weekly news 26th June

This week we heard the story of ‘The Princess and the Pea’ and we were challenged to draw a picture of the sort of prince or princess that we would like to be. We have been enjoying our new fairytale castle role play area and have loved getting dressed up as characters who might live in a palace or castle.

In maths we have been practising ways of counting quickly by counting in 2s, 5s and 10s. We sorted peas into groups of 2s, 5s and 10s and looked at number lines and 100 squares to try to recognise the patterns to help us when counting. I wonder whether your child can tell you whether it is quicker to count to 100 in 2s, 5s or 10s ? Can they explain why ?

Our trip to Gressenhall on Tuesday was absolutely fantastic ! Thank-you very much to all the parents who came and helped us !

Despite the unpredictable British weather we had a fun-packed imaginative adventure, in which we were asked by the Curator of Gressenhall Museum whether we could help him to find some very special artefacts which had been stolen by the Wicked Witch. We were all more than happy to help and we went on various quests with Jack (from Jack and the Beanstalk ) Cinderella and the Curator in order to discover where the Wicked Witch had hidden the objects. Can your child remember where they found any of the special objects ? Where did they see:

 Cinderella’s glass slipper ?

Grumpy the dwarf’s boot ?

Puss in Boots’ sword ?

The pea from the story of The Princess and the pea ?

The mirror from the Snow White’s stepmother ?

The Troll’s bogey ?

The children enjoyed helping Cinderella to get all her chores done so that she could go to the Prince’s Ball and they had a very bumpy tractor ride around the farm where we saw all the King’s horses and Little Bo Peep’s sheep.

During next week we will be doing a final assessment of the children’s ability to read and blend sounds and tricky words. At the end of the term we will send home a copy of this assessment to inform you of the sounds and tricky words your child can confidently read so that you can keep practising them over the holidays in order that the children do not forget what they have learnt. We will also be passing a copy of your child’s assessment to their year 1 teacher. We will be collecting in your child’s tricky word tag nearer the end of the term.

We would love to hear from any parents who would be prepared to come into school to talk about their jobs in order to give the children an understanding of the very many varied careers that are possible. Please let us know via the office if you can come into school during the week commencing 15^th July. Thank you

weekly news 19th June

    The sun finally shone for us on Friday for our exciting Rocket Morning ! The children and parents enjoyed carrying out all the rocket based activities and had lots of fun. It was great to have a team from Hethersett Academy working with us. We all loved the water rockets and little pop rockets that they helped us set off.

      

The children performed our 'Trolls' dance brilliantly at the Summer Fayre on Friday evening. They all looked so colourful and clearly enjoyed themselves. It was quite a complex routine and we were so proud of how they remembered all the moves and looked so confident in front of such a large audience.

This week we have been doing some activities based on ‘The Bog Baby’ story and the children have had lots of fun making their own dough and then creating their very own Bog Baby to take home. We have been thinking about the sort of habitat that the Bog Baby would be happy in. Hopefully the children will be able to find somewhere suitable at home for their Bog Baby to live. Perhaps you could ask your child whether they can remember the ingredients that we used to make the Bog Baby dough ?

In letters and sounds we have been applying our knowledge of some of the tricky vowel diagraphs for example ‘oo’ and ‘ow’. We have been playing games in which we have to blend the digraphs in the words to read them and trying hard to remember to read the diagraph as one sound. We have also been continuing to learn to read and spell our tricky words as this is so helpful when we do our independent writing.

In maths this week we have been continuing to focus on 3D shapes and consider their properties when we describe and sort them. We have also been comparing and measuring the capacity of containers.

The children have started to draw a picture of themselves in their school uniform, looking closely in a mirror to try to use the correct colours for their eyes and hair and clothes. These drawings will be on the front page of your child’s report which will be sent home later on in the term. We did the same activity back in September when the children had just started school and the children have been comparing their recent drawing with the one they did back in the autumn. They are extremely proud to see how their drawing skills have improved since they have been at school. It must be all the ‘dough disco’ we do !

The newspaper ‘Diss Express’ came to school on Wednesday to take a photo of our classes to put in Friday’s edition. Hopefully these photos will be a lovely reminder of the children’s time in reception.

We are looking forward to another exciting week with our trips next week to Gressenhall on Tuesday and the Norfolk Show on Thursday.

weekly news 12th June

We have been continuing to enjoy our mini topic about space. In our classes we thought about all the things that we already know about space, and then we made a list of the things that we want to find out. We have been listening to songs and looking on the internet and in factual books to find the answers to our questions. We are all beginning to be space experts ! We are having fun dressing up as astronauts in our role play area and using the small world toys to create stories about space.

In letters and sounds this week we have been trying to use more interesting words or ‘wow’ words to describe what some aliens might look like. We played a game in which we had to use our phonic knowledge to read the names of some characters and then we had to decide whether the names were alien names or earthling names. We had to sort them out, putting the earthling characters on a picture of planet earth, and the alien characters on a picture of a moon buggy.

In maths we have been making pictures using 2 dimensional shapes by listening to instructions. We had to help Baby Bear, from the story of ‘Whatever Next ?’, to rebuild his rocket after he had been stranded on the moon. For example, we had to place the shape with ‘3 straight sides’ next to the ‘shape with 4 corners’. We are getting really confident at identifying the correct shapes that we needed. This game also showed what brilliant listeners we are too. In maths also this week we did some problem-solving to find out which toy car could travel the furthest and we worked out what was the best way to measure the distance that the cars travelled. Perhaps your child could continue this learning at home with the paper aeroplane that they will make during Rocket Morning on Friday ?

All the rain we have been having has certainly helped our plants to grow, and many of the children have been helping to transplant the seedlings into bigger pots. The children are very helpful with pruning, weeding and watering the plants when needed too.

Thank you to those parents who have been uploading photos showing how their child’s sunflower is progressing. Don’t forget there will be a prize for the photo of the tallest sunflower !

weekly news 6th June

Weekly news 6^th June

This week is Mulbarton Words Week which was started off on Monday morning with an assembly led by an author called Paeony Lewis. She explained all about how she became an author and what her job involves. Paeony showed us some of the books she has written including ‘I’ll always love you’ which you may have heard of, and she read us a lovely story called ‘Hurry up birthday’ which is about a young bunny who just can’t wait for his birthday to come !

We are continuing our theme about stories and over the next couple of weeks will be looking at space themed books, and this week we heard the story of ‘Whatever Next ?’ by Jill Murphy. The main character is Baby Bear and he wants to go into space but his mother’s objections are that it’s his bedtime and he hasn’t got a rocket ! We have been thinking about what we would take if we went into space and the children have written a list of what they would take. These lists are hanging up in our ‘Space’ role play area if you would like to see them.

We are really looking forward to Rocket Morning next Friday 14^th June 9-11:30am please don’t forget to send your reply slip and pay £2 via Wisepay towards the cost of this exciting morning.

The children have been using their writing skills to write a message on a card which they will bring home next Friday 14^th. Your child has decided which family member they have made their card for, whether it is for Daddy, Grandad or someone else who they love.

In Maths this week we have been developing our reasoning skills by trying to guess what number has been hidden in a little bag. We have been encouraging the children to ask the sort of questions that help them to identify the hidden number, eg. ‘Is it bigger than 10 ?’   ‘Is it an odd number or an even number ?’

Perhaps you could play this game at home too.

We have started practising our dance for the Summer Fayre for next Friday 14^th. We will be dancing at 5:10pm so please look out for up to date information about where we will meet the children before we go out to dance. The children are really enjoying learning the dance and have been making their own ‘Troll’ headdress to wear.

We have been having some visitors from the pre schools in the village and the children have been very helpful and friendly to the children and showing them around the base ! They have enjoyed seeing some of their old key-workers too.

Gressenhall trip Tuesday 26^th June: Thank you very much to the parents who have offered to help us on our trip. You will be receiving a note later on this week with more details.