It was great to welcome so many of our families into school this morning to share our class assembly.
We travelled back in time to learn about the life of Catherine McAuley. We also learnt about the beginnings of the Sisters of Mercy, who founded our school. The children shared the Mercy values of Dignity, Excellence, Justice, Service and Stewardship and reflected how we continue to live these everyday through our golden rules. The children did a fantastic job: working together to act out the stories and share their message. They should be proud of what they have achieved together.
To mark National Poetry Day yesterday, we wrote cinquain and haiku on the theme of God’s unconditional love. The children neatly captured profound ideas in just a few syllables.
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
It’s been a busy, varied week in year 4 – the best type of weeks. Many of the class stood for school positions with very well-prepared speeches confidently delivered. Well done to the children who were elected and also very well done to everyone who stood and made the elections possible.
On Wednesday we walked to St Albans Cathedral, just like millions of people have done over the years. While we were sitting in the nave a Roman soldier came to berate us! We found out about Roman life in Verulamium (which learning will be useful in January when we learn about the Romans) before acting the story of St Alban, in different parts of the cathedral. (The class was in two groups.) We also visited St Alban’s shrine. The guides were very complimentary about the children’s conduct round the cathedral and their respectful attitude throughout. I was very proud of them all as they were excellent representatives of St Adrian’s School and they walked back up to school very quickly, spurred out no doubt by the thought of lunch.
Thursday’s swimming was done in the smaller pool as the floor in the larger one was being mended. The children still did lots of good practice on their skills. On Friday the ukelele lesson was a lot of fun.
We will be moving on from place value to addition/subtraction soon. The current tasks on MyMaths have been written in line with the White Rose materials and reflect exactly the learning we have done and so are very useful in reinforcing skills. Please do log on to MyMaths and complete the learning. The log-in details are in the reading books. If you have any problems logging on please do let me know.
Thank you for sending, on paper or email, the photos and painting aprons.
We loved reading the fable The Midnight Panther, as its powerful moral reminded us to embrace our unique qualities and celebrate differences instead of trying to fit in. Inspired by this message we crafted our own fable, each with an important lesson as its core.
The children are now beginning to settle into nursery routine, thank you for talking to your children about what they need to do in the morning when the arrive.
To help the children learn the names of their new friends, we played a game where we stood in the middle with our name cards and sang ‘name is in the den….’.
In maths this week we looked at different colours.
Other photos this week:
Important Dates
Saturday 28th September – PTA BBQ – 1 – 4pm.
Wednesday 2nd October – Parent Consultations
Thursday 10th October – Parent Consultations 4 – 7 pm in the hall
Monday 28th October – Friday 1st November – Half Term
We have all been enjoying learning about our class saint, Saint Teresa of Calcutta. We learned about the significant parts in her life and created a timeline that sequences these events. We enjoyed carefully drawing portraits of Mother Teresa and have decorated our classroom door to celebrate her achievements and caring nature. She has inspired us to do small acts of kindness whenever we can.
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
This week in computing, we started learning about coding. We tried out different commands to make the sprite move. By experimenting, we got a feel for how coding works and began to understand how to control the sprite’s actions. It was a fun introduction to programming.
The children showed fantastic partner-working, initiative and perseverance this week as they were presented with boxes of components and wires and asked to “make a circuit”. The delight when they made the lightbulb come on, or the buzzer vibrate was genuine and wonderful to see.
They role-played what Panther and Cheetah could say to each other and really got into character.
Next Wednesday we will walk to the cathedral. We’ll be back in time for school lunches, so no packed lunch will be needed. Let’s hope the weather is as glorious as it’s been this week! Regardless of what it is like, I think we’ll have a very interesting and inspirational time learning about the saint which gave our home city its name.
As part of our learning about “The Midnight Panther”, some children made this wonderful collage of Panther trying to be as regal as Lion.
I hope you all have a wonderful, relaxing weekend.
