Reception had their first visit from a ‘mystery guest’ yesterday. COVID restrictions required the guest to visit us on the screen. However, the children were super excited and enjoyed listening to the story of Saint Brigid. This provided a great opportunity to explore what it means to be a saint.
We would still love to welcome any parents or family members as our mystery guest. At the moment, we will do this virtually due to the current COVID restrictions. Hopefully we can meet together in class again in the not too distant future.
Please let me know either via the office or a ‘secret note’ during drop off or pick up.
Wishing you all a safe and wonderful half term break.
What a half term it has been! Full of new experiences, friends, learning and so much more. The children settled in so well and learned the new routine easily… so well done to everyone! Now they all are confident and independent learners full of ideas, ready for further challenges.
This week we’ve been talking about Autumn, went on an Autumn hunt and explored Autumn treasure bags. Thank you everyone for filling your bags with different autumn discoveries. We had leaves in different colors, berries, sticks, acorns, conkers, pinecones.
Our autumn hunt was very exciting too. We had our special hunt list and made ticks each time we spot something. We were very lucky to find everything on that list…well almost everything, we didn’t see any squirrels.
In our Funky Fingers we’ve been sorting and cutting. It was great fun!
This week we carved a real pumpkin and then planted some of the seeds inside the pumpkin. We talked about growth and changes over time and can’t wait to see what will happen with the seeds and the pumpkin.
In the last couple of weeks we have been also learning to retell a story ‘The enormous turnip’. We talked about the characters, who helps first, second, third, what happens at the beginning of the story and what happens at the end. We supported our retelling by doing actions and emphasising on special words (connectives) like because, so, but, etc. This week we even did story maps. They will help us remember the story better.
We were also very creative and made leaves on a stick, autumn paintings while exploring color mixing.
Religious education: In our RE lessons we continued our talks about Baptism and this week we baptised a baby, saying the special words: In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We dressed the baby in special white gown. Then we poured water over his head.
Gentle reminder:
Look at photos or other reminders of your child’s own or other family members’ baptisms. Please send into school with your child a reminder for your child to share in class. This could be a photo, memory book, candle or item of clothing.
What a half term it has been! Well done to all the children for settling so well into Year 1. We have really enjoyed reading about the naughty adventures of the Naughty Bus and the mischievous Cave Baby in English.
In Maths, we have become pros at number bonds to five and look forward to learning more about our numbers bonds to 10. We have really enjoyed using counters, cubes and numicon to help us.
In RE we have looked at families and how we can love and care for others in our church families and in our families at home. We look forward to continuing our learning about belonging and baptism after half term.
Looking forward to next half term, have a look at our curriculum overview to see what we are learning about, including the Gunpowder Plot. I’ll leave you with some pictures of our Halloween mufti day, spooky!
Hello everyone! I really hope that you enjoyed the Harvest assembly as much as we did. I am sure that you are all feeling extremely proud of your children joining the assembly, sitting with school legs and listening. It was a fantastic experience for them and they were all asking when we can go back to the hall for another assembly! Well done Nursery. You are super stars!
This week we talked about Harvest and were very busy finishing our Harvest display. We were painting, cutting, sticking, decorating and so much more. Here is the new display. The children did a fabulous job, don’t you think so….
This week we went on a bear hunt. Not a pretend one, but real bear hunt. We were swooshing through the grass, tip toeing through the deep, dark woods and so much more. We were cold and wet after the snowstorm, but finally reached the cave… and there was the bear… It was great fun and everyone enjoyed it so much, so we had to do it again and again and again :):
We even exercised in the morning while listening to ‘The bear hunt’ song. Why don’t you try it home too:
Religious education:
This week we begun a new topic Baptism. During that topic the children will explore what it means to be ‘welcomed’ and draw on their own experiences. For example, how do we welcome each other when we arrive at school? They will also be talking about how we welcome a new baby into God’s family through Baptism.
We talked about how we welcome a new baby into our family. Is that a happy occasion? Or is it sad? We prepared a special bag for our new baby at nursery and welcomed him into our nursery family. We were all very happy and the new baby was feeling happy too. Next week we will make some welcome cards for him.
Our new RE topic is: Baptism/Confirmation – Belonging. This topic will continue after half term.
Core Vocabulary: Welcome, Baptism, baptise, water, candle, In the name of ……
Additional vocabulary in Reception: priest, white garment, godparents, font
Baptism makes us members of the Body of Christ. For Foundation Stage children, this means being welcomed into the Church Family.
Children will explore what it means to be ‘welcomed’ and draw on their own experiences. For example, how do we welcome each other when we arrive at school? They will also be talking about how we welcome a new baby into God’s family through Baptism. Activities will involve arts and crafts eg. making welcome cards, welcome posters. The children will also role play and learn a simple sequence of the Baptismal rite alongside how the priest helps us when we celebrate. There will be a focus on the words “I baptise you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy-Spirit.’
Both classes also plan to visit St. Bartholomew’s Roman Catholic Church after half term (COVID permitting).
Home Learning:
Look at photos or other reminders of your child’s own or other family members’ baptisms. Please send into school with your child a reminder for your child to share in class. This could be a photo, memory book, candle or item of clothing.
To help us with our learning about our local area in Geography, the children will get an opportunity to take Travelling Ted on a journey of your local area for two days.
Whether you’re off to a swimming lesson or playing in your local park, take Ted along and get a picture of him. Even if you’re walking to school or going to Rainbows, show us Ted’s journey of your local area. Don’t forget to fill in his journal so we can see where Ted has travelled to locally.
Ted will start his travels today, working in alphabetical order through the children’s names in the register. Please make sure Ted is returned after two days, with his journal and a completed entry. Feel free to send photographs in the Google classroom or via the office.
Our story focus this week has been a traditional tale, The Three Billy Goats Gruff.
This was inspired by the children’s love of a book by Julia Donaldson, The Troll.
The children have been learning to retell The Three Billy Goats Gruff story as part of our ‘talk for writing’ teaching. They are learning the words superbly and I hope your child will be able to tell you the story at home.
If your child has a copy of The Three Billy Goats Gruff at home we would love to read it in class to explore alternative versions of the tale.
Maths
Our current maths focus is subitising. Subitising is seeing how many are there in a small group, at a glance, without counting.
Many games encourage subitising so at home teaching your child to play games will support subitising. Dominoes, snap, rolling multiple dice to show the same value, are all good games to support subitising. This also helps develop calculation strategies when your child is older.
Traditional board games, such as Snakes and ladders, Ludo etc. are great for counting and encourage children to rehearse the order of the numbers and match each number to an action.
You may wish to try the following game at home:
To extend your child’s learning, begin to identify ‘same’, ‘more’ or ‘less’ when subitising.
Here is another game you could try at home.
It would be great to hear about any games played at home in your child’s learning journal, Tapestry, or a Magic Moment. The children always enjoy sharing their home activities with their friends.
Our new equipment
Lastly, I am sure it has not escaped your notice that new climbing equipment has been installed in the Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1. The children were so excited to test the equipment out and develop those large body muscles, so important for writing.
It’s been another busy week for Year 1. We have really enjoyed starting our new book in English, the Naughty Bus by Jan Oke. We have been using our new found knowledge of buses to write sentences with full stops and capital letters.
We have also enjoyed using apparatus in PE this week. We experimented with travelling across the benches using different parts of our bodies, at a variety of heights. Here are some pictures of us in action:
In our RE topic Belonging, will be focusing on the first Sacrament, Baptism. It would be great if the children could bring in their baptismal candles, photos from their baptism or even their gowns to share with the class. Thank you to the children that have already brought in their baptismal candles.
What a lovely week we’ve had. We have started to explore different activities like Letters and Sounds and Reading mornings. The children are also very excited to use our brand new climbing frame. While having fun climbing they will also learn how to navigate risk and to develop key skills including balance, strength and gross motor skills. Why don’t you have a look:
This week we have started to explore the different sounds we can hear around us. We read a lovely book of a little girl that walks around her house very quietly and listens carefully. We encouraged the children to do the same and everyone did so well. Here is the story if you want to have a go at home too:
I wonder what sounds the children can hear over the weekend?
We were busy preparing our special listening ears bands… and then went on a listening walk. We heard so many sounds: cars, motorbikes, helicopter, stomping, wind, a lady talking on her phone, builders…. Fantastic listening nursery. I am very impressed!
We were also very excited to welcome you all in our classroom for a first Reading morning. Thank you everyone for joining in. It was lovely to see so many of you here, sharing stories with your children.
We also appointed our first helpers. They were extremely busy with different jobs around the classroom like watering the plants, making sure everyone is tidying, sorting out book bags and making sure the timetable is up to date. Well done special helpers! I wonder who might be me special helper next week?
Our RE topic for the next four weeks is based around the theme of Signs and Symbols.
We will be considering the big question Are signs and symbols important? Why? Please talk about this question with your child, looking for the signs and symbols that the children encounter on the way to and from school.
The children will learn to describe and sequence the baptism service and we will explore the different parts of the sacrament and their significance. We will focus on important symbols associated with baptism, such as the sign of the cross, white garment, font, candle, chrism and Easter candle.
Key words for the topic are: white garment, Easter candle, font, chrism, Good News
Please talk to your child about their own baptism artefacts and how they were used within their baptism.
For their RE home learning, the children are asked to design a baptism candle. Encourage your child to think about what signs and symbols they would like to include on their candle. It would be great if your child could write a key to go with their candle, that explains what each of their chosen symbols mean. Please ensure that your child takes pride in their candle as it would be lovely to make a display of them. These baptism candles should be sent into school by Wednesday 3rd November.
