Author: Mrs Solakova

04.10.2024

Hello children, parents and carers,
This week was a special one. As part of our Care for creation learning we’ve learnt lots about how to look after God’s world and all his creations. We recycled and picked rubbish, we planted flowers for the bees and butterflies and made promises to always protect our beautiful World.

In Little Wandle this week we’ve learnt 4 new phonemes! We are all very proud to say that we now know 12 graphemes… Well done Reception!

We also introduced a new vocabulary ‘tricky word’ and even learnt our very first tricky word which you will find in your child’s book bag. Please help your child to read all the words ‘by sight’ (reading by sight means being able to read a word without the need for ‘decoding’ or ‘segmenting’ and ‘blending’). New words will be added weekly working towards all words required for Reception.

In class the children have plenty of opportunities to embed their learning by playing phonics games. They are successfully applying initial sound to the correct grapheme and blending CVC words. I am very proud to say that we now have readers! How exciting!

At the end of the week we also remembered that St Adrians is a Mercy school and we should live and learn like the Sisters of Mercy, be respectful and kind. We created a beautiful banner and proudly displayed it in the classroom!

And finally congratulations for all your hard work and motivation! You truly deserve the awards, red sash and golden rosette!!!

Mrs Solakova

27.09.24

Hello parents and children,
It is so lovely to see the children building confidence and becoming more and more independent looking for things in the classroom, tidying up, getting changed for PE (buttons still very tricky, but practice makes you perfect 🙂 and carrying lunch trays.

In Little Wandle this week the children learnt 4 new phonemes:

We also started sound talking and blending some CVC words like tap, pan, sit and pat. Everyone is trying very hard and I am sure that in no time we will have a classroom full of confident readers 🙂

In Maths we talked about groups and the children were introduced to the concept of matching. We started by matching physical objects with other physical objects.

And of course the highlight of the week! Going to the library by bus 🙂 I am not sure what was more exciting… the bus ride or the library visit :)! We had a special animal hunt around the library, sang nursery rhymes, read a story and borrowed some books. We also had a special certificate and new library cards.

We also learnt how to scan library cards and which buttons to press so we can borrow a book!

I was absolutely impressed by how well the children behaved, putting hands up if they have a question, saying please and thank you, respecting other visitors by being quiet.

We also found out that you can borrow 30 books in one go!!! What a treat! I hope that you will continue taking your children to the library as this is such a wonderful place for having a family day out, enjoying reading and storytelling!

And finally congratulations for all your hard work and motivation! You truly deserve the awards, red sash and golden rosette!!!

Have a lovely weekend! Looking forward seeing you all next week.
Mrs Solakova

20.09.24

Hello children and parents.
I am very excited to share with you some of the lovely things we’ve been doing this week. We began the week by thinking about our class saint and saying a little prayer. We all learnt that Saint Adrian is known as the patron saint of teachers, scholars, and students and that his life and teachings continue to inspire Christians around the world to seek knowledge and promote education, just as he did during his lifetime. We thanked Saint Adrian for helping us learn how to write, sing, dance, make friends, look after God’s world, read and do maths. The children were very helpful in creating a lovely class door!

We are very excited to let you know that we have started our Little Wandle journey and we’ve learnt our first 4 phonemes.

I am impressed by how well the children are learning and engaging in different activities. We are also practising writing the new graphemes, using the phrases that go with each one of them. In your child’s book bag this week you will find a pink folder with some letter formation practice sheets. Please take some time and practise writing them at home. They need to be returned by Thursday for a special home learning class celebration! In the folder you will also find the Autumn 1 list of graphemes.

In RE we talked about God’s love and how we are all precious to him. We also discussed the role of the family in our life and how we are all very special. As part of our topic I would like to ask you to send a photo into school showing your child with their family.  We will be talking about how children feel safe and snug when they are with their family and relating this to God’s love for us all.
God says:
You are precious to me. I love you.
I know you.
I know your name. You are my child

And finally congratulations for all your hard work and motivation! You truly deserve the awards, red sash and golden rosette!!!

Have a lovely weekend! Looking forward seeing you all next week.
Mrs Solakova

12.07.24

Dear children and parents,
We have had a very interesting week with new children settling in, a morning with Mrs Thompson and planning an End of Reception party!

In Maths and Little Wandle we are revisiting tricky learning like bonds to 10, odd and even numbers, reading longer words like portrait and sight reading words like when, what and why. That gives us extra time for games and spending quality time with each other in the last weeks of Reception… Where did the time go? We played parachute games on the field, baked muffins and enjoyed the sunshine. Have a look:

Thursday morning was such a success and Mrs Thompson was absolutely impressed with all children and their exceptional behaviour and knowledge. The children spent the time in year 1 classroom painting, listening to a story and playing outside!

As you probably already know, on Friday next week, we are going to have an End of Reception party! All children are very excited and looking forward to it. We have decided to make a party food list and everyone brings something different. Please make sure you check your child’s reading record for further information 🙂

And finally… we are all very excited about the Euro final on Sunday! We made flags to support England! We all hope that they are going to win!!!

Dates to remember:
Friday 19th July – Reading morning
Friday 19th July – Last day of term. School finishes at 1:30pm.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!
Mrs Solakova

05.07.24

Hello children and parents,

Without any doubt this weeks’ favourite was EYFS Sports day! All children showed excellent sportsmanship, playing fairly and respecting each other. The carousel activities went well, but the races were definitely everyone’s best part of the day!

Thank you to all grown ups too, for taking part in the races. It was wonderful seeing your little ones so excited watching you compete 🙂

Well done children. You all deserved your medals and certificates!!!

Dates to remember:
Thursday 13th July – Transition morning (all children will spend the morning with Mrs Thompson in year 1 classroom)
Friday 14th July – Reading morning

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!
Mrs Solakova

28.06.24

Hello children and parents,

It has been a very sunny week and the children enjoyed spending more time outside playing with water and sand, drawing with crayons and making muddy pies! We were also busy getting ready for the sports day next week. We can’t wait to put our PE kits and show you what we’ve learnt.

In Little Wandle we read new words with -ed endings and discussed that sometimes we read the -ed end like ‘-id’ and sometimes like ‘-t’. Some of the new words this week are cloaked, scooped, croaked. The children are also very busy writing even longer sentences using their phonics knowledge. They are getting more confident in writing for different purposes and a very recent example is fathers day:

In Maths we were busy making simple maps of familiar places. We even used some scenarios or stories to enhance their map making, such as ‘Train ride’. To describe the maps the children used keywords and sentences like ‘First, I need to pass the bridge, then I go straight and after I turn around the park.’ Thank you very much for your lovely maps. They look lovely on our home learning board.

Dates to remember:
Tuesday 2nd July at 10am – EYFS sports day (Children to come to school in their PE kits and school cap.)
Friday 5th July – Reading morning

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!
Mrs Solakova

21. 06.24

Well, what else can I say but what a performance!!! Well done children, you really smashed it today! So confident saying your lines, exceptional singing and fantastic artwork! What else could you ask for! You certainly made me and Mrs Reid super proud and grateful to be your teachers! You absolutely proved that hard work always pays off!

Thank you to all the children who built our ark! 

Thank you to all children who chose an animal and clambered on!

Thank you to all children for creating a beautiful rainbow!

Thank you to all the children for their fantastic singing and the heavy rain! 

And thank you all for the sunshine!

And thank you all for all your lovely writing. It was fantastic seeing all of you thinking about the story and writing amazing sentences!

Hope you all have an amazing weekend!
Looking forward seeing you all next week!

Mrs Solakova

14.06.24

Hello parents and children,
Without a doubt today’s blog should be dedicated to our amazing trip to the Cathedral. I am absolutely impressed with all children, their sensible behaviour and attentive listening. They reminded us once again that the children of St. Adrian’s are exceptional 🙂

In the first part of the day we walked around the Cathedral to discover the beautiful stained glass windows. The lady was very kind and she explained how they’ve been made and what they represent. Then the children created their own stained glass windows. We are very much looking forward to showing you our fantastic art on the open evening 🙂 

The weather stayed dry so we had our lunch in the park and even managed to watch the nesting peregrines through a telescope. Here is the link for the live camera if you want to have a look too:

https://www.stalbanscathedral.org/peregrine-live-cam

In the second part of the day the children learnt about the different roles in church. They dressed up as priests, flower arrangers, built an arch and recorded wedding messages.

What Is A Father?

A father is someone who’s always around
when you’re stuck for some friendly advice.
A father is someone who knows how you feel
and who’ll help you without thinking twice…
A father is someone so thoughtful and kind
he’s made his own place in your heart…
A father is someone you wish all life’s best
with the love that’s been his from the start.

Happy fathers day!!!

Dates to remember:
Friday 21th June – No reading morning
Friday 21th June – Reception class assembly

Wishing you a wonderful weekend and fantastic Father’s day Sunday!
Mrs Solakova

07.06.24

Hello and welcome back to the last half term of Reception! Hard to believe, isn’t it?
This term is going to be a very busy one! There are lots of exciting things to look forward to: St Albans Cathedral trip, Class assembly, Sports day, Teddy bears picnic and transition morning!
In the next 7 weeks we will continue to observe changes we notice from Spring to Summer and will discuss how to stay safe in the heat. In PE we will mainly be practicing for our sports day. The games we’ve prepared are super fun 🙂

Our Little Wandle journey will continue with phase 4 sounds – longer words, plurals and -ing and -ed ends. The children are getting more and more familiar with how to blend, chunk and read those not so easy words. We will really focus on writing sentences, as the children now have the needed skills to develop that love for writing. Please make sure you practice all tricky words regularly. They will help us build fluency when reading more complicated books.

In Maths we talked about grouping and sharing, made doubles using our doubling machine and discussed odd and even numbers. The children used the fair and unfair sharing skills to identify whether a number is odd or even by sharing into two groups. Using language such as ‘odd’, ‘even’, ‘equal’ and ‘unequal’ prompted the children to make the links to the number of objects they are sharing.

The two groups are equal – that number is even.
The two groups are not equal – the number is odd.

Dates to remember:
Thursday 13th June – Trip to St Albans Cathedral
Friday 14th June – No reading morning
Friday 14th June – Fathers day assembly – Parents welcome

Have a wonderful week!
Mrs Solakova