Miss O’Malley

✨ 5 Simple Ways to Help Your Child Transition from Daycare to School ✨

Starting school is a big step, here are some easy ways to make it smoother:

🏫 Visit the school
Pop in on weekends or after hours so it feels familiar (playground = a win!)

⏰ Practise your mornings
Do a few “school morning” runs, wake up, get dressed, out the door on time

🎒 Pack their own bag
Let them take charge of their lunchbox, drink bottle, and hat

🚽 Build independence
Toileting, handwashing, opening lunch boxes, shoes on/off, all the little things matter!

💬 Keep it positive
Talk about school as exciting, fun, and safe 💛

A little preparation now makes a BIG difference later ✨

Make sure to visit a few different schools, this way you’ll get a feel for what is the best environment for your child. If you’re applying for an out of zone school, apply to a few different schools, you’re not always going to get your first choice, so don’t put all your eggs in one basket ☺️

Term 1 for our School Readiness Classes finished on Sunday and I’m so proud of the children and the learning that we were able to do in our 9 weeks together.

Here is just some of the things that we got to learn:

⭐️ Individual letter sounds and names for the whole alphabet.

⭐️ Then focused on these sets of letters
s a t p i n m e o u to form words by decoding and blending together.

⭐️ using our knowledge of letter sounds, we could then start reading small decodable stories or sentences. This was sent home with each child so that they could practice with their parents.

⭐️ writing and identifying our own name.

⭐️ counting from 1-20 or further depending on abilities.

⭐️ addition and subtraction skills

⭐️ lots of mathematical language introduced, e.g. less than, more than, numbers in between, before and after, plus, minus etc…

⭐️ social and emotional interactions, learning to share and take turns, help others.

⭐️ independence, coming into the classroom on their own, unpacking their green folders, taking care of jackets and shoes and making sure they have all their belongings once class finished.

⭐️ listening and following instructions. We have classroom rules and the children know these well, but most importantly they know why these rules are in place (to keep ourselves safe, I.e. no running inside).

⭐️ lots of fun and laughter, building confidence in small groups. 💕

For School Readiness Classes, please enquire via email or private message through Instagram and Facebook to be put on our waitlist for Term 3 and Term 4.

Happy School Days to these three amazing students!

Thank you for being apart of our programme for the past 3 or 4 Terms. We are going to miss you all, but I know that you are more than ready for this next big adventure! Your new classes are so lucky to have you all 🥰

Writing today ✏️

Our sentence today was:
“I sit on the mat.”

We practised using our heart word from last week – I and our new heart word this week – the ❤️

While writing, we focused on:
• Finger spaces between words
• A capital letter at the start
• A full stop at the end

Our routine:
👀 Read the sentence
✏️ Write the sentence
📖 Read it again!

WE LOVE WRITING! These kids are amazing and have worked so hard this term! So proud of our little learners! ⭐️

School Readiness Classes Term 1 - 2026

Devastating news for this beautiful family, after more than a year in remission Noah’s cancer has returned. Please, if you are able, donate to this family and support them so they can travel between Dunedin and Christchurch without that financial burden.

Sending lots of love your way Noah 💕

Support for Noah and the Dobier family Please help support Noah and his family, while he battles cancer for the second time after being in remission for over a year.

Right now, we’re collecting registrations of interest only. We’re chatting with a number of great teachers who may have availability to tutor as early as Term 1 and or Term 2.

Joining the waitlist doesn’t guarantee a spot straight away, but it does mean you’ll be one of the first families contacted if tutoring goes ahead and spaces become available. This helps us match families with teachers as soon as we can.

Pop your details in below and we’ll be in touch if things open up 🙂

Tutoring Waitlist for 2026 Thanks for your interest in one-on-one tutoring with our Dunedin teachers! Right now, we’re collecting registrations of interest only. We’re chatting with a number of great teachers who may have availability to tutor as early as Term 1 and or Term 2. Joining the waitlist doesn’t guarantee a sp...

First School Readiness Class for 2026 🎉

Merry Christmas Everyone 🎄 I hope you all have a wonderful break. I’m looking forward to catching up with family and friends and catching some sun ☀️ I’ll be off socials until about end of January, in the meantime if you need me feel free to DM or email.

Miss O’Malley x