Poetry Basket: Five Little Pumpkins
This week’s poem is called Five Little Pumpkins. In this poem, we focussed on some key words and their meanings: tumbled (to fall down or roll around). We also talked about the ordinal numbers first, second and third.
Autumn 1: Week 7
This week, we’ve really enjoyed immersing ourselves in the story of Supertato! The Evil Pea escaped from the freezer again, but luckily, we’ve been busy creating our own traps in the creative area to help protect our classroom.
We’ve also been busy making magic potions in our outdoor kitchen to stop the Evil Pea from causing any more mischief!
We’ll be continuing our Supertato adventures next week.
Maths
Every day in maths, we explore prepositional language. We use actions to help us understand and remember each of the prepositional words we’ve been learning this half-term.
Help at home: Play hide a seek with a soft toy. Use the actions to describe where the soft toy is.
Phonics
We’re so proud to share that’ve we’ve finished learning all of the Phase 2 phonemes for this half-term! Next week, we’ll focus on practising our blending skills and recapping all the phonemes. Well done, everyone!
Help at home: Please use your child’s phonics home learning book daily. Practise saying the pure sounds and writing the corresponding graphemes to help reinforce their learning.
Half term football opportunity
Here’s a new football venture starting locally during half term.
Living & Learning: Me and my community week 2 November
Our next whole school themed week, based around identity, diversity and community, will be taking place from Monday 2nd November. This is the first of two themed weeks in the year. In our ‘Me and My Community’ week, children will learn about what it means to belong to a community, from family to national or even international communities. Importantly, our children will also learn to respect and celebrate different communities.
Active travel in the community
We encourage children to get out in the community in an active way on their way to and from school. By walking/scooting/biking to school, families will be keeping our community safer and healthier by reducing congestion at the school gate. Maybe even pick up a piece of litter on the way. Even by parking further away from school your child could then travel the final part of their journey by foot, bike or scooter.
Email us ([email protected]) a picture of your active travel, maybe by a landmark in our community on your route to school, for the chance to win one of three vouchers. Entries to be submitted by 4pm on Thursday 5th November.
New school charity
At the end of the themed week, classes will have the chance to discuss our charity shortlist and the Junior Leadership Team will have the final vote for which charity they would like our school to support, replacing our current charity, Martin House Hospice.
Identity day
Friday 6th November will be a non-uniform Identity Day. Children are invited to dress in clothing that represents part of their identity, for example uniform from a club they attend, a team they are part of or support or traditional dress to represent their heritage. There is no donation or contribution required for this day.
SAVE THE DATE PTA coffee morning Friday 6th November 9-10am
As part of the week, we welcome all parents and carers to an informal coffee morning to meet other members of our school community including representatives from the PTA. A whole school community Wake up Shake up will follow at 9:50am in the main playground.
Can you help?
Maybe you speak another language and you would be happy to speak to children about this or you would like to share about your own family culture and heritage. If so, please contact the office to pass on your details. Also, do you have any local community links that may support our week?
Magnets!
Today, we explored magnets and carried out simple tests to find out which objects were magnetic and which weren’t. We grouped the objects and looked for links between the materials they were made from and whether they were magnetic. We even discovered some surprising things that happen when two magnets are brought together!
Autumn 1: Week 6
Literacy
This week, we’ve been using our clear talking voices to retell We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. Yesterday, we had lots of fun going on our very own sensory bear hunt! We made sure to use words and phrases from the story as we made our way through each of the obstacles.
Phonics superstars!
The children are becoming more and more confident during our phonics sessions. Every day, they eagerly help each other get their phonics packs out and ready to learn. We’re so proud of their enthusiasm! Next week, we’ll be learning the final four phonemes for this half-term: h, b, f and l.
Help at home: Continue to use the phonics home learning book and sheets at home.
Rainbow challenges
This week, the children’s rainbow tick sheets have been filling up with ticks! They’ve been busy getting stuck into all of the challenges. From building bear caves in the construction area to playing subitising bingo in the maths area, we’ve seen some wonderful independent learning.
Reminders
- Water bottles: Please ensure your child brings a filled water bottle to school each day.
- Lost uniform: We’re seeing a lot of jumpers and cardigans go missing. To help us return lost items, please label all clothing.
- Parent-Teacher Zoom Meetings: These are coming up soon. Don’t forget to sign up!
Autumn 1: Week 5
Literacy
For the next two weeks, our focus is We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen. We’ve been using a story map to help us retell the story and remember the different parts in the correct order.
Make sure you look out for a video of us retelling the story next week!
Help at home: Use the story map sheet to practise retelling the story together.
Maths
This week, we’ve been exploring how numbers can be composed of 1s. Throughout the week, we’ve been collecting groups of 2, 3 and 4 objects to help us understand that a whole can be made up of smaller parts.
On Tuesday, we helped the three bears find collections of 3 things for their picnic. Each time we found a collection of 3, we used the stem sentence:
“1 and 1 and 1 makes 3.”
Help at home: Can you make collections of objects at home? Remember, the objects don’t always have to be the same!
Art
This half-term, our featured artist is Frida Kahlo. We’ve looked at examples of her artwork and talked about the shapes and colours, how the paintings make us feel and what we like about her pieces of artwork.
Over the past two weeks, the children have created their own wonderful self-portraits inspired by Frida Kahlo.
Living & Learning
Throughout the week, we’ve been talking about what a good listener looks like and why being a good listener is important.
Here are some of the children’s quotes:
Ol: I’m a good listener when I’m in the car because I need to keep my seatbelt on.
Lo: I’m a good listener when I’m talking to my friends.
Ai: I’m a good listener when I listen to my Daddy at home.
El: I listen to my Mummy and Daddy when I clean my teeth and get ready for school.
Za: I’m a good listener when Mummy and Daddy call me for my food.
Finally, here’s a snapshot of some of our fantastic independent learning this week.
Reminders!
- Library books need to be returned every Friday.
- eBooks are assigned every Thursday. To celebrate your child’s reading skills, make sure you listen to your child read their eBook daily.
- Reading records and blue phonics home learning books need to be returned every Thursday.
Tuesday 29 September: Fine Motor Stay & Learn
Thank you to all the parents and carers who attended this morning’s Fine Motor Stay and Learn session. It was fantastic to see so many of you getting involved in the challenges and ticking them off on your sheets with your child. If you would like to revisit the presentation, you can take a look here.
Key points to remember
- Fine motor activities can be done at home using everyday objects.
- Fine motor activities are essential for developing your child’s finger and hand muscles ready for writing.
- Alongside fine motor activities, gross motor activities such as crawling, climbing and hanging help to develop core strength.
- When mark making or writing, remember to talk about the 4 Ps: posture, pencil grip, paper position and pressure.
- Most importantly, make the activities fun and engaging!
Poetry Basket: Breezy Weather
This week’s poem is called Breezy Weather. Hope you enjoy the performance!