I really hope that you’ve enjoyed your half term break and spent quality time with family and friends. In Little Wandle this term we will focus on phase 4 phonics. That means that we will be learning how to read even longer words like swimming, fantastic and plurals like queens and boxes. We will not be learning any new digraphs or trigraphs, and we will only revisit phase 2 and phase 3 tricky words. In your orange books you will find some of the sentences we read at school. Please practice them for building fluency.
In Maths we learned how to use simple strategies to discuss time and then progress to ordering and sequencing simple events. Next week we will be using calendars to mark off the days leading up to special events and that will help us understand the passing of time. In learning through play the children measured the time by counting how many times they can write their name in 1 min, 3 min and 5 min.
In order to understand what sequencing means the children made honey sandwiches, following one step at a time.
We are also very busy preparing for our Mothers day assembly next Friday. Would be lovely to see you all there at 9am.
And finally, it was lovely to see you all and discuss your children’s progress. As ever your support is much appreciated and valued. We’ve come a long way and it is absolutely fantastic to see the massive progress the children have made.
Dates to remember: Thursday 7th – World book day Friday 8th – Mothers day assembly (therefore there will be no reading morning on Friday 8th)
Dear children, parents and carers I can’t believe we are halfway through the Reception year! The time has flown by…. The children have made massive progress not only in their reading, writing and maths, but also in their social skills, interacting with peers and adults and understanding rules and expectations.
As usual, the week was full of experiences and the children were very keen on trying and participating in different activities. On Tuesday we cooked our own pancakes. We did them from scratch and carefully followed a recipe. They turned out absolutely scrumptious and everyone had not one, but two pancakes. The children even helped wash the plates after 🙂
We were also creating beautiful Valentines cards for our loved ones. The children spend lots of time decorating them and writing lovely messages:
Ash Wednesday was a very special day for us too. We discussed that Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent and that the ashes are made of palm trees. The children started to think about their Lent promises and how to be a bit more like Jesus. Mrs Gallaher brought back ashes from the service.
On Friday we visited St Bartholomew church and looked around to spot significant artefacts and things we are familiar with. I am absolutely impressed of the exceptional behaviour of the children who represented St Adrians in the best possible way:
Hello children, parents and carers It’s been a lovely week of thinking about feelings, emotions, mental health and wellbeing. Lots of the activities that took place were closely linked with this year’s theme ‘My voice matters’. We played games and enjoyed our time together on the carpet to help the children build a bank of ideas on how they can express themselves.
‘Are you listening carefully?’ This was the question we’ve asked the children. We played ‘The whisper game’ where everyone had to pass the message around the circle from child to child. We made string telephones working in pairs and noticed that when the string gets loose we can’t hear that well. We also talked about how important eye contact is and played the ‘Eye signaled game’.
In PE this week we danced and did yoga and the children truly enjoyed both activities. They all commented on how well and refreshed they are feeling after the dancing and how calm and content after the yoga:
We also did wonderful writing thinking about our likes and dislikes. Here are some of the examples for you to enjoy 🙂
And finally we began reading a wonderful book called ‘Ruby’s worry’. We all learnt from Ruby. She’s a perfectly happy little girl, until she discovers a worry. The worry – depicted as a scribbly yellow shape – is hardly noticeable at first, but starts to grow and soon it’s with her all the time, stopping her from doing the things she loved.
We made a chart of how Ruby was feeling before the worry and how she was feeling after the worry and discussed the importance of sharing your worry with someone you can trust. That can be your friend, teacher or family, anyone you feel comfortable with. Next week we will create our worry box and the children will be able to draw or write their worry and share it with the rest of us. We all know that if we do that the worry will just disappear :)!
On Tuesday we talked about how to stay safe while using the internet. Smartie the Penguin was very supportive and he helped us understand the importance of never clicking on websites we are not sure of. We watched his story and created posters to take home. We also learnt his internet safety song.
In Little Wandle we started reading very, very long words like picnic and magnet, and even longer ones like bedroom and carpark. We’ve been revisiting phase 2 and phase 3 digraphs and some of the tricky words. In your orange books this week you will find your first longer words. Please practice them at home for building confidence and fluency. In class, when we read the longer words, we use the term ‘chunk’. For example the word bedroom can be chunked into two smaller words ‘bed’ and ‘room’. That really helps the children hear all the sounds in those very challenging phase 4 words.
In Maths the children were introduced to the concept of doubling and they learnt that this means ‘twice as many’. We had plenty of opportunities and the children had to answer very tricky questions like: ‘What does double mean?‘ or ‘Where can you see a double?‘. We also practiced physically making doubles, using manipulatives and mark making.
In RE we created a wonderful ‘Mary and Joseph are taking baby Jesus to the Temple’ drawings. We also practiced tricky words and ‘igh’ trigraph by writing ‘He is the light!’ Have a look at our wonderful display. No doubt that you will love it 🙂
We are very excited to show you our wonderful Still Art paintings. They are now complete and the water colors look lovely. We all all very proud!
Have a lovely weekend. Looking forward seeing you all on Monday for another fun filled week. Mrs Solakova
Hello children, parents and carers, This week we’ve enjoyed lots of activities, but the best part was the Number Day on Friday. All children came to school dressed in spots, stripes and numbers and they all looked amazing. In continuous provision the children enjoyed lots of mathematical activities. Numicon prints on the playdough table, ten frames and counting bears and sweet jars ready to be filled with candies. All the activities helped us to secure our understanding of numbers 6, 7 and 8 and to practice the 5 and a bit equations. Here are some photos of the day:
Outside and inside we measured and balanced and poured and emptied. Talked about full, empty, nearly full, nearly empty, heavy, light… lots and lots of mathematical language!
The children also used the stem sentence ‘1 more than ….. is …..’ . Then they made flowers and on each petal the number was one more than the previous one.
In Little Wandle we’ve learnt the last digraph and trigraph from phase 3 sounds and from now until Summer term we will concentrate on reading longer words like puppet, bigger, hammer using all phase 2 and phase 3 sounds.
We were also busy learning 3 new tricky words: are, sure and pure. The last two proved to be extra tricky, so please make sure you practice them at home too!
This week we also started a new Art topic – Still Life Art. First we designed our own still art compositions. As you can imagine everyone had a different view and they are all different. Showing a couple here, but please come and check them out during next week’s reading morning. Then we sketched them on a special paper and next week we will start using the watercolours. Very exciting :)!
Dates to remember:
Wednesday 14th February, 9.15am – Ash Wednesday Service at St Barts – parents are welcome to join. February half term – 19th – 23rd February
Have a lovely weekend. Looking forward seeing you all on Monday for another fun filled week. Mrs Solakova
Hello children, parents and carers, Here are some news from another busy and fun week here at St Adrians. As you can already guess, this week we took part in different celebrations. Our home corner turned into a party kitchen full of presents, bunting, cakes and sweets. There was also pizza and yummy sandwiches. We prepared some cakes on the playdough table. We’ve made a special chocolate playdough and had lots of gems, sticks and patterned rollers to decorate our ‘delicious’ creations!
All these celebrations were part of our new RE topic Local Church – Community. The children were thinking about what people celebrate and why they celebrate. Next week we will link these experiences with what the parish family celebrates. We will discuss further what ‘Parish family’ means and what sort of celebrations take place in Church.
We also role played a Bible story called ‘Mary and Joseph take baby Jesus to the Temple’ When Simeon and Anna saw baby Jesus, they couldn’t believe their eyes. They waited for a long time to see God’s son. When they finally met him they said that ‘He is the Savior of the world’ and ‘He is the light of the world’.
What a better way to learn the story, but to pretend we are Anna, Simeon, Mary and Joseph. Have a look:
In Little Wandle we learnt 3 new digraphs and 1 new trigraph.
We also learnt 3 new tricky words: my, by, all. We have added them to your child’s orange tricky words books, for you to practice at home.
In English we very much enjoyed a lovely text ‘The snowman’. The children experienced the book in so many ways: made own snowman, danced with snowy ribbons, learnt how to build a snowman, watched the film, cooked biscuits and hot chocolate. The final piece was a very own ‘Snowman book’. I can’t tell you how proud they made me feel while drawing and writing their books. Here are some lovely examples:
And finally. This week has been much warmer and we really enjoyed our garden. We are already planning what to plant and started slowly tiding it up.
Inset day – Monday 29.01.24 February half term – 19th – 23rd February
Have a lovely weekend. Looking forward seeing you all on Tuesday. Mrs Solakova
Hello and welcome to another week. There is lots to share, as we are always busy learning, creating and playing. We began the week by planting a tree on the playing fields. We chose ‘the best’ two trees and planted them with care. We talked about what the tree will need, how big it will grow, etc. Everybody took part and placed a little bit if soil into the hole.
Outside was great fun this week as we had to free lots of polar animals. They were all stuck in the ice. The children were banging and pushing and breaking the ice and eventually all of the animals were safe and sound 🙂
In Little Wandle we’ve learnt 4 new digraphs:
The children are reading words with the new digraph and even learning how to spell and write some of them. This week we’ve spelled words like torn, book, foot, march. We also learnt 3 new tricky words. They are already in your child’s orange books ready for you to practise at home. The new tricky words are ‘was’, ‘they’ and ‘you’.
In Maths we introduced the concept of zero. The children already had some practical understanding of ‘nothing there’, ‘none’ or ‘all gone’, therefore they learnt that the number name ‘zero’ and the numeral 0 can be used to represent this idea. We were also thinking about numbers to 5 (including zero) and learnt how to instantly recognise of up to five objects (subitise number 0-5).
In RE we began a new topic Local Church Community – Celebrating. We talked about our own experiences and feelings about celebrations; we wondered why people celebrate and how they feel when they celebrate. Thank you to those of you who shared pictures of their own celebrations.
Dates to remember: Inset day – Monday 29.01.24 February half term – 19th – 23rd February
Have a lovely weekend. Looking forward seeing you all next week. Mrs Solakova
Happy New Year and welcome back everyone. Hope you’ve had a restful holiday and are ready for another busy term! We loved sharing christmas stories and experiences during circle time. Some children even heard Santa coming down the chimney :). Lucky!
This week we dedicated to Epiphany and talked a lot about the three kings and how they gifted baby Jesus with very special gifts. We created beautiful crowns using different shaped gems:
On the writing table the children were practicing their digraphs and trigraphs by writing messages to friends and family.
We also dressed up as kings and prepared special gifts for Jesus. It was a long journey 🙂
In Little Wandle this week we learnt the first four of phase 3 sounds. You will find more information about phase 3 sounds in your child’s pink folder.
I also added some information about phase 3 tricky words and how we learn them at school.
In Maths we talked about shapes with 4 sides and their properties. We used mathematical language for describing the shapes: ‘sides’, ‘straight’ and ‘corners’. We also made shapes by combining different sizes of squares and rectangles. Starting from this week the children will have a maths activity to take home. Once completed please bring it to school, or if you prefer you can upload a photo of it on Tapestry.
Please take your time to look at our new home learning grid (you will find a paper copy in your child’s orange book too).
Have a lovely weekend. Looking forward seeing you all on Monday. Mrs Solakova
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.
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.
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
