If your child is in the Kākāpō team (classes being Motunui or Motutere), here are some things you could do at home to support their learning.​

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Reading

Talk about reading with your child:

• Ask your child what they are reading and talk about their ideas: What is the ‘picture’ they have of particular characters? Are there people like that in your family or whānau? What do they want to find out from the book? What are the important messages? What do they think is going to happen next? What else do they need to know to understand the story or topic?

• Talk about books on similar topics. This helps your child to pull together ideas from different places

• Talk about different types of stories that are read or spoken. Newspaper articles, internet sites, whakataukī (proverbs), comics, bible stories, songs, waiata or novels will each have different points you can talk about together. Find a newspaper article you’re both interested in and talk about what it means to each of you

• Help your child to share their thinking. Get them to share opinions and talk about why they think that. Listen, even when you don’t agree with their ideas.

• Read to a sibling or cousin - they could even read to a pet!

• Encourage your child to research to find out more about something they are interested in and to read about it

• Find new words together and practice using them in a sentence

 

Remember to keep the magic of listening to a good story alive by reading stories to your child – with lots of excitement through the use of your voice.  Continue to read to your child every day.

Click here to visit a website where you can search books for your child based on their reading level (which your child’s class teacher can share with you).

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Writing

All our Year 3-6 students have Google accounts so can access Google Drive to write in Docs or Slides if they would like.

 

Remember to keep it fun.  Here are some ideas to help:

• Help your child write about their heroes, sports events, tīpuna (ancestors), hobbies and interests. This helps them stay interested in what they are writing about

• Play word games and do puzzles together to help your child learn more about words and spelling

• Play with words. Thinking of interesting words and discussing new ones can help increase the words your child uses when they write – look words up in the dictionary or on the Internet, or talk to family and whānau members to learn more about the background of the words

 

Share enjoyment of their writing. Read and talk about the writing that your child does. Give praise for things they have done well to support their learning.

 

• Play with words. Thinking of interesting words and discussing new ones can help increase the words your child uses when they write

• Get your child to add detail to writing using the fives senses, smell, taste, touch, see, hear

• Share your own writing with your child – lists, planning for family events or an email. You can help them to see that you too use writing for different purposes

• Use pictures from this folder to help with ideas for  your child to write creatively

• Ask your child to keep a journal/blog for their time at home, one entry for each day

• Write invitations or emails to friends, family or teachers they haven’t seen in a while

• Teach them to write in your first language if they don’t already know

 

 

Maths

Talk together and have fun with numbers and patterns

 

Help your child to:

• count forwards and backwards (starting with numbers like 10,098, 10,099, 10,100, 10,101 then back again)

• find and read large numbers in your environment, e.g. nineteen thousand, three hundred and twenty-three

• learn number pairs to 100, e.g. 81 and what equals 100?

• work out patterns – make codes from numbers, e.g. A=1, B=2 and write coded letters, add the value of the names in your family

• Add the numbers on number plates

• Learn their times tables

 

You can also use everyday objects and activities to support maths, here are some ideas:

• Telling the time, o’clock, half past, quarter to, 5 past, 10 to, 20 to..

• Add the value of car number plates

• Help them memorise your phone number and phone numbers of other family members

• Go to a supermarket’s website and practice online shopping, this gets your child adding and working with money but also teaches them about budgets

• Cook and follow recipes together, talk about how much of each ingredient is needed

• Create a family calendar, gather everyone’s birthdays and put them in order with day and month

• Measure different items by weight and estimate the weight of each item and which will weigh the most, e.g. water, pen, cellphone, toys, etc

• Make a time table for each day, what time will you get up, have breakfast, do writing, other learning, lunch, etc

 

For more information and support on learning at home, click the button below.