weekly news 18th March

We are very disappointed about having to postpone our Maths Morning. Thank you very much for the contributions that have been paid.  The money that has been paid will be used towards the rescheduling of the event, or carried over to Rocket Morning which is planned for Thursday 18th June.

This week we have been practising all the letters and sounds that we have learnt so far. We have been reading sentences and playing a game called sentence substitution . We have been changing one word at a time to make up some very strange sentences ! We have been checking the children's sounds and tricky word knowledge and changing their home reading books too. Please see how many sounds and tricky words your child is able to read which we have recorded in their reading record.

In Maths we have been learning all about the time. We have been learning to sequence events in the day and learning to tell the time- to the clock- on an analogue clock.

The children have been writing a message in their Mother's Day cards which they will bring home at the end of the week. The children have worked really hard at writing their message about why they love their Mummy !

Should the school be advised to close please see below a list of websites for you to use with your child.

National Geographic Kids

https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/

Activities and quizzes.

 

Nature Detectives

https://naturedetectives.woodlandtrust.org.uk/naturedetectives/

A lot of these can be done in a garden, or if you can get to a remote forest location!

 

Cbeebies Radio

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/radio

Listening activities.

 

 

Oxford Owl for Home

https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/

Lots of free resources for Primary age

 

Red Ted Art

https://www.redtedart.com

Easy arts and crafts.

 

The Imagination Tree

https://theimaginationtree.com

Creative art and craft activities.

 

 

Toy Theater

https://toytheater.com/

Educational online games

 

DK Find Out

https://www.dkfindout.com/uk/?fbclid=IwAR2wJdpSJSeITf4do6aPhff8A3tAktnmpaxqZbkgudD49l71ep8-sjXmrac

Activities and quizzes

 

Twinkl

https://www.twinkl.co.uk

This is more for printouts, and usually at a fee, but they are offering a month of free access to parents in the event of school closures.

 

https://hungrylittleminds.campaign.gov.uk/#3 useful apps and activities.

 

your child's Education city log in details have been sent home again and have been stuck in their red reading records.

These are the games that we would like the children to work on to consolidate their learning.

EYFS Maths F2:

Numbers:

Counting Carnival

Hustle and Bustle

Share Bears

Deep Discoveries

Hop Off

Jack in the box

One more, one less

Smelly Socks

Sten's Party

Shape, space measure:

Classy objects

Measure up

Wakey, wakey

English F2:

Phase 3 all

vowel digraphs

fear the beard

sure sure

fairy pair

surf's up

summer river

tricky words

reading

Science:

Leap frog

creature of habitat

farm frenzy

flutter and fly

farmyard racket

P.E.

After Easter the children will need to have a P.E. kit in school. Please could this include a t-shirt, ( house group t-shirts ) a pair of shorts, jogging bottoms and a long-sleeved top (to cover elbows and knees) and a pair of pumps or trainers NOT LACE-UPS thank-you. Please ensure that everything in their P.E. kit is permanently named including shoes. Please practice changing into P.E. kits at home to encourage your child to be independent.

British summer:

As we all know our weather can be very unpredictable so please ensure that your child ALWAYS has a waterproof raincoat with a hood and a sunhat in their bag as we will continue to go out to play in all weathers.

Show and Tell ‘Story Challenge’

Please see separate letter which will be sent home with your child.

weekly news 12th March

Thank you very much to Ava's Daddy who came into school to teach us about Africa. He showed the children lots of photographs and talked about the differences in culture to the United Kingdom. The children were very interested in learning about Africa and they asked some great questions !

This week we have been learning the last 3 trigraphs. These are sounds which use 3 letters together but only make one sound ! These are 'ear', 'air' and 'ure' and we have been learning to hear, read and write these sounds. We have been practising reading our sounds and tricky words in sentences and funny questions and we have been trying to decide whether the questions are real or nonsense.
In Maths this week we have been learning all about 3 d shapes. We have been learning how to describe the shapes using mathematical language and talking about their properties. Can your child tell you about any 3 d shapes that they have learnt this week ? Can they find any cylinders, spheres, cuboids, triangular prisms, pyramids, cones or cubes at home or when you are out and about ? Perhaps you could upload any photos on Tapestry to show us which 3d shapes they have found ?

As part of our topic about African animals we have been learning all about the importance of Camouflage and we have been investigating which colours are more difficult to spot in various environments and habitats.

Hopefully you have received your invitation from your child for our 'Maths Morning' next Friday 20th March. Thank you very much to those parents who have already sent in their reply slip.
The children are really looking forward to showing you all the exciting ways we can have fun with Maths !

A very big 'THANK-YOU' to Mia's Daddy and 'PLANTSCAPE Tree Services' for the generous donation of lots of log slices for our outdoor learning environments.

weekly news 5th March

This week we have learnt the digraphs ur and oi in letters and sounds and have been revising the tricky words learnt so far. We have also been modelling story telling on the carpet using small world characters to help us and we wrote a shared story which modelled capital letters, finger spaces and full stops.  The children helped to robot talk the words as we wrote them down. The children have then been story scribing and using small world characters to help them write their own stories. This has helped the children to think up their stories and to choose the characters they might include. These have been pinned up on their notice board displays.  

In Maths this week we have been weighing animals with balance scales and comparing them against each other as well as weighing animals with cubes. They have learnt how to use balance scales accurately to measure.

In Power of reading we have continued with our new story, ‘Augustus and his smile’ and we have read a few pages and found out that Augustus has lost his smile and has gone to look for it. The children thought about where he might go to look for his smile and also filled in a chart about what they know about tigers ad what they would like to find out. We will research this next week.

In twiggle time we have been learning that there are similarities and differences between everyone and we can celebrate this so everyone can feel OK to be themselves. We learnt that there are some ways that people can be the same as each other and there are some ways that people can be different to each other. We looked at toys and sorted them into hoops for toys that girls might like more, toys that boys might like more and toys that they both like. We realised that it doesn’t matter if you are a girl or a boy and found that lots of us had different favourite toys. We also played a circle game swapping places with someone who liked the same things as them. 

We are looking forward to celebrating World Book Day tomorrow and seeing the costumes as well as sharing the children's favourite books.

weekly news 26th February

We have had a very busy first week back after half term. We have started our daily challenges which the children have completed really well so far.
In Letters and Sounds this week we have been learning all about how to write a super sentence. We have learnt that we need to start each sentence using a capital letter. We need to remember to leave a 'finger space' in between each word we write so that it can be read by ourselves and other people. We need to read it and check that it makes sense. We need to remember to put a full stop at the end of the sentence as well. The children are doing really well at using the sounds they have learnt to read words by blending all the sounds together. They are also learning to look at the sounds in the words to see if they can spot a 'digraph' which has 2 letters but only makes 1 sound. Have a look at your child's latest writing on their display board. This week we are learning 2 new digraphs: ooOO and ow/ou. We are learning how to hear, read and write these digraphs in words and sentences. We have been practising our tricky words by playing a tricky word bingo game too !
In Maths we started the week by getting ready for Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day. We made the pancake batter together by using our measuring skills. We used scales to weigh the flour and we used our capacity skills to measure how much milk we would need. We had to do some problem-solving too because the pancake recipe we used was not going to make enough batter for us all so we had to 'double' the quantities. Our recipe stated we needed 1 egg but we had to double it to use 2 eggs ! Our recipe stated we needed 100 grammes of flour, can you ask your child if they can remember how much we needed ? Our recipe stated we needed 300 mililitres of  milk, can you ask your child how much milk we needed to measure ?
We were very excited about cooking the pancakes and choosing a topping for our pancake too. Ask your child which topping they chose.

We have been thinking about our school's Golden Anniversary by learning all about the number 50. We have been counting to 50 in 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s. We have been looking for number 50 on number lines and 100 squares. We have been using Numicon and cubes and counters to show the value of 50.

We are looking forward to dressing up in clothes similar to the fashions of 50 years ago in 1970.

We have also started our new topic all about African animals called 'Why do zebras have stripes ?'
If you have anything at home about Africa we would love to hear from you !

We are looking forward to  ''Show and tell' in which each of the children will be talking about an animal they have found out about !

weekly news 12th February

We have learnt the sounds ee, or, ie/igh and ar this week in Phonics and the tricky words are and all. the children have been reading with us and we have been carrying out a full reading and sounds assessment. We are very impressed with their blending and segmenting skills which are really starting to click.

In maths we have been learning how to work out number problems with a Chinese new year theme. We have been asking questions to help us find missing numbers and learning to share and divide with practical items t help us work out the number problems. The children have also worked with an adult to show what they know about numbers and how far they can count.

We have taught the children about internet safety this week and how to stay safe online. We spoke to the children about all the devices that use the internet and they shared what games they play on devices at home. They learnt they should never talk to strangers online or click on anything if they don't know what it is, they agreed they should only go on the internet if they are with their parents.

We have been learning about basic personal hygiene and how to wash our hands. The children were fascinated to find out about invisible germs. We discussed when we need to wash our hands and after what activities  and then practiced washing hands thoroughly to stop germs spreading. In the second session, we learnt about keeping our teeth clean and read the story 'Topsy and Tim Go to the Dentist'.

Your child should have brought home their next 'Show and Tell' homework sheet which we will start on the first week back after half term. Also we would like to remind you that as mentioned in the school news letter last week,  we will be celebrating the school's 50th birthday after half term. The children and staff have been asked to come dressed in 70's clothes on Friday 28th February.

We hope they children have a lovely half term.

weekly news 5th February

What an exciting week we have been having in Reception ! We all really enjoyed our Chinese New Year Music and Movement workshop in which we learnt all about how new Year is celebrated. We passed a Chinese singing bowl around and said our name. We found out that Chinese children get a special red money purse if they go to sleep on time.
We moved around the hall in different ways pretending to clean and get rid of all the dirt and unhappy things that had happened in the old year. We pretended to eat a Chinese feast to celebrate New Year, apparently this can include 10 different courses !
 We danced with big pom poms pretending they were fireworks going off in the sky. We passed around a Chinese dragon puppet and then had turns parading around waving our Chinese fans to help the dragon to fly. We used wooden claves to create the beat of the dragon dance. We learnt how to perform a special Chinese dance and remembered all the different moves really well.
This week we have been completing 10 different challenges and collecting stickers in our special challenge passport when we have finished each one.
It has been brilliant to see how motivated the children have been when making sure they find the challenge that they need to do. When doing these challenges the children have been developing lots of new skills and using techniques to make and assemble a variety of Chinese themed crafts and activities. We have been tasting Chinese food, making a rat finger puppet, painting a New Year card, making a Lucky fish, a Chinese drum, a dragon puppet, a lantern, a money purse, a Chinese fan, and working as a group to make a model of the Great wall of China. Our Chinese New Year role play area is fantastic fun too as we can get dressed up in traditional Chinese clothes !
It has been wonderful to have such a lot of very willing parents who have come along to help us carry out our challenges. Thank you very much.


Ask your child what they have enjoyed most about our Chinese New Year week.

Weekly News 30th January

We have learnt the sounds sh, th and ai/ay and ng this week in phonics. In maths we have been learning how to make tally and bar charts. We have collected data from each other about how old we are, what our favourite car colours are and we also compared the house point totals in a bar chart to find out the winning team. On the last week of this half term we will be doing a full sounds and Maths check with the children. 

This week we have been focusing on air vehicles and have learnt about transport ‘then and now’. The children have enjoyed finding out how much air vehicles and technology has changed over the years. 

We have been hearing the children read this week with our new phonetically decodable readers. There are some lovely new books and it's great to see the children use their blending skills to read words and sentences of the sounds they know. The children have also finished off their stories this week and we were so impressed with the children’s writing. They enjoyed choosing friends to help them act out their stories to the class afterwards. 

Next week we are celebrating and learning about Chinese New Year and would like to immerse the children in another culture.  We will be doing lots of cross curricular challenges for the children to complete and we will be teaching the children lots of new skills for DT through the craft activiities a well as food tasting Chinese food. At the end of the week they will be bringing home a folder with all their creations for you to see.  

We would like to remind you we have asked the children to wear red clothes on Monday. (They do not have to wear any of their uniform.)