Settling in
All of the children are now in full-time and are continuing to settle in, get to know each other and learn our daily routines. We’ve had lots of fun exploring our learning this week. Take a look at what we’ve been up to:
PE; Foot-Tech
The children really enjoyed their first Foot-Tech PE session.
Each Monday and Friday, Reception will take part in a range of fun activities and games. In Early Years, our PE lessons have a key focus on developing the fundamentals of movement and ensuring that children are continuously engaged and active throughout.
Phonics
We started our Little Wandle phonics lessons this week! The children were introduced to their first four sounds- s,a,t,p
They have learnt how to identify the sounds by their graphemes and how to form the graphemes in their writing. They have practised identifying initial sounds and blending sounds together to say the whole word.
We have introduced new vocabulary linked to our phonics learning:
Phoneme– The sound a letter (grapheme) makes
Grapheme– The letter that represents the sound
Segmenting- Breaking up a word into its phonemes and sounding aloud (ie. cat becomes c-a-t)
Blending- Blending the phonemes together to read the word. (ie. d-o-g becomes dog)
Each week we will be sending a ‘learn at home’ sheet, which recaps the phonics learning from the week. Please look at this with your child and complete the activities.
Help at home; Family photos
Next week, we will be thinking about our families. To help support our discussions, please send in one picture of your family together. We will keep the photograph on display, so please send photos you are happy for us to keep. You can also email photos to the email address below.
Reminders and diary dates
Welcome to Reception
21.09.23 – 6pm – 6.30pm An invitation to this event was emailed to you back in July but here is a reminder. Come into school to find out some basic “need to knows” about life in Reception.
Living and Learning – the 8 Rs
This week’s Living and Learning statement is ‘I use the 8 Rs to help me learn.’
In KS1 we have been discussing each of the 8 R’s and how they are important in supporting our learning. They are:
- being ready
- being responsive
- being reflective
- being resourceful
- remembering
- risk-taking
- being resilient
- being responsible
Being ready is one of our school rules. Some of the children gave some great examples during circle time.
‘Being ready means empty hands, silent voices and eyes on the speaker on 3-2-1 stop’.
‘Being ready means when the tambourine rings at play time, freezing and listening to instructions.’
‘At lunch time we can be ready by making sure we line up sensibly and walk through school with a silent voice.’
Science: we are physicists
The children are learning about forces this half term, which allows them to experience the physics strand of science. Air-resistance (a type of friction between air and another object) has been our focus for the lesson this week and we began by testing this on paper. The children dropped a piece of paper and a scrunched up piece of paper from a height to see which would land first – they predicted that the scrunched up one would land first. They discussed how surface area affects the force of the air acting upon it. The whole piece of paper was the last to fall as it had the largest surface area.
The children then used bin bags and ran holding them, a bit like a parachute. This was to allow them to feel the drag associated with air resistance.
Help at home: Ask your child about the science vocabulary they are learning about. What can they remember?
Meet the Key Stage 1 team
Science
This week in Science, KS1 have been discussing the human body. We started off by brainstorming all of the body parts we could think of. After this we labelled the human body.
We then took part in an experiment. The question we wanted to answer was ‘Do all older children have bigger feet?’
During the experiment each child drew around their foot.
They wrote their name, age and birthday. We then lined up the feet in birthday order starting with the oldest child and finishing with the youngest. Before we looked at our data we made predictions in small groups.
We compared the sizes of some of the children’s feet and concluded that not all older children have larger feet.
See some images taken in 2C earlier this week!
Phase 3,4 reading
Reading books and library:
By now, your child should have brought home a library book.
Each Friday, they will be set a reading challenge which is noted on the weekly homework sheet. Details of ideas and what to do for each task can be found in the reading records.
Your child will have the chance to change their library book each week. They are more than welcome to keep the same book until they have finished it. All classes will visit the library on Wednesdays.
Book Club:
Your child will need to bring their book and reading record to Book Club each week. The reading record must be signed by an adult to show that your child has been reading at home.
Book Club days:
3,4 A – Wednesday
3,4 B – Wednesday
3,4 C – Friday
E- books:
Some children will continue to read the e-books. In this case, you will be notified by your child’s class teacher.
If you have any further questions, please ask your child’s class teacher.
Welcome to Reception!
We’ve started to welcome children into Rainbow and Sunshine Class this week. All of the children are settling in brilliantly and have been superstars! We hope they’ve had lots of exciting news to share with you. We look forward to welcoming the rest of Reception, on Monday.
PE; Days and Swimming
Reception’s PE days are Wednesday and Friday. Please send your child to school in their PE kits on these days, including on days when they will be swimming.
Swimming will begin in week 3. Children swim fortnightly. Please send your child with a swimsuit/swim shorts, a towel and goggles if needed. You do not need to send floatation supports.
Swimming Dates:
Rainbow Class- 20 September, 4 October, 18 October
Sunshine Class- 27 September, 11 October, 25 October
Bookbags, spare clothes and wellies
Please send your child with their bookbag each day. Please also send a pair of wellies and a bag of spare clothes/underwear that can be left at school. We will send this home if it needs washing or replacing.
Please double check that all of your child’s school items are labelled with their name.
Dates for your diary (sent home on your child’s first day)
This year we will be offering various opportunities for you to find out more about Early Years at school. There will be after school meetings with your child’s teacher. There’ll be stay and learn sessions where you can come into school and be part of a lesson and then find out how you can help at home.
Then, opportunities to pop into school to share your child’s learning journey book with them. We hope that you can join us for as many of these sessions as possible.
Welcome to Reception
An invitation to this event was emailed to you back in July but here is a reminder. Come into school to find out some basic “need to knows” about life in Reception. 21.09.23 – 6pm – 6.30pm
Stay and learn sessions
This is an opportunity for you to come into school to find out about the Early Years Curriculum and watch your child learning in school.
Phonics Phase 2 – 12.10.23 – 2.20 – 3.00
Maths – 15.11.23 – 8.50 – 9.30
Phonics Phase 3 – 16.01.24 – 8.50-9.30
Fine Motor Control –06.02.24 – 2.20 – 3.00
World Book Day- 07.03.24 – 8.50- 9.20
Learning Journey Drop In’s
An opportunity to “drop into” school and share your child’s learning journal with them.
Times – 8.45 am-9.15am and 3.15pm-3.45pm (Tuesday and Thursday)
Week beginning 11.12.23
Week beginning 25.03.24
Week beginning 08.07.24
3,4 C Class News
What a fabulous first week back! The children appear to have settled into 3,4C. We have been really impressed with the excellent learning attitudes so far.
This is some of the learning we have covered this week:
- In PE, the children particularly enjoyed learning how to play three new games that will become a common feature of our PE lessons.
- In Writing, we have been practising using the correct punctuation and using neat handwriting when writing sentences.
- We have visited the library and made sure everyone has a reading book. In reading lessons, we enjoyed reading about animals at the zoo. Here are some of the book marks that we have made to use in our reading lessons.
At home, you can help by reading regularly with your child.
Well done, 3,4C!
Living and Learning – rules
Throughout the week and during our Living and Learning lessons and circle time, we have discussed the importance of having rules and following them. We have talked about our school rules and what the rules look like and sound like in our classrooms and throughout the school. We have also discussed what would happen if we didn’t have rules.
Welcome to Nursery
We’ve had a great week meeting some of our new children during their home visits. It was lovely to find out a little bit about you all and we’re looking forward to getting to know you more when we welcome you to Nursery next week.
Nursery is looking fantastic; there are lots of exciting areas to play in and we can’t wait to show you around. Our Nursery foxes, Ferdie and Fern, are looking forward to having some more friends to play with. As you can see from the photos, they’ve already been busy testing out some of our toys, playing in the fairy garden and sliding down the slide!
A reminder for children that are returning to Nursery – Remember to check your transition paperwork. The first day back is a transition session and children will have lunch and go home afterwards at 12.30.
Here are a few reminders of some of the things that we talked about at our home visits.
- Please bring a full change of clothes in a drawstring bag and a pair of wellies that will stay in Nursery. Remember to write your child’s name on EVERYTHING!
- Children need to bring a water bottled (named) to Nursery. Please put it in your child’s coloured basket in the morning and collect it at the end of the day to be washed.
- Please return your ‘All about me’ information sheets next week and bring proof of your child’s date of birth, if we didn’t see it at your home visit.
Don’t worry if you’ve forgotten which door to come in; find the path to the Nursery entrance (off Morwick Grove) and there’ll be someone there to greet you and show you where to go.
Have a great weekend and we’ll look forward to seeing you next week.