Book People Book Fair
This week, we’ve a Book People book fair at school. The Book People are an online book shop, selling books at up to 70% off RRP prices. We’ve a great selection of individual books starting from £4 and a wide range of boxed books, too. Tomorrow is the last day we will be selling the books in school. We will open the book fair at 3.15pm for parents to buy and browse before the end of school. The fair is located in the main reception area.
Thank you to everyone who has already paid us a visit and bought a book.
The school earns money for the sales we make, which helps us replenish the school library, guided reading books and books for the children to enjoy in their classrooms.
Phonics Stay and Play
Thank you to those parents and carers who were able to attend the Phonics Stay and Play session today. The children really enjoyed showing you what they do! We hope you found the information useful and left with some ideas on how to support your child at home.
Home-link: Can your child say a cvc/tricky word in a sentence.
Can they: 
For example, read a cvc word – bag – then, think, say and use fingers to count out the words in the sentence. I can see a bag (5 words). This process is important as it supports the children to understand how many words need to be in their sentence before writing.
Please complete a wow sheet or send an email to share this with us. Your child will earn a challenge cube for completing the challenge.
The next parent session with be the learning journey drop in on Monday 17 December. This is a lovely opportunity for you and your child to look through their profile together.
World Nursery Rhyme Week
This week we have enjoyed singing lots of nursery rhymes. The children have brought in books, jigsaws and objects to talk about their favourite nursery rhymes and it has also been great to find out what your favourite nursery rhymes were when you were growing up.
On Monday, our song of the day was 5 Currant Buns. The number 5 was also our new number of the week. The children had fun baking some buns.
On Tuesday, our song of the day was Humpty Dumpty. The children enjoyed sharing their favourite nursery rhymes and books, jigsaws and objects from home.
We also did a very excited science experiment. Professor Myers came to visit and told us that somebody was pushing Humpty Dumpty off the wall and we needed to find a way to protect him! We experimented with different materials to see which material would protect him the most. Before dropping the egg we predicted (a sensible guess) what might happen. The children also had some great ideas of what else we could use to protect Humpty Dumpty.
- “We could drop him on a cushion then he won’t break.”
- “We could wrap him in an apron.”
- “We could wrap him in paper.”
On Wednesday, the song of the day was A Sailor Went To Sea. The children enjoyed playing hand games together.
On Thursday, the song of the day was I’m a little teapot. The children had lots of fun experimenting with different musical instruments when singing the song.
On Friday, the song of the day was Round and Round the Garden. The children enjoyed making circle movements during squiggle whilst we wiggle. Squiggle whilst we wiggle is a great way to develop our gross motor movements that help with letter formation. On a Friday we also do dough disco – this is a great way to develop our fine motor skills that help with writing.
What a busy week we have had!
Children in Need
The children (and staff) had a great time wearing their pyjamas to school to raise money for Children in Need. We spoke to the children about Children in Need and the different ways in which we can help others.
We then asked the children why they were in their pyjamas instead of their school uniform. A selection of their responses are below:
- “…because it’s Children in Need.”
- “…wear pyjamas…so people who don’t have much money as we do…so they can get clothes, food and water.”
- “…so everyone can be happy and play with their friends.”
Fiddly Fingers Stay and Play
Thank you to all those that came along to the fiddly fingers stay and play. We hope you enjoyed the session and came away with lots of ideas on how to support your child’s physical development in terms of their fine motor skills at home.
The next stay and play will be Funky Phonics on Tuesday 04 December.
Time to talk
We love hearing about what your child has been up to at the weekend during our time to talk sessions. It’s a great chance for your child to build their self-confidence by speaking in front of their peers. It’s also a valuable time to develop their communication and language skills.
If your child brings a time to talk sheet (which you can get from the parent partnership board in the classroom) on a Monday, they’ll be able to share their Monday news with their key worker group. You can also email pictures to support your child to remember what they did at the weekend.
As well as sharing time to talk sheets from home, your child gets the chance to draw a picture, label it (initial sound/word) or write a caption/sentence about their weekend. This is an opportunity for your child to write about something that is meaningful to them.
In this example the child has labelled her picture with the word red.
When teaching the children to write a sentence we get them to think it, say it, count it, write it and check it.
In this example the child has attempted to write a sentence – I went to a party.
If your child makes you go Wow at home it would be fantastic if you could share these with us at school, too. (Wow sheets are also found on the parent partnership board.)
We will remember them – Remembrance Day 2018
The children listened to poems and stories, then talked about Remembrance Day this week at school. They made poppies and some wrote messages to the soldiers.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Laurence Binyon
Thank you to Mrs Thorne for her artistic input and Peter Smith, from Lyndhurst View, who made the central piece.
Celebrations
This week, we’ve had a busy week of celebrations. We talked about Halloween, Bonfire Night and we learnt about Diwali. We read the story of Rama and Sita and talked about Diwali and how it is celebrated. Some of the children’s comments are below:
- “…because we want to let the special lady (Lakshmi) into our home…they have lanterns to make her feel welcome.”
- “They lit lanterns to get home.”
- “The King won’t let them home.”
We looked at the similarities between Diwali and other celebrations such as Bonfire Night, Christmas and New Year.
- “They clean up and decorate the house.”
- “They give presents to each other.”
- “They put lights up.”
Two children enjoyed sharing their experiences of Diwali with the class.
- “We put decorations on the floor. It was a temple and a flower.”
- “We lit candles on the table so everyone can celebrate.”
PE kit
This half term the children will start to get changed for their PE lesson. Our PE day is Wednesday. Please ensure your child has a named PE kit (blue shorts and white t-shirt) and a named water bottle in school.
F2 and Y1 Maths Information Evening
Thank you to all the parents and carers who came to the maths information evening. We hope you found it useful and informative. The presentation and information leaflets can be found below.