More Maths

We are focusing this week on counting forwards and backwards, skip counting, and counting on to add numbers together.

Here's James counting forwards and backwards to 20. Go James!

Mackenzie can count forwards and backwards to 20 as well. :-)

Marvellous Maths!

We have been getting back into the swing of things at school this week! We have been doing lots of fun maths and the children have been enjoying having free use of the maths resources...especially when Nicole and I ask them, "WHAT IS THE MATHS?" They take this question very seriously and think carefully about the maths they are doing with our equipment.

Bradley is making patterns with cubes.

Sam and Ethan are building a tower and measuring how tall they can make it.

Karl is sorting dinosaurs into different sets, and seeing how many in each group.

 Aaron is measuring his tower. Some towers have been a metre tall!

Rosa and Ruth are sorting jellybeans into groups by colour. Who has the biggest pile?

Taylor is sorting dinosaurs into different types.

We have been having fun with maths all week and learning heaps about counting, sorting, measuring, and making patterns and shapes. Ka mau te wehi!

We are back!!!

What an exciting day - it is so good to be back at school and to see all those lovely faces again. We had a fun first day back: we did some of the same things we always do, like karakia and Jump Jam in the morning. Lots of children brought in a favourite book from home to share at reading time. We played maths games too.

We were incredibly lucky to receive very special gifts from Postgate School in Porirua - families at that school had put together beautiful gift packages for everyone at Freeville with very kind letters enclosed. At one of our breaks everyone was allowed to choose a couple of sweet treats, and in the afternoon, while the class was making sherbet, everyone got a turn to look around in the boxes and choose a special gift to take home. All the children were delighted with their presents - what a great way to start back at school!

What Nicole and I did today

Today was a busy day for us at Freeville! If you have been reading John's blog, you will know that we have been busy moving everything all around the school. Today we had a wee tidy-up in Ruma 2 and started getting set up for school to start next week.

After that we went to visit some of our friends who were at Kym and Sharon's homeschool, the Super Seagulls School of Success! We got to surprise the children and it was great to see the big smiles on their faces (and maybe ours too...). We stayed to help some children write thank-you cards to the companies that have generously donated resources and food, and then we did Jump Jam which was a real treat! It was good to have a bit of a practice before we get back to school.

Some photos from last week

Kia ora koutou katoa :-)

A few odds and ends I'd been planning to post for the children to check out. Here are some pictures of our fantastic Freeville Flyers at the sausage sizzle last week. It was so great seeing everyone that I tried to get photos before things got too crazy (which didn't take long!)...

Do you see anyone you know?

That was such an awesome day! What do you remember about the day the container came to Freeville School?

Learning Hubs are up and running

While we work to get Freeville open next Monday, the Ministry has set up Learning Hubs at some Christchurch schools that are already open, starting tomorrow (Monday the 14th).

The idea is that you can send your children along for normal school hours and they are set up as classroom spaces.

Here is the TVNZ story that lists the locations: http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/all-christchurch-students-catered-4059501

I hope you are all well and that you are getting access to everything you need. Freeville staff will be at school this week to finish clearing out damaged spaces and getting ready to open on the 21st. Keep checking John's blog for details and changes!

A few useful links!

Kia ora e hoa ma,

What a wonderful day it was yesterday with our whanau from Hastings Intermediate delivering their shipping container filled with care packages and supplies for the community. It was a really special day. I was so happy to see everyone back at school, even if it was only for a little while. Keep watching John's blog for updates.

The teachers have been busy setting up the classrooms and getting ready to reopen. There is still work to be done to make sure we are ready, but things are looking pretty good! We have been having fun wearing our hard hats and high-vis jackets. :-)

Here are some useful links so your children can keep busy and learn while at home:

• Maths games for 5 and 6-year-olds
• Story Online: celebrities reading picture books
• Sentence-building games
• Reading activities: The Gingerbread Man
• A little bit late: Make a Valentine card
• Readquarium: sight word games
• Spelling City - enter your child's spelling words
• When My Home Shook: help your child write their earthquake story, then email the website to publish it online
• Do you know your addition to 16?
• Flashcard games with addition and subtraction
• Just for fun: Build Your Wild Self!

Have fun! Let us know your favourite games so we can share them with others!

I'm editing this to add some more - there are so many great activities out there. 

• Sumdog - a wide range of maths games
• Meegenius - online books with the choice to have them read aloud or for your child to read
• Scholastics Story Starters: spin the wheel to get crazy ideas for stories, poems, or songs
• Toy Theater has such a huge range of activities I don't know where to start!
• Whakaaranga Primary's wikipage has a selection of online learning games

Kia ora koutou!

Welcome to Ruma Rua's class blog. :-)

I hope everyone is doing OK and that our adaptable and flexible Freeville Flyers are finding some great ways to use their time away from school. I spent some time digging silt with the Student Volunteer Army (this was my team, we drove around to different houses to dig out gutters and driveways):

We popped in to see how Freeville was looking one day and stayed to help Grant distribute water. These are my children, Ethan and Amy, practising their weightlifting moves:

We took some time out to visit family in Timaru and Blenheim as well.

We are missing our friends at Freeville very much, and missing our awesome classroom. It looks like school will be open on March 21st, hooray! If you haven't already, check out John's blog: http://freevilleprincipal.blogspot.com/ to keep up to date with what is happening at school.

Come to school tomorrow lunchtime for a Freeville BBQ and catch up with everyone in the new car park by the learning studio. We would LOVE to see you!

Please use this blog as a way to keep in touch with us and with each other. Tell us what you have been doing since the earthquake, where you have been and how you are.