Welcome back!
It’s been a great couple of days back at school and we’ve been very busy.
Year 1 and 2 spent yesterday working with SPLATS – a drama company who helped us to create a performance about the Romans taking over Britain. We took the roll of prop designers in the morning with the whole class chipping in to make leaves for our chase scene through the forest.
Our afternoon was then spent rehearsing for our two scenes before the big performance at the end of the day.
Everybody tried their best and showed that we have some budding actors and actresses in the making.
End of half term
Well, it’s nearing the end of half-term already and what a busy one it has been!
Continuing our Time Travel theme, this week we’ve travelled back to the “Stone Age”. Check out our Stone Age artefacts below.
There will be no homework or spellings to learn over half-term, but extra practice of times tables and spellings would be a good idea. Please continue with lots of reading, Lexia and Mathletics at home, too!
Parents’ evening
Many thanks to all the parents who recently attended parents’ evening. It was a pleasure to meet so many of you. The children are all working hard at the moment and are demonstrating a positive learning attitude – as noticed by all the staff around school.
Happy half term
The end of another half term has whizzed around and I just wanted to wish everyone an enjoyable and relaxing half term. There will be no homework or spellings over the holidays but keep up with reading each day, Mathletics and Lexia.
After half term, we’ll be sending times table practice home and there will be a test each Friday alongside spellings.
As our plants are now thriving, each child will be bringing their herb home to keep and take responsibility for watering it every few days. It’d be great to see how you get on with this – particularly if you end up being able to use it in your cooking!
Enjoy the break and we’ll see you in a week.
Dance!
This week is our last week dancing with Mr Lynch. He’s worked us really hard over the last six weeks; working on our technique and our fitness. This week, we’ve mostly been practising and refining our Time Travel routine.
The Tin Forest update
Our Tin Forest will be heading home to you on Friday to see who can keep their herbs growing over half term and beyond. Here’s how they’ve grown since we planted them.
Friday 16th January 2015
Friday 30th January 2015
Thursday 12th February 2015
They’ll need plenty of water, warmth and light!
The Great Fire of London
Today, we took on the role of archaeologists and delved deep underground (our tables) to find clues about the past. We found pictures of Tudor buildings on fire; images of people with buckets of water; the date 1666; and a street sign for Pudding Lane. After a few more clues, we guessed what event might have happened in the past and suggested our ideas using the clues we’d found.
We had, of course, uncovered clues to The Great Fire of London, 1666. After watching a short video (another way of understanding what happened in the past) we moved on to maths for more information. We can use data recorded from the past to learn more about what happened.
Look how much you can find out from these…
Tricky words
‘Tricky words’ are those words which children cannot use their phonic knowledge to blend.
Once you’ve introduced tricky words and practised them, reinforce the words regularly when sharing picture books and reading together.
When helping your child to learn to spell the tricky words you may decide to use the ‘Look, Cover, Write and Check’ method. This involves first looking at the word and identifying which part is tricky, covering the word, writing it and then checking the spelling. Remember: if phonics can’t work, it’s not possible to sound out all the sounds, so you might want to start using the letter names.
Aim to make learning tricky words a fun and enjoyable activity, perhaps by writing the tricky words in sand, paint, shaving foam or glitter. Once your child has practised a few times in a less structured way, give them the opportunity to practise writing the tricky word on coloured paper with pencil colours or felt tips. The only way these words can be read and spelt correctly is by learning them and having plenty of practice.
The tricky words children learn in Reception are:
- the
- to
- I
- no
- go
- into
- he
- she
- we
- me
- be
- was
- you
- they
- all
- are
- my
- her
- said
- have
- like
- so
- do
- some
- come
- were
- there
- little
- one
- when
- out
- what
Thank you for coming to our class assembly…
…It was great to see a record number of parents at the assembly!
Here are a few of your comments:
- “Lovely poems. Very impressed with the children’s contribution.”
- “Fabulous timing – just lovely.”
- “Fantastic performance from the Reception class. Looking forward to the next one.”
- “Very enjoyable – great to see all the children contributing.”
- “Well done! Loved the interactions and the singing.”
Frozen!
