Class News

Join-in Afternoon 19 February 2018

On Monday this week, it was year 3/4 E’s turn to have our parent join-in afternoon. It was a great opportunity to attempt hands-on activities, like sewing and gardening, with the help of some or our parents.

We had a very enjoyable join-in session making funny face cushions, planting of daffodil bulbs (for our Life Forces topic) and creating a diary ready to record our observations.

Thank you to all our parents who helped out on the day – we achieved so much with your help! Hopefully, we’ll be doing it again soon so that all our parents get the opportunity to ‘join-in’.

1K Class Assembly

It was our class assembly this afternoon. A massive well done to 1K. You were amazing!

Crazy About Cricket

Year 1 and 2  took part in a cricket session promoted by All Stars Cricket this week. They focused on key cricket skills: throwing, catching and batting techniques. All of the children thoroughly enjoyed being active and challenging themselves to beat their personal best.

KEIOTSUKE (attention) – we’re doing judo!

All classes in school enjoyed some judo this week. Reception and Key Stage 1 were introduced to judo by Glynn from Sportif Judo and were thoroughly active for the full session – foot grabbing, pushing, pinning and bulldozing each other!

The Key Stage 2 classes also experienced a second session, building on skills from last month. They improved and developed their pinning, rolling  and throwing techniques. If you’d like to continue judo, fliers were sent in book bags.

30 Active Minutes

A huge well done to the first group of children who achieved their bronze wristbands as part of the 30:30 challenge. As well as improving our fitness levels, this also has an impact on self-esteem and self-image (our Living and Learning focus this half term). It’s been proven that children who are physically active throughout the day are happier and more confident.  So, aiming for 60 active minutes is great for physical and mental health.

Their photos are on our podium display just inside school.

They will now progress on to the silver challenge. If you didn’t complete the bronze challenge, it’s not too late. Spare copies of the recording sheets can be collected from the office. To help achieve the 30 active minutes at home you could check out the new site that the BBC have launched, called Super Movers, that combines learning and exercise.

Askham Bryan Animal Visit

We’re continuing with our Life Forces big topic. We re-ignited our interest in the topic by arranging a visit from Askham Bryan Wildlife and Conservation Park today. We took part in two workshops. One focused on habitats where we learnt why animals choose certain habitats and how they adapt to their habitats. The second workshop looked at animal skulls and teeth. We learnt about how different teeth tear, rip, grind and chew. The most exciting part was meeting the animals though!  We looked closely at a giant hissing cockroach, White’s tree frog, a bearded dragon, a tortoise, a Madagascan tenrec and a python. We were given the opportunity to touch the animals (except the tree frog – they’re too sensitive). This also allowed us to talk about how to be gentle and respectful towards animals.

Help your child at home by talking about animals and habitats you may visit: parks, woodlands, rivers, seaside…

What is my child learning?

Phonics

You’ve probably heard your child talking about digraphs, trigraphs and tricky words. A few parents have been asking what their child is talking about so we’ll be sending an information flyer home to help.

Your child has been learning all the letter sounds for the alphabet – please see the YouTube video for help pronouncing the ‘pure’ sounds.

Since January, your child has started to learn the letter names for these ‘pure’ sounds. We have enjoyed singing a song that sings the letter sounds AND names. Your child has also been learning to read digraphs and trigraphs.

Digraphs consist of two letters (graphemes) but they only make one sound (phoneme). The digraphs are shown below:

Trigraphs consist of three letters (graphemes) but they only make one sound (phoneme). The trigraphs are shown below:

Using their digraph and trigraph knowledge your child will be able to read words such as…

The sound buttons/lines shown underneath the letters help your child sound out words. A line is shown when the letters make a digraph or trigraph- that way your child will only make one sound when reading a digraph/trigraph.

Sound buttons and lines are not everywhere so we need to teach your child to independently spot the digraphs and trigraphs so that they only make one sound when reading a digraph/trigraph!

Can your child spot any digraphs or trigraphs in their reading book?

Tricky words are words your child cannot sound out using their phonic knowledge – they just have to know them by sight… that’s what makes them tricky!

New PE days

After our badminton coaching last half term, we’ll be continuing to develop our skills this half term with our own classes. PE days this half term are:

• 1K (Miss Parling) – Tuesday
• 1,2V (Mrs Latham) – Friday
• 2KL (Wednesday) – Wednesday

Home Link – Holiday adventures

Don’t forget the Home Link activity for this week was to let us know all about your holidays! We look forward to hearing all about your adventures. Please scroll to our previous post if you need any more details.

Welcome back!

Week 1 – What are we learning this week?

Welcome back to nursery. We hope that you all had a relaxing and fun week off and are ready to learn. We’re sure that the next 6 weeks will bring us lots of eggcitement…

We’ll begin our week in nursery continuing with our dinosaur themed learning. Children were really interested in all things to do with dinosaurs before we broke up and when we asked them about their interests and what they’d like to learn about, they were keen to keep our dinosaur enhancements. In the last week of term, Freya brought in some ‘fossils’ of dinosaur footprints that she had made as part of her home link activity; they created lots of discussion about fossils and how they were made and so she is going to help her nursery friends make their own this week. We’ll be looking at the different sizes and shapes of dinosaur footprints. Have you ever wondered how big a T-Rex’s footprint was?  We might try and find the answer to this, and any other dinosaur questions that children have, using non-fiction books and the internet.

We’ll be looking for any new interests and fascinations that occur during children’s play this week. Please let us know if your child has suddenly become interested in anything new – jot it down on a post-it note on our interest board.

Before the holidays, we had a few children who were obviously enjoying the cold weather and ‘Frozen’ themed role play. We’ve responded to this with a new small world area in the Sunshine room; we’re sure this will be very popular! You may also have noticed that we’ve had a move around! We’ve expanded our construction area and it now includes a selection of interesting props. Children have already begun to incorporate them into their role play.

Children began to make their own Valentine’s Day cards in the week before the holidays so we enhanced the writing table with lots of Valentine’s themed craft resources. It was a very busy table and it was great to see so many children writing/mark making!