Class News

Welcome back!

We would like to say a huge WELCOME BACK to all the children. We have missed being with our classes and are all glad to get back a little bit of normality in our lives!

Remember you can email your child’s class teacher if you have any questions, comments or concerns.

1KN  Miss Lowry and Mrs Lake : kaylowry@spherefederation.org and natalielake@spherefederation.org

1,2V Mrs Latham : vickylatham@spherefederation.org

2C Mr Gathercole : carlgathercole@spherefederation.org

Nursery Tour – March

We promised that we’d make a little video to show you all what Nursery will look like on Monday. We hope that you enjoy watching the video and that it helps to familiarise your child with Nursery before we all return next week.

Nursery Tour – March 2021

We can’t wait to see you all! Don’t forget to read our previous post with some reminders and important information about drop off and collection times.

We can’t wait to see you all!

ALL of the staff in Rainbow and Sunshine are so excited to welcome you back through our doors on Monday! We are going to have a brilliant week enjoying so many things about being together again. Here is a video of some of your teachers in the classrooms for you to watch.

Click here to view the video.

Please remember to bring your water bottle, a spare change of clothes and maybe your wellies (if you didn’t leave them in school).

See you on Monday!

World Book Day

We hope you are all having a great World Book Day and doing lots of reading. Here is a great song to celebrate!

Return to Nursery

We’re so excited that we can all be back together again and return to Nursery from next Monday (08 March).

We know that most children will be feeling very happy about returning to Nursery and being reunited with their friends and teachers again. However, some children may be feeling a little nervous and might need a little bit of extra support to get back into the swing of things; that’s fine.  We’ll be spending lots of time settling back into our Nursery routines and getting to know each other again. This is just as important for those children that have continued to attend Nursery throughout Lockdown, as their ‘bubble’ will be different and Nursery will be much busier than it has been.

If your child has been attending Nursery during Lockdown, but for different sessions, their usual Nursery days will resume from Monday 08 March.

We’re also looking forward to meeting our new children and their families who will be joining us for their first sessions over the next few weeks. These children will be joining Green group.

Here are a few reminders before you return.

• Hopefully your child has two spare sets of clothes already in a drawstring bag on their peg. If you took this home before Christmas, please ensure you return it. Remember to NAME everything.
• Please provide a water bottle that is clearly NAMED.
• Remember to send your child with a coat and some wellies (if they’re not at Nursery still).

Nursery drop off and collection

• We will now be using the main Nursery entrance (blue door). Please put lunch boxes and water bottles on the trolley and bags in the coloured boxes as usual.
• Please wait in the area outside Nursery, socially distanced from others. School requests that all adults wear masks on school premises (unless exempt). A member of staff will call you to the doorway to sign your child in, one at a time.
• All children will be collected from this entrance at home time too. Children will be ready at their collection time and we will open the door to dismiss them at the appropriate time.
• Please help us by being prompt for your child’s drop off/pick up times.

Blue and Green group

Monday – 8.30am – 2.10pm    Tuesday-Friday 8.30am – 2.55pm

Red group

Monday – 8.40am – 2.20pm   Tuesday-Friday 8.40am – 3.05pm

Yellow group

Monday – 8.50am – 2.30pm    Tuesday-Friday 8.50am – 3.15pm

We can’t wait to see you all next week! Please get in touch if you have any questions.

World Book Day Thursday 04 March – Zoom sessions

Year 3/4 are very much looking forward to sharing some stories, books and characters this week.

Week Commencing 01.03.21: Home Learning

Don’t forget to join your Zoom session this week! We will be celebrating World Book Day by reading a story and sharing our favourite books. 

For this week’s session, you will need: Your favourite book or a book you would like to share. 

Story Link activities to select throughout the week

Literacy

1. Keep a diary for the week just like Jasper. This could be about anything. What did you eat for breakfast? What did you see out in the garden? What toys have you played with? You could use this diary format click here, or create your own!

Understanding the World

1.Take a walk outside or in your garden. What can you find growing? You could take a pen and paper to draw what you find.

Maths
1. How tall are the people or toys in your house?

Use boxes, bottles, tins or anything else around your house to measure them. Talk about size difference – who is the tallest? How tall are they?

2. Write numerals on pots or paper. Count the correct number of beans to match the numerals.

Expressive Arts and Design

1. Paint, draw or build your beanstalk. How tall can you make it? How many leaves did you add?
2. Draw a picture to show what you think might be at the top of Jasper’s Beanstalk.
3. Use beans, pulses or any dried food you may have at home to create a mosaic style picture.

Physical Development

1. Sort beans, pulses or other small dry foods you have at home.

2. Collects some leaves and cut using scissors or other tools. You can also create you own leaves. Cut out of paper or card and fold to make the veins.

Remote Learning 01.03 – World Book Day celebrations

This week is one of our favourite times in Nursery as we get to read so many of our favourite stories! Don’t worry though, we’ll continue with our World Book Day celebrations in Nursery next week when we all return. There’ll be lots of fun activities to look forward to, all linked to some of the most popular stories in Nursery. There are often lots of live story telling sessions during the week, so have a look at the World Book Day website for more details and ideas.

Look out for a video tour of Nursery on the Class News Page at the weekend. On Friday, we’ll be busy preparing Nursery for everyone to return and we’ll post the video as soon as we can.  We hope that you enjoy watching the virtual tour to familiarise yourself with Nursery again, before we welcome you back next week.  We can’t wait!

In Nursery, we usually choose lots of stories to read, however for our home learning this week, we’ve probably chosen one of the MOST popular children’s books of all time… The Gruffalo.  If you don’t have a copy of the story at home, click on the link to watch and listen to the story.

Here is a PDF with links to all of this week’s activities.

Reading

• Before you read the book, talk about what the children can remember if they’ve heard the story before. Who does the mouse meet? Where does the story take place? Can you remember what happens when the mouse meets the Gruffalo?
• If you have a copy of the book, look at the illustrations on each page and talk about what is happening in the story. Some children may be able to re-tell the story in their own words if they are familiar with it.
• As you read the story together, pause at some parts and see if your child can finish the sentence, especially when there’s a word that rhymes with the previous one. E.g. Where are you meeting him? Here by this lake and his favourite food is scrambled _____?

Phonics

Aspect 4 of our Phase One phonics learning is all about ‘Rhythm and Rhyme’. This week, you’ll need a drum or a pan and spoon to join in with Mrs Gosper as she plays some rhythm patterns on her drum. Use your listening ears to listen carefully to Mrs Gosper and then wait for your turn to copy her patterns.

Rhythm patterns with drums video

When you’ve finished, have a go at tapping some of your own patterns and take turns to copy each other. Remember to LISTEN first, and then LISTEN again, and then have a try to copy it yourself.

 Mark-Making

• What’s your favourite book? Draw a picture and talk about your favourite story. We’d love to hear about it – send us an email of your picture and write down a few of the comments that your child made.

• Can you remember how Mouse describes the Gruffalo? What does he have on his nose? What about his back? In our group times in Nursery, we always enjoy drawing on an outline of a Gruffalo and then using different colours and lines to add in his features. Have a go at home – you might need to help your child by drawing a rough Gruffalo outline first but without any details. Here’s one to copy or print at home.

Can you add the following things to your Gruffalo outline?

Orange eyes, purple prickles, a black tongue, terrible tusks and claws,  terrible teeth, a poisonous wart and some horns?

• For those of you with a printer, here’s a Gruffalo colouring sheet available to download.
  

Mathematics

Playing ‘track games’ is a great way for children to practise lots of different maths skills such as recognising dice patterns and counting with one to one correspondence (as they move spaces).

This week, have a go at creating your own game together. Your child will need help with the general outline of the track, but they can then add in their own drawings for the houses and trees etc.

1)  Draw some circle stepping stones across the paper to create a ‘track’ through the woods.

2) Next, draw on the animal homes that the mouse found including an underground house, a log pile and a tree top house. You could add a river and some of your own ideas too.

3) Make or find 2 counters and borrow a dice from another game.

4) Roll the dice and move your counter forward the correct number of spaces.

5) The first mouse to make it through the forest to the end of the path wins!

Extension ideas

• Make up some of your own rules. Perhaps you could draw some purple prickles in a few spaces and if you land on a prickle, you have to go back one space. You could also draw a nut in some other spaces and if you land on a nut, move forward a space.
• If you don’t fancy making your own game, find a board game that involves a similar concept, such as snakes and ladders. They’re a really great way for children to practise counting skills whilst having fun.

Creative

• Make some puppets or find some props to help you re-tell your favourite story. We’d love to see a video of your show!
• Can you make a cave/den home for the Gruffalo? He might enjoy having a tea party in his cave…
• We’ve explored printing with lots of items during lockdown such as cans, boxes and forks. This week, if you have some plastic animal/dinosaur toys, have a go at printing with them and talk about the prints that they make. Once you’ve finished dipping their feet in water, make sure you help to wash it off before the paint dries.
• If your child loves to role play in their kitchen, play ‘cafes’ and order some special items from the menu including roasted fox, scrambled snake, owl ice-cream and Gruffalo crumble.
• In Nursery, we sometimes enjoy trying ‘scrambled snake’ egg on toast. Ask your child to help you break the eggs and mix in some milk to make a ‘scrambled snake egg’ snack. Make sure they help you to spread butter on the toast too.
• 
• Are you ready for a snack and some quiet time on the sofa? We love this animated version of the Gruffalo on the BBC iPlayer.
• You’ll be singing this song about the Gruffalo all week once you hear it! Listen at home and join in.
• Julia Donaldson’s website has lots of Gruffalo themed games to join in, as well activities for her other books too.

Understanding the World

• Mouse met a few different creatures in the woods. Talk about other animals that you might find in the woods near your home. Where do they live? If you enjoy spotting things whilst out and about in your local area, have a look at this ‘Twig Spotter’ activity from the Woodland Trust’s website. How many can you find?
• Can you spot any animal tracks? Look carefully to see if you can see any footprints in the mud. Here’s a few ideas of footprints to look out for on this ‘Animal footprint hunt’ – it might be very tricky to find some of them!
  

Physical Development

Fiddly Fingers

To get your fingers moving this week, you’re going to need a pile of very small items such as 1p/5p coins, buttons, beads, Cheerios… Draw some wavy lines, zig-zags and spiral patterns on pieces of paper and then ask your child to pick up the small objects and place them along the lines. This is a good way to develop their pincer grip and control.

Movement

We’re going to have a go at balancing, jumping and crawling in this activity. Clear a space on the floor and ask your child to gather some cushions and pillows from around the house. Place them on the floor like stepping stones and ask your child to step from one to the other. This is good way for them to practise balancing, especially as the cushions will be soft and move under their feet a little. Repeat the activity, adapting the challenge by putting the cushions further away or not in a straight line.  If you have space and your floor isn’t too slippy, ask them to have a go at jumping from one to the other. Make sure you supervise your child and hold on to any cushions that may move as they jump!

Finally, create a space for your child to crawl under. You could use a blanket/sheet over two chairs, or line some dining chairs up. Ask your child to slither like a snake on their tummies under the blanket or between the chair legs. Crawling is a very important aspect of early years play, helping to provide sensory feedback and developing many different things including the vestibular system (balance).

Independence skills

As we begin to prepare to return to Nursery, we’d like you to focus on ‘toileting’ again with your child.

• Do they go to the toilet without reminders? Try and encourage them to recognise the signs that they need to go!
• When they get to the toilet, are they able to undress themselves? Practise pulling trousers/leggings/tights up and down and remember your child needs to wear clothes that allow children to do this independently.
• When they’ve finished, do they attempt to clean themselves and have a go at wiping?
• Practise handwashing skills again – this is going to be very important on our return to Nursery.

As always, we are there to help children if they need assistance, so please remind them to speak to their teachers if they need help next week.

Key Worker activity and videos

This week, we thought you’d like to be detectives! Listen carefully to each of your teacher’s clues about their favourite stories. Can you guess which book they love to read? Have a go at making some clues for one of your favourite stories and send us an email to see if we can guess!

Key Worker video – World Book Day

We’re so happy that we’re all going to be together again soon. It made us want to sing a song!

Key worker song – If you’re happy and you know it

Friday Story Time

This week’s story is one that we know you’ll be familiar with. It’s called ‘We’re going on a Bear Hunt’ by Michael Rosen. Make sure that you join in with Miss Morris!

Story Time – We’re Going on a Bear Hunt

Zoom sessions (for children learning at home)

It’s World Book Day on Thursday 04 March and we thought that children might like to join in with the celebrations on our Zoom calls by getting dressed up as one of their favourite story characters.  You might have a costume already at home or a t-shirt with a picture of your favourite character on the front. Please DO NOT purchase anything special for the Zoom call, we’re sure that everyone has something at home that you could use.

If you’re struggling to find something or your child doesn’t want to dress up, that’s fine as well.  Again, please don’t worry or feel you need to buy something.  Perhaps you have a toy linked to your favourite story that you could share with everyone instead?

Please have a copy of your favourite bedtime story ready to show your friends as well.

For Zoom sessions in week commencing 01 March,  you will need:

• Fancy dress (optional) and/or a toy linked to your favourite story
• A copy of your favourite bedtime story
• Playdough

PE days reminder

On the days your child has PE, they should come to school in their PE kit as detailed in our uniform policy . (Track-suit bottoms instead of shorts would be good on colder days. Footwear : black/brown/grey/white flat shoes which are safe to run around in.)

Footwear on PE days could be children’s ‘school shoes’ which are often a ‘trainer’ style anyway, if you want to avoid having to buy 2 pairs of shoes.

Please find below the days each class has allocated PE times, which will be taught outdoors, except in extreme weather.

• F2 Sunshine and F2 Rainbow (Miss Parling & Mrs Allen-Kelly/Mrs Wilkins) – Wednesday & Friday
• 1KN (Miss Lowry/Mrs Lake) – Monday & Friday
• 1,2V (Mrs Latham) – Thursday & Friday
• 2C (Mr Gathercole) – Monday & Thursday
• 3,4N (Mrs Wadsworth) – Tuesday & Wednesday
• 3,4E (Mrs McCormick) – Tuesday & Thursday
• 3,4O (Mr Catherall) – Monday & Tuesday
• 5,6S (Mrs Hogarth) – Tuesday & Wednesday
• 5,6M (Mr Lindsay) – Wednesday & Friday
• 5,6B (Mr Freeman) – Monday & Friday

Year 3/4 Walking Champions

A few weeks ago, I posted a challenge for children in Year 3/4 to walk the equivalent of the National 3 Peaks – a distance of nearly 40km and a total of 50, 330 steps! This is not an easy challenge by any means. The goal was to walk the distance in 8 weeks.

Remarkably, some children have already walked the distance – twice! Well done, Sam!

I’ve been amazed with the effort from so many of our pupils. Thank you to everyone who has taken part so far. There is still time to complete the challenge so don’t worry if you haven’t started yet. Maybe the sunshine and Spring feel to the air will inspire you to get out and walk, run, scoot or climb.

There have been a few stand-out moments.

Here are some of William’s routes around the area.

Thank you to another pupil who produced a wonderful PPT of his efforts throughout half term. I love the pie chart!

There’s still time to complete the challenge at either Bronze, Silver or Gold level. Just keep a track of your steps and distances and show them to your teacher.

We’ll hand out the certificates to everyone at the end of March 2021.