Author: Mrs Solakova

17.05.24

Hello children and parents,
It won’t be enough to say that we all had a lovely day today! Our Pentecost party was such a success with glorious weather, delicious food and most importantly …. wonderful children!!! They practised hard and learnt our very special song, remembered important facts about Pentecost and were able to explain in detail why we are celebrating today. Well done children.

On Thursday we made delicious red jam sandwiches, decorated with balloons and bunting. We set up the food and cut grapes, strawberries and watermelon. Thank you children for being so helpful. Our families felt very welcomed in our rather red classroom 🙂

In Little Wandle this week we continued reading long words, however some of this week’s words were extremely long… handstand has 9 sounds!!! We also learnt 4 new tricky words:

In Maths we continued working with shapes, however this week we learnt how to identify shapes within shapes and that shapes can not only be separated to make new shapes, but also that shapes can be combined.

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

10.05.24

Dear children and parents,
Here are some updates on our exciting week.
First and very important we truly enjoyed the wonderful weather. From decorating plant pots to water fights, the children had plenty of fun learning and exploring! As usual they were super helpful and our outside area is looking better than never.

As you can imagine we were also busy learning to read words like string, strap, scrunch. They proved to be very difficult to segment as you can often miss a sound … We also learnt 4 new tricky words:

In Maths this week we were learning to further explore the properties of shapes
and spatial relations. The children had plenty of opportunities to Provide opportunities to explore the attributes of shapes and to select shapes for a particular purpose. We created lovely mosaic with shapes and the children built on the learning from previous
steps by now manipulating shapes. Children explored moving, turning, rotating and flipping shapes to fit into the spaces provided.

We are very excited to show you what we’ve made…. We learnt lots about boats, how they travel, why they float and what makes them move. The children explored floating and sinking by placing different objects in a water tray. They predicted which objects would sink or float and then tested their predictions. Then they designed their own boats:

The trickiest part was to actually build the designed boat. The children worked in teams having to negotiate what materials would be best for a boat, what would make it unsinkable.

And of course at the end we went to test the boats! Are they going to sink or are they going to float? If they sink, why… what went wrong?

Well done reception for another great week!
Looking forward seeing you again next week 🙂

Dates to remember:
Friday 17th May – No Reading morning
Friday 17th May – Pentecost party at 9:15am

Have a lovely weekend!
Mrs Solakova

03.05.24

Dear children and parents,

We entered May thinking about Mary, Mother of Jesus. The children prepared a lovely display with the 12 Apostles and helped write their names. They were singing the hymns beautifully and their behaviour during the assembly was exceptional!

In RE we also continued our learning about Pentecost and read the story of the Holy Spirit.

Forty days after his Resurrection Jesus returned to his Father in heaven. His friends were sad. They missed him.  They felt lonely and afraid without him.  On Pentecost day, they were all together in the house.  Crowds of people came to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast. The friends of Jesus did not go out to join them.  They stayed all together in the house.  They talked about Jesus and remembered what he had told them.   As the wind filled the room, they began to feel different.  Joy and happiness filled their hearts.  It was wonderful.  They knew that Jesus had kept his promise to send a new friend, the Holy Spirit.  “Let’s go out and join the crowds.”  Peter said.  “Let’s tell them the Good News that Jesus is alive.”

Based on Acts 2: 1-4.

We talked about the Holy Spirit as something we can’t see or touch, but feel. The children began learning a new song as well:

In Little Wandle we continued learning phase 4 sounds, but this week we focused on words with short vowels like train, track, bring and smash. We also learnt 4 new tricky words. Please practice these at home too for building fluency.

In Maths the children built on their understanding as they explored the change structure of addition by adding more and subtraction by taking away. The focus was on increasing and decreasing a quantity by a given amount, while continuing to work within 10. The children used real objects to see that the quantity of a group can be changed by adding more or taking away.

And finally… a caterpillar update! The caterpillars are growing big and fat and entering into the next stage of the life cycle – chrysalis. We observed the changes carefully and talked about what comes next.

Dates to remember:
Monday 6th May – Bank Holiday
Wednesday 8th May – School photos
Friday 10th May – Reading morning

Have a wonderful weekend!
Looking forward seeing you all on Tuesday!
Mrs Solakova

26.05.24

Dear parents and children,
This week we discussed some very important matters, including how to reduce the use of plastic, how to look after our planet and what we can do to help. We’ve been reading a story called ‘The tale of the toothbrush’. The story of Sammy and Sophia really helped the children to understand the impact their choices have on our planet: 

We’ve been doing lots of activities around that book and the children built a bank of ideas on how and why we must reduce the use of plastic. They had different ideas and strategies: 

When you go shopping you need to bring your own bag.
Recycle your plastic making sure it goes into the correct bin.
Bring your own reusable bottle and don’t buy plastic bottles from the shop. 
Buy loose fruit and  vegetables instead of wrapped ones. 

We also discussed ways to reuse plastic just like Sofia did. She reused Sammy the toothbrush to clean her shoes and brush her doll’s hair. We even displayed our ideas and made labels for each one.

At the end of the week we all went around the school for litter picking. Unfortunately there was so much litter…. we collected 4 full buckets, but lots more was left behind. The children were able to understand the importance of recycling and how important is to keep our streets clean from plastic.

In Little Wandle this week we’ve been reading CVCC words like nest, best, gift etc. We also learnt 4 new tricky words. These have been added to your child’s orange book.

In Maths this week, the children became more familiar with numbers beyond 10 and the pattern (stable order) of numbers to 20 and beyond. They also focused on seeing the pattern of ten and 4 more, ten and 5 more, ten and 6 more, and so on. They played lots of games linked with counting and recognising numerals like bingo and adding counters to two ten frames. They were able to build 15, 16, 17 etc, by adding 10 counters to the first ten frame and 5, 6, 7 more to the second ten frame.

Great learning this week Reception!
You all deserve a special certificate!!!

Dates to remember:
Friday 3rd May – No Reading Morning
Friday 3rd May – Crowning of Mary Assembly at 09:05 – Parents are welcome to attend
Monday 6th May – Bank Holiday

Have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs Solakova

19.04.24

Welcome everyone to Summer term!
I really hope that you’ve enjoyed your Easter holiday and are ready for another busy term. We have lots of exciting adventures planned and I am really looking forward to the wonderful learning in the coming weeks!
We began a new project this week, a sensory garden full of scented and colourful plants. In there you can smell different spices like rosemary and curry!

In Little Wandle this week we revisited everything learnt in Spring 2, therefore no new sentences/tricky words will be added to your childs orange book.
In your childs book bag you will find the new summer home learning grid. Please choose at least three of the activities and once ready, share them with us. We can’t wait to see them!!!

In Maths the children focused on the concept of 3-D shapes and their properties. We already explored some of the properties of these shapes earlier when sorting
objects that are 3-D, looking at 2-D shapes, however this week we were naming the 3-D shapes and discussed how we know that that a shape is 3-D, and not 2-D. We explored the idea of flat faces and curved surfaces in activities such as printing and rolling/sliding the shapes down a ramp. We also learnt how to see the 2-D shapes within the 3-D shapes.

The children also embedded their learning by going on a 3-D shape around the school! They found lots of cubes, cuboids and spheres, however the pyramids and cones were trickier to spot.

RE
Pentecost – Good news. In this new theme the children will learn about the gift of the Holy Spirit and serving as a way of life. They will explore what we mean by Good news and know that everyone at times will have good news to share. They will appreciate their own good news, talk about how they feel when they have good news to share and celebrate the good news that they hear from other children and adults. These experiences will lay the foundation to help children understand the Good News that Christians celebrate at Easter – that Jesus is alive!
This week we read ‘The jolly postman’:

We discussed how it feels when we hear good news and then talked about good news we can share with each other. Have a look at some of the wonderful examples:

Dates to remember:
Friday 26th April – Reading morning
Friday 26th April (PM) – Litter picking

Have a lovely weekend!
Mrs Solakova

What a week!
Looking after the chicks, preparing for Easter and welcoming families for Easter egg hunt.

Today was the last day having the chick, but luckily they are going to a loving home. Miss Osman will keep them all in her garden and will send us little updates on how they are doing! During the week we took them for a walk, cleaned the tank and gave them food and water.

Thank you so much for joining us today for a lovely Egg hunt and Easter basket craft. It was lovely seeing so many of you joining us for this special occasion!

The children looked absolutely amazing wearing their Easter bonnets!!!

I hope you all have an amazing Easter holiday!

Mrs Solakova

20.07.23

It feels very strange writing my last blog and still hard to believe that such a great year has come to an end.
THANK YOU to each one of you children for all the warmth, the memories, and the learning that we have shared this school year! For when I teach, I also learn. This past year we have grown together. A little bit of each of you will always be with me. Always strive to be the best that you can be!!!

To the Parents… THANK YOU for allowing me to be your child’s teacher. I needed your support so many times and you were always there for me! Your help is much appreciated and greatly valued!
The great results we achieved as a class are such a proof!!!

And finally … you really spoiled me with amazing gifts and heart warming messages!
Thank you so much!!!

Our school trip to St Albans museum and galleries this Wednesday was a real hit! The children thoroughly enjoyed their outdoor picnic and played beautifully. The behaviour was exceptional the whole time! The workshop was super fun and very educational too… we’ve learned so many interesting facts about old toys and we even get to play with some of them. On the way back the children looked for different water birds… and guess what, we spotted nearly all of them! Thank you to all the parent volunteers who supported us. Here are some photos:

On our last day we signed the Year 6’s shirts and wished them best of luck!

I wish this sparkly, confident, creative and kind class all the very best in Year 1. 

Have the best summer!
Mrs Solakova

14.07.23

Hello children and parents,
What a week it has been… from meeting new teachers and watching the Year 6 production, to welcoming the new reception children, being super friendly and kind showing them around.
As you can imagine, the real highlight of the week was when the children visited their new classroom and their new teachers.

Everyone was very excited!
I really liked the climbing frame! – Indie
My favourite part was when we did the glittery paper craft! – Georgie
I liked the stars and the numbers! – Luke
The teachers were very nice! – Lucy

Next week updates:
We’ve decided to have our Teddy bear’s picnic on Tuesday. The weather is looking good so far, but has changed so many times (been checking since Monday :))… so in case it rains, we will have the Teddy bear’s picnic as part of the trip on Wednesday.
So please send your children to school, with their teddies on Tuesday.

Trip to St Albans museum
Please make sure that your child is wearing comfortable shoes and full school uniform.
If it rains your child must have wellies and a raincoat, if sunny, sun hat.
On the day they will need to have a backpack. Water bottles and home packed lunches should fit in the back pack. If you are planning to order school packed lunch, please make sure you let the office now ASAP. They can choose cheese or tuna sandwich.

Have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs Solakova

07.07.2023

Hello everyone,
big thank you for joining us on our Sports day. The children were absolutely brilliant remembering that sport is not just about winning or losing, it is about shared experiences and shared contest. We truly enjoyed all the activities and were very excited to try them all… and we managed to get through all the races, despite the light rain…. so lucky 🙂
Here are some photos from the day:

Well done children. You really deserved your medals and ice lollies!!!!

This week was our final week going to the library. Please make sure that you check for any library books in your house and if there are any, please bring them back next week.

In Little Wandle we continued revisiting tricky words, digraphs and trigraphs and also read even more difficult words like printed and smeared. We were learning that sometimes words that finish with-ed sounds have to be read with -t sound and sometimes with -ed sounds. Tricky isn’t it?

Transition Morning
Thursday 13th July – At 8:45 reception children will need to line up outside Year 1 classroom to spend the morning in Year 1 with Mrs Thompson. They will come back to Reception after lunch for a normal pick up at 3:15pm.

Reception class trip will take place on Wednesday 19th July. We will leave around 9am and be back on time for pick up at 3:15pm.
Please let me know if you can help on the day. We still need volunteers!!!
Please let the office know if your child will have school packed lunch on that day.

Friday 14th July – Non uniform day – £1 donation
Saturday 15th July – Summer BBQ – 12:30pm to 3:30pm

Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs Solakova

30.06.23

What a week it was. Prepping for the open evening and working super hard on our assembly. The children showed resilience and perseverance, they remembered all the lines so well and used loud and clear voices when speaking! I can’t be more proud! We were painting, sticking, writing labels and even made a paper mache globe.

We’ve learned new songs and sang them beautifully. We even held the whole world in our hands!!!

The children had the opportunity to learn a lot about the creation of the world and to apply their knowledge in different contexts. Once again… Well done reception for a wonderful assembly!

For the open evening we all worked very hard, tidying the classroom, sharpening pencils, making displays and most importantly – showing our amazing writing, painting, clay work, maths skills and so much more!
We made beautiful clay friendship tea coasters and talked about God being our friend. We decided to use different kind of beans and the children created beautiful patterns.

Our writing was definitely the cherry on the cake. Have a look yourself:

In English we began reading a new book ‘Oi Frog’. We’ve had so much fun looking for rhyming words and thinking about where different animals should sit.

Big, big thank you for supporting us! It was a real pleasure seeing so many of you on our Assembly and Open evening!

Important dates:
Tuesday 04.07.23, 10 am – Sports day (your child should come to school already wearing PE kit)

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs Solakova