10

TOPIC UNITS:

SCIENCE: LIVING WORLD: Life Cycle of a Plant. We will visit the Papatoetoe Community gardens and learn about a plant from seed to plant.

SOCIAL SCIENCE: IDENTITY & ORGANISATION

Holy Cross Charism/ My Pepeha

HEALTH:

SAFE ENVIRONMENTS:

Class rules and routines/ Friendships/ Cultural differences

PHYSICAL EDUCATION:

HOOPS & ROPES/ LARGE BALL SKILLS

ART:

SKETCHING- SELF PORTRAITS/ PLANTS

CRAYON & DYE

OTHER EVENTS HAPPENING THIS TERM:

WEEK 5:

SWIMMING COMPETITION- March 3rd.

PAPATOETOE COMMUNITY GARDENS TRIP- March 4th: Room 16- 10am, Room 15- 11am, Room 14- 12noon. Each class will walk there half an hour before their session.

WEEK 6: ASSESSMENT WEEK

The Year 4 children will be doing STAR & P.A.T. testing.

The Year 3 children will be doing their STAR tests.

We pray for our children that they will do the best of their ability during testing week.

Thursday 12th March: MEET THE TEACHER EVENING/ WELL-BEING

Friday 13th March: TUMANAKO SYNDICATE MASS- 9am

WEEK 7:

ST PATRICK’S DAY: March 17th, Mass 9am/ Tabloid Sports in the afternoon.

WEEK 8:

Tuesday 24th March- FIRST RECONCILIATION 6pm in the church

WEEK 9:

Catholic Review Office visit: April 1st and 2nd.

WEEK 10:

HOLY WEEK

Thursday 9th April: HOLY THURSDAY/ last day of Term 1.

Term 1 ends…

A FEW REMINDERS…

It is school policy that every child from Years 0-6 has a book bag. Please ensure your child has one. Book bags are available from the school office.

In Terms 1 and 4 it is compulsory for ALL children to wear a school hat during break times. School hats are available from the school office.

All children from Years 3 upwards are required to wear school fitness gear. School fitness shirts are available from the school office. Children need to wear plain black shorts as part of the fitness uniform as well. It is also important that the boys wear black shorts for fitness and not their school shorts.

We thank you for entrusting your children into our care and look forward to your support through the year. Please don’t hesitate to come in and see us if you have any questions or concerns.

Have a good term.

May God bless us all

From the Terrific Tumanako team

MAUREEN GASS/ GEORGE LATU/ PAT. HELSHAM (team leader)

TEAM TUMANAKO TIDINGS

24 October 2019 · by Miss Helsham

TERM 4 NEWSLETTER 2019

Greetings Grandparents, Parents and Caregivers,

Welcome back to school and the final term of 2019. Thank you to you all for your continual support of our children. This term is another exciting term for us. We have a trip to the Stardome and we also have a special morning for some very special people in our lives.

Topics this term:

RELIGION:

COMMUNION OF SAINTS- LIFE, DEATH & CHRISTIAN HOPE
ADVENT
CHRISTMAS

WRITTEN LANGUAGE:

POETRY/NARRATIVE
EXPLANATIONS
INFORMATION REPORTS
PROCEDURAL WRITING

HANDWRITING:

Children continue to work using the format for Years 3 and 4.

SPELLING

Children continue to work from their current YOU CAN SPELL book level.
Children will have a Schonell spelling test to determine their Spelling age.

READING

Children continue to read at their ability level.
We would encourage children to read daily at home to increase their reading mileage.
To use reading theory for comprehension.

MATHEMATICS

NUMBER: ADD/ SUBTRACT, MULTIPLICATION/ DIVISION, FRACTIONS
ALGEBRA
Encourage children to continue using IXL at home.

SOCIAL SCIENCE:

Special people in our lives: GRANDPARENTS

HEALTH

Community Health: LOOKING AFTER ME

SCIENCE

Physical world: LIGHT AND COLOUR

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Athletics
Basketball
Large Ball skills
Fitness run every morning except Fridays.

ARTS

Simple 3D crafts for Christmas gifts using a variety of media

SPECIAL EVENTS

Friday 18^th October Full School Mass

Monday 21^st October GLOSS testing begins

Tuesday 22^nd October Music Soiree

Tuesday 29^th October PAT Testing begins for Year 4 children

Wednesday 30^th October PAT for Year 4 children /STAR Testing

Thursday 31^st October E Asttle Reading and Maths testing

Friday 1^st November Full School Mass – All Saints

Tuesday 5^th November Trip to Stardome

Thursday 7^th November Cultural Festival

Friday 15^th November Syndicate Mass

Saturday 16^th November School Fair

Tuesday 3^rd December Grandparents morning

Friday 6^th December Full School Mass: Gifting Mass

Tuesday 10^th December Year 4 Prize giving 11am

Thursday 12^th December Year 6 and 8 Graduation

Friday 13^th December Reports sent home

Wednesday 18^th December Full School End of Year Mass/ Last day of school

HOMEWORK:

This is an extension of the school day and all children will be expected to complete reading, spelling, basic facts, sunshine online and IXL activities daily. Occasionally they will get extra work to finish at home.

UNIFORM:

Please ensure your child is wearing the correct uniform and has their P.E. uniform at school every day. Children need plain black shorts (no stripes or monograms). The boys should not be using their school shorts to do their PE activities in. Hair should be tied up in the school colours.

Please check to see that all clothing and footwear is clearly named as this enables us to return any articles of clothing that may be misplaced.

All children must bring a note if they are not wearing the correct uniform.

The correct summer uniform should be worn after Labour Day. ALL children are expected to have school hats to wear.

THANK YOU

Sometimes we forget to say this but thank you so much to all our Parent Helpers and supporters this year. Without your assistance we could not have done any of our outside school activities. As it says in St Paul’s letter to the Philippians 1: 3 “We thank our God each time we remember you, and when we pray for you all we pray with joy.”

We appreciate everything you do for our Team Tumanako.

May God continue to bless us and our families.

From the team

Maureen Gass, George Latu, Pat. Helsham

Room 14 does Community Service at the Papatoetoe Library

20 September 2019 · by Miss Helsham

Yesterday Room 14 walked down to the Papatoetoe Library to do some work at the Library. We had a lovely walk there and were excited to see the people from the Papatoetoe Museum. They had organised for us to be at the library.

Today we went to the Papatoetoe Library. First we left the school through the gate and started to walk. When we got there we sat down and coloured in. I had to do a word and the word was CLUES. The colours were black, grey, orange and green. After that I went to stick it up on the board. I went to the books and sat on the mat. Afterwards we started to go back to school so we can write about the fun things that we just did. LUCIUS

Today Room 14 went to the Papatoetoe Library to do some community service. When we arrived we met some people who were from the Papatoetoe Museum. When we were settled we were colouring any photo with bright and dark colours for an hour. After that when we finished colouring we had to pin them onto a top secret board. We went to read any book so when our time was over we all sang 4 songs before coming back to school. DESTINY

Today Room 14 and I went on a walk to the Papatoetoe Library. When Miss Helsham came back from the office we headed outside in two lines and I was in one line and my buddy was in the other line. While we were walking I was imaging what it would look like, but when we got there it looked completely different. When we went inside, we went to a table and sat down and waited. There was colouring paper on the table and there was also some colouring pencils of course. We started colouring and what I was colouring were two jigsaw puzzles because the theme in the library was TOP SECRET!!! TALLYN

This Thursday, in the morning, after we ate, Room Fourteen was very excited to visit the Papatoetoe Library. We were also happy to meet the Community Library service. Ailey and Caydence’s mums were Parent Helpers and Micaela accompanied us too. Once everyone finished eating, we lined up with our buddies and we were finally ready to go! There were a few pedestrians but we depended on the adults.

Once we finally reached the Library, everyone sat down on chairs, and we saw pictures that were like a secret mission. The community service’s people told us a bit about them. They said that we could colour the pictures that we saw in the beginning, that’s when everyone got excited. There were so many colours I didn’t know where to start! Everyone did some hard work. After I finished I got some pins and pinned my artwork on a board. While we waited for the other students, we got to read some books. We had a group photo and sang a few songs. We were so sad to leave the Library, but we had a safe journey back to school. JAYDE DE GUZMAN

Today me and my class went to the Papatoetoe Library. When we got there people were telling us to follow them and then they told us to sit on the chairs. There were papers on the tables and my paper said key the word. The Library people told us to colour in the pages. My friend Michael was colouring in a key. I was using the colours red, yellow, orange and green. When I was done colouring in I was told to cut out my key. I did and when I was done with the word key, one of the ladies said that I could do another one and it was some feet. I coloured them in blue. After I was done colouring my feet on the paper I cut them out too and I put them on the board. We took photos of us and then we sang ‘This is the day’ and ‘Aroha is love.’ LORENZO

Today we went to the Papatoetoe Library and we got to colour a picture. Mine said secret. We were colouring for about two hours. We sang Aroha is loving if you give it away and we also sang this is the day. When we were going back to school it looked like it was going to rain. It was so much fun and we got to take a photo and while we were colouring we were also taking our time. We took too long for colouring the top secret papers and people were looking at us while we were doing our top secret work. SHAUN

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