Floating and Sinking

We have had a science focus this week, with some of the ESOL groups learning about floating and sinking. We learned how to come up with a question, make a hypothesis, test our hypothesis and record our results. We then drew conclusions from our results. We made models of boats from tin foil, then tested how much they would hold before they sunk. We learned a lot from our reading and our experimenting, and we had a lot of fun playing with water!

Our Eye On Ilam

Lots of the children who go to ESOL have been learning about our local community. We have been visiting the university to find out more about the places around us. It was fun going down to the river and crossing the bridge. Other groups have focused on improving their reading skills. Look at Yuko and Qin learning about playing football!

Term 1 2016

We are nearly at the end of our first term of 2016. We have welcomed lots of new children to our school from a variety of different countries. We hope you are all enjoying being at Ilam School and have made lots of new friends. The ESOL teachers hope you have safe holidays. Make sure you do lots of reading both in your first language and English if you can. We are looking forward to seeing you again in Term 2, ready for a busy term of fun and learning. Kirsten's year 5 and 6 literacy group having fun in the Autumn leaves!

Welcome back to Term 4

The ESOL team would like to welcome back all of our students to term 4. We have had a bit of a change around in our timetable this term, so don't be surprised if your child is going to a new class for ESOL.
Our topic this term is Houses. We have spent the first week learning about the outside of the house. Some of the children have been for walks around the neighbourhood looking to see what materials the different houses are made of. In the Blue Room we have made a huge dolls house, which we are going to decorate with furniture as we learn about the names of things inside the house.
In weeks 3 and 4 the ESOL team will be busy testing children to ensure they continue to progress in their English language. During this time there will be no ESOL lessons, but children will be withdrawn for testing for short periods of time during the day.
If you have any questions or problems, please do not hesitate to come in and see us. We look forward to teaching your children this term!

Casting Magic With Worms

The Year 2 and 3 English Language Learners visited the Curator's House at the Botanical Gardens to learn a bit more about reusing and recycling. We teamed up with the Christchurch City Council to make our own worm farms out of recycled materials. 

 First we had to use spades to dig in the garden to find the worms for our worm farm. We learned that their are special kinds of worms that we needed to use, called tiger worms. 

Next, we made our worms farms out of a bottle and old newspaper. We covered the bottle with newspaper. We had to tear strips of newspaper and make them wet to put into our worm farms. Worms like dark, moist places. 

After that, we had to find worms to put into our worm farms! There was an old bathtub filled with soil. We had to dig into with our hands to get the worms out. We had to hold the worms by ourselves. That is okay, because worms don't have teeth so they can't bite us. We added five worms to our worm farm, and put the lid on so they couldn't crawl out!

These are our completed worm farms. We put soil and grass seed in the lid. We need to feed our worms regularly. In the school holidays we can take them home and add them to our compost or garden. We wonder how many worms we will have in our worm farm by then?

We had a great time on our trip, and we learned so much about worms. A big thank you to our wonderful educator Katie from the Christchurch City Council, who made the topic come alive for us. 

Clothing

As a preparation for our Wearable Art inquiry. we are looking at clothing. We have been studying includes the names of different kinds of clothing, materials that the clothing might be made out of, and words such as sleeves, buttons, zips, velcro, belt, laces, etc. We have been dressing up in different clothing. Today we looked at clothes we might wear when it is cold outside. Look at our funny photos!

Welcome back to Term 2

So far this term the ESOL team have been busy testing all the children that attend ESOL lessons. We have checked on their reading and writing vocabulary, listening, speaking, and writing. Week 3 has been busy as we meet up with parents to discuss the results of the testing. It has been great to meet some new parents, as well as catching up with the parents we already know. If you have missed your interview, please contact us to reschedule as we would like to talk through your child's testing with you.
ESOL lessons will begin again in week 4. This term our writing and topic groups will be learning about water. This will include some walks around our community to visit local water sources. Reading groups will continue from last term. If your child is not bringing home a reading book regularly, please see us or the classroom teacher. Children should be reading at home every night to ensure they make progress.
Please remember to contact me at kirsten.aaron@ilam.school.nz if you have a problem you wish to discuss. I am looking forward to another great learning term with your support!