Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Using the thinking hats to sort adjectives


Today we sorted adjectives which describe people under three thinking hats - red, yellow and green. It was great to have Jake part of our group for the first time too!

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

July Newsletter

Welcome
A warm welcome is extended to Bing Da, Eunseo and Hayley who started school last term. We also welcome Jake who has started this term. These students have joined the ESOL programme.

Change of hours
This term Judith and Glenys' working hours have changed. Judith will work Tuesday 9.45-3pm, and Wednesday 9-12.30. Glenys will be teaching ESOL Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning. To reflect these new hours and also the changing needs of our students, our timetable has changed significantly. Please see the latest version on the ESOL window.

Term three topics
The focus of our learning for Term three is self esteem, friendships and report writing. You can support your child's learning by discussing their special qualities and the qualities of other family members. We plan to give your child specific skills to assist them with making friends, being a good friend and inviting friends to their home. This will be celebrated with an ESOL party planned for Week six. Look out for your invitation in Week 4.

Japanese parents meeting
Our meeting for Term 3 will be on Wednesday 4 August at 9am in the ESOL room. Please put this in your diary and tell any other Japanese parents who do not receive this newsletter.

Parent Talk Time
We are thrilled to see so many parents regularly joining us for ESOL Parent Talk Time. Please remember we start at 9.00am sharp with the content of the session. This is particularly important when we have visiting speakers.
Our topics for Term three are:
Wednesday 28 July: Week 2 - Independent Learning (Visiting speaker Toby Stokes, AP)
Wednesday 4 August: Week 3 - Japanese Parents meeting
Wednesday 11 August: Week 4 - Heath services for primary school students (Visiting speaker Public Health Nurse)
Wednesday 25 August: Week 6 - ESOL Party
Week 8 - No Parent Talk Time
Wednesday 22 September: Week 10 - Code of Practice from students, social, planning Term 4

Blog
Have you seen the latest postings on our blog? We have recently uploaded videos of some groups retelling Narratives! Check us out at http://fosesol.blogspot.com

Books with audio CDs
To help your child develop their oral language skills it is important for them to hear correct models of English. One way to do this is to listen to stories on CD. We have a box of book and CD sets in the library specifically for ESOL families to issue. Your child can borrow these in their library time or at lunchtime. Parents are welcome to visit the library to borrow books either before or after school, not during class time. There is a limit of two book and CD sets per family.

Maths websites
At our Week 8 Parent Talk Time we shared a couple of great maths websites. The web addresses for these are www.arcademicskillbuilders.com and
www.numeracy123.com.

Please remember that we value contact with parents and caregivers. If you have any questions, concerns (or compliments!) about our ESOL programme please feel free to contact us.

Kind regards,
Judith Anthony and Glenys Williams
ESOL Teachers
judith.anthony@fendalton.school.nz glenys.williams@fendalton.school.nz

Lennart's house

Today I read a book about a house.
Then I talked about my house.
Listen to me!