Merry Christmas!
A massive thank you to all the Year 3 and Year 4 children and their families for an amazing autumn term.
What a fantastic final week we’ve had. On Thursday we saw some fantastic inflatables that Mrs Pennock brought in for us, enjoyed our delicious Christmas dinner and partied in the hall!
We’ve all enjoyed finishing out art sculptures and making some Christmas crafts to take home too.
Thank you so much for all of the lovely Christmas cards and gifts. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas break.
Merry Christmas
Mrs Lake, Mr Wain and Mrs Wadsworth
Christmas party time
All Year 1 and 2 have had a great time at our Christmas party. It was so good the photos are blurry. The highlight was the teachers v kids dance-off – we think the teachers were better!
Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all the Key Stage 1 staff.
Christmas in 1A
What a fantastic final week we’ve had in 1A! We really enjoyed standing on the stage and performing Mary’s Knitting for all of our adults.
On Thursday we saw some fantastic inflatables that Mrs Pennock brought in for us! Our Christmas dinner was delicious too!
Thank you so much for all of the lovely Christmas cards and gifts. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas break.
Merry Christmas, Miss Young. 🙂
Christmas fun!
Yesterday was a great day! Not only did we enjoy a very delicious Christmas lunch, we had the opportunity to visit all the Christmas inflatables that magically appear every year. They were fantastic!
Here is a lovely photo of the class. Hopefully, everyone is smiling!
Wishing you all a peaceful Christmas and looking forward to seeing all the children back in January – hopefully germ free!
Christmas dinner day and inflatables!
We had an amazing day today. Mrs Pennock brought her HUGE collection of Christmas inflatables for the whole school to enjoy. We loved seeing them all. Then, we had out Christmas dinner – it was yummy. Thank you to Mrs Pennock and all the kitchen staff who made it a special day.
Maths: Making shapes
This week we have been learning about shapes in Year 1. We have been learning all about patterns and what they are and even had a go at making our own.
We also made some 3D shapes using 4 or 5 cubes. You can make lots of shapes by changing their position!
Help at home by using this shape website at home and making your own patterns!
Living and Learning: Feeling Good and Being Me
In a recent L&L session, the children in Y3 and 4 learnt all about Feeling Good and Being Me.
We learnt how to give and receive compliments in a mature way and which things were more appropriate to compliment somebody on.
For example, complimenting somebody on their effort in a Maths lesson would be more appropriate and beneficial than complimenting them on their new hair cut.
We learnt that our characteristics and how we treat other people (e.g. being kind, thoughtful and empathetic) are more ‘compliment worthy’ traits.
Receiving compliments is also a tricky thing to do and sometimes can make us feel a little uneasy. We role played receiving compliments before anonymously writing compliments for other members of our class to receive based on their learning, attitude, kindness and other aspects of their personality.
Help at home: Have an open discussion with your child about how to compliment somebody, how to receive compliments and things that make us better people.
Science: A World That Never Stops Moving
This half term, the children have been exploring space and developing a deeper understanding of our place in the universe. They have learned that the Earth orbits the Sun and that this journey takes a whole year, helping to explain why we have seasons, while also discovering how the Moon orbits the Earth and changes shape as it moves through its lunar cycle. Through models, diagrams and thoughtful discussion, the children have been able to visualise these movements and explain them using accurate scientific vocabulary, showing great curiosity and a growing sense of awe about the vastness of space and our small but important place within it.
Help at Home: Talk together about what causes day, night and the changing shape of the Moon.
Christmas is coming
Christmas arrived in Nursery this week. We have been busy getting creative making Christmas cards and decorations. We have also linked our learning in the other areas of provision to the theme of Christmas.
In our Maths area we have been putting the decorations on the trees. To do this we used lots of mathematical counting skills.
Matching the numeral to the quantity 1,2 or 3.
1:1 correspondence – counting carefully by pointing to or moving each decoration as we count.
Cardinality – knowing that the last number spoken is the total number of decorations.
The children loved exploring our Christmas sensory tray, finding objects that “made a noise”, some to “sprinkle”, some that were “soft” and some that were “stretchy”
We made paper chains to decorate nursery, it was a bit tricky to thread them together but we did it.
In the home corner, children enjoyed decorating the Christmas tree and re-creating some experiences from home.
Outside the children loved decorating our winter trees with baubles and tinsel.
We made Christmas trees in the dough, carefully decorating them.
We’ve also been busy rehearsing for our Christmas sing along. We’ve been into the school hall in our costumes to perform for school. The children were amazing and really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for providing their costumes. We are all really looking forward to singing for you all next week.
Help at home
Try using the counting skills we have been learning in nursery by counting a small number of objects e.g. baubles from the tree, bows for presents, candy canes or crackers.
Next week’s learning:
We will listening to the Nativity story.
Reminders
Its a really busy final week of term so here are some reminders
Monday 15 December – 9.00am – Stay and Decorate
Tuesday 16 December – 1.30pm – Early Years Christmas Performance
Wednesday 17 December – 9.45am – Early Years Christmas Performance
Thursday 18 December – 9.00am – Stay and Decorate and Christmas Lunch.
Friday 19 December – Non- uniform and Christmas party ( please remember that the clothes need to be appropriate for a day at nursery. We will be outside too.)
The Nativity
Some of our learning is top secret this week, as we continue preparations for the festive season! There’s been Christmas crafts and of course, lots of practise for our very special show.
Here’s a little insight into the super learning we can share from this week…
Advent and The Nativity Story
We’ve been learning about the story of the first Christmas- The Nativity. Nativity is our word of the week.
We started the week by finding out why Christians choose to celebrate Christmas and where the word ‘advent’ comes from.
Did you know both Rainbow and Sunshine Class has their own Advent tree? ‘Star of the Day’ gets to choose a decoration each morning. See if you can spot it next time you are in the classroom!
We learnt a version of The Nativity with actions and enjoyed re-telling the story using a Nativity scene in the classroom.
In our writing, we used an image of The Nativity to either write a sentence or label characters and/or animals from the image.
We discussed that people have different traditions and reasons for celebrating Christmas. Next week, we’ll be looking at how Christmas is celebrated across the world.
Maths; 2d Shapes
In maths this week, we’ve been re-visiting 2d shapes. We’ve been naming shapes and discussing their properties. We’ve been exploring which shapes can fit within other shapes. We’ll continue our shape explorations into next week.
Expressive Arts and Design; Observational drawing
The children developed their observational drawing skills by carefully looking at a Poinsettia before drawing it with wax crayons. As they examined the plant, they noticed details like the veins running through the leaves. Using these observations, they chose colours purposefully.
Phonics
It’s review and assessment week! This week the children have been re-visiting all they have learnt across the autumn 2 term and completed a phonics check.
It’s been fantastic to see the progress made since September and how all of the children’s confidence has grown in regards to both their reading and their writing skills.
Help at home; Please keep re-visiting the learn at home sheets. If your child has been at school, you will have received an updated ‘GPC mat’ with the sounds and tricky words we have covered so far. If any GPCs or tricky words have been highlighted, these are the ones your child was unsure of during the phonics check and therefore need a little more re-visiting. If your child has a blank sheet in their bag, they knew all GPCs/tricky words covered in the assessment.
Poetry Picnic
Each week we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem is called Who has seen the wind? By Christina Rosetti.
We’ve also been learning a range of winter/Christmas themed poems, ready for our EYFS production- we’ll keep those ones a surprise!
We talk about how a poem sometimes has rhyming words and sometimes doesn’t. We also talk about how a poem can have a fast rhythm or a slow rhythm.
Swimming
Posters detailing the dates for swimming sessions (after half term), will be put on classroom doors this week. They will also be posted with further details next week, on the Class News post.
Reminders and Diary Dates
- Tuesday 16 December 1.30pm / Wednesday 17 December 9.45am Early Years Christmas Performance
- Thursday 18 December Christmas Dinner
- Friday 19 December Non-uniform day and Reception Christmas Party day.