Happy holidays!
We have come to the end of our first term!
Can you believe how quickly time has flown?
I am sure you will agree that the children have settled well and become happy, confident learners. We are proud of them all!
Well done, Eessa, for becoming more confident and Hashim for trying different foods. We have enjoyed seeing Jai and Lewis learn to blend and watching Amrit M gain confidence with her numbers. Thank you, Harman and Vedant, for your lovely manners. Well done, Jack and Amrit S, for gaining confidence with their writing. Edris, Evie and Aadil have impressed us with their extra learning at home – we enjoy the things you bring in to show us. Tanvi and Betty have been good friends – helping a new child settle. Sahar joined us this month and has become a great addition to our class. Thank you, Avraj and Leah, for being cheerful and positive members of the class. Sam, Da’wud and Madison have impressed us with their independent writing. We have loved the models James and Sohrab have been busy designing. Thank you, Sukhmani, for your ideas and input into our spider topic. Billy, Klara and Harpreet have been designing board games in the maths area and teaching other children how to play them. Well done, Christina and Simran, for your enthusiasm and Sasha and Matilda for entertaining us with their singing!
Have a great holiday and a happy new year.
See you next term!
Bedtime reading
We like these top tips to promote bedtime reading from Book Trust.
Although these are specifically for children who are starting to read by themselves, there are plenty of tips to support children of all ages.
(The Book Trust’s advent calendar is brilliant, too!)
Learning new skills and respect
In Health week, Reception enjoyed a session with Rob from Tsukuru Judo Academy. As well as the physical skills, Rob taught us about the importance of respecting each other in the discipline of judo.
There were some brave volunteers!
Tsukuru Judo Academy will be starting judo sessions locally at Carr Manor in December.
Maths in Reception
In our maths learning this week, we’re concentrating on counting and using numbers.
In order to count effectively, children need to:
- learn number names in order
- count objects by touching them
- understand that the last number they say is the total number of objects in the group
- transfer these skills effectively from one context to another
- move from counting concrete objects to counting abstractly
Children need to be motivated to count for a purpose. In Reception, we try to provide lots of interesting objects and activities for children to use and improve their counting skills.
Children should also have the opportunity to order numbers. At the moment, the children are enjoying matching the correct number of flies to the spiders’ webs.
Look here for more information and some ideas for you to try at home.
One of your 5 a day for free
Our weekly fruit tuck shop runs on a Tuesday playtime. It’s for Key Stage 2 children, with a charge of 20p per portion and a pre-payment option available.
Today, as part of health week, all children, including Reception and Key Stage 1, were invited to an extra tuck shop free of charge. This gave children who might not normally come to the tuck shop the chance to try it out.
It was great to see everyone enjoying a fruit-filled playtime.
Healthy packed lunches
As it is health week, copies of our Guide to Healthy Packed Lunches have been given out at lunchtime today as a reminder for children who choose to bring a packed lunch to school.
We encourage at least one piece of fruit or vegetable in packed lunches and snack items occasionally, as a treat, but aim for healthy options. Lots of learning has taken place in health week looking at quantities of sugar in drinks and the importance of drinking water to keep hydrated. We therefore encourage water which is freely available for packed lunch children.
There were also some prizes for healthy packed lunches.
5-a-day
This morning, we worked with children from Y1 and Reception class thinking about what foods count toward your daily target of 5 portions of fruit and vegetables. We then tasted had time to taste some!
Read some good guidance about this.
It’s all about health
This week is the first themed week of the year and it’s all about health.
Over the week classes will work with different visitors to school including:
- d:side (drug education)
- Catering Leeds (food nutritionists)
- Leeds Force basketball
- Leeds City Council road safety team
- Tsukuru Judo Academy
- Leeds University dental students
- Rachel Frazer – Yoga teacher
- Heart Research UK
- Dr Natwar – Corner House dental surgery
- Claire Sparrow – pilates teacher
There will be lots of learning in class too – hand washing, body image, emotional health, 5 a day and much more. Keep an eye on our class news pages to find out more.
On Monday 23 November, 3:00-3:30pm, there will be an information session for parents, led by d:side, where you can find out more about the drug education sessions delivered to each class this week. No need to book – just come along.
Phonics mornings
Thank you to everybody for attending the phonics sessions last week. The children really enjoyed having you there to share in their learning.
Although phonics is important in teaching the mechanics of reading, reading is about much more. We also want children to read for pleasure. Reading to your child regularly will help them to develop a lifelong love of books and reading.
At the moment the children are enjoying ‘Room on the broom‘ by Julia Donaldson and ‘In the witch’s kitchen‘ by Nick Sharratt.
Phonics feedback
Mrs Burke and the other Reception staff were delighted to welcome nearly all parents / carers into the classroom this week to watch the Reception children learn phonics – so important in developing reading and writing skills.
Parents who visited either on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday gained an insight into the general teaching that goes on in Reception, but more specifically learnt about how we teach phonics and how they should support their child’s learning at home:
‘It was useful to see the step-by-step process in which the children are taught so that I can attempt to support in a similar fashion at home. It was helpful to hear the language used in context (grapheme, phoneme etc).’
‘Very informative and well-organised. Definitely helps with how to support at home.’
Lots of parents left impressed by the children’s learning behaviour:
‘I was happy to see how well the children are engaged.’
Finally, we asked how we can make these sessions even better. We had a couple of suggestions – a longer session was suggested, and the session a little bit earlier in the year. We’ll consider these, although in previous years we’ve tried different things and this seems about right for most people. One parent suggested that we should remind others ‘that phonics is not the be all and end all’ and that we should ’emphasise the importance of reading for fun’ – we agree. The purpose of the session was kept quite specific, but Mrs Burke will include some reminders about this in subsequent newsletters because we certainly want to promote a love of reading.
Thanks again to everyone who came along. The next sessions are on 20, 21 and 22 January.