I have struggled this term to provide the same focussed support for my new students as I did with my term one students. I had a large intake group at the beginning and was able to lay strong foundations with them through whole class introductions, drills and lessons. These students made excellent gains very quickly. 

However in term 2, I couldn't take the same approach, as the students trickled in and my older students and younger students had very different learning needs. I felt that my newer students were missing out from receiving the same level of literacy input, especially with high frequency words. 

This year, 2016, was the year of the monkey in the Chinese Zodiac. I have 2 ethnically Chinese children in the room. Both of then are first generation New Zealanders. We watched the story of  the Chinese Zodiac on youtube and then discussed which year we were born in, All the children in the class were Tigers having been born in late 2010 or early 2011 before CNY that year. We talked about what Chinese people believe about people born in the Year of the Tiger. Did they agree? Were they brave, daring or sensitive?

I am a rat, so I talked about my cleverness, charm,  imagination and honesty ;-) 

This year, 2016, I have only one child with Maori heritage in the class. It is always difficult to cover The Treaty of Waiting in a meaningful way with New Entrant children as it occurs immediately in their first week at school and there are so many things to introduce them too. I am not sure how much they are able to retain of the content about the Treaty. Instead I focus on how all our families come to New Zealand to make it our home where we can be safe and happy. This provides a natural segway into a discussion about our belonging in school ad how we can ensure that everyone has a safe and happy year in our class and on our playground.  

We made Waka and then talked about all the different ways that our families had arrived in New Zealand, but I kept bring the focus back to our shared desire to live safe and happy.

I encourage the children to greet me in the morning with a wide range of greetings from around the world. I model these through the roll and allow the students to respond in any language as long as they are respectful.