Week Ending 04/10/24
Date: 29th Sep 2024 @ 5:16pm
Happy Friday! It’s finally starting to feel like Autumn has arrived, darker nights setting in, jumping in muddy puddles and conker walks! Nothing quite says Autumn is here again like conkers falling from the trees to the delight of children up and down the country. These are one of the most iconic signs of Autumn and provide endless fun and discovery. The children have been learning about how these glossy brown seeds are from a horse chestnut tree and they grow in green spiky cases. The shells often fall to the ground and split on impact to reveal the shiny conker inside. I wonder how many signs of Autumn you can spot on your next walk outside? (See sheet below)
School lunches
School lunches are free of charge for Reception-Year 2 children. This can be ordered through ParentPay and you can change up until 8am the morning of. We are experiencing lots of children changing their mind in the morning when we are taking the register. Please can I urge you to sit with your child and look through the menu in advance and let them choose what they would like. Although, we would never force a child to eat, we are a healthy school and do encourage a balanced diet. If your child is a fussy eater, we recommend bringing in a packed lunch for that day. Please see Mrs Forrester's email earlier in the week for more detail. Thank you for your support.
On a side note, Reception have a rolling snack throughout the day where we limit the children to one snack in the morning and one in the afternoon. If your child is still hungry during these times, please consider bringing in a healthy snack from home. We are a healthy school and advise against chocolates, sweets or crisps. Some children are becoming upset by seeing their friends have this. Fruit bars, cereal bars or fruit are recommended. Thank you.
Autumn Walk (weather permitting) – Unfortunately, due to lack of adults this has been postponed. We will let you know of a new date soon.
We are planning on going on our annual conker walk to the conker tree on the field adjacent to the school. We do not cross any main roads and use the side path to the left-hand side of the main car park to access the field through the forest. We will be back for normal pick up time but will need a few extra helpers to carry this out.
On Monday, your child will need:
- A waterproof coat (labelled)
- Wellies (Labelled)
Cauliflower Cards - deadline is Friday 18th October
The PTA each year organise an exciting Christmas Design Project for the Autumn term! Your child has the opportunity to create a piece of Christmas artwork and have it printed on a range of products. If they would like to take part, please see the order form which has been sent home this week in your child's book bag.
The Christmas designs can be professionally printed and purchased on a range of products including Cards, Tags, Wrapping Paper and Gift Mugs.
Please read the artwork guidelines printed on your child’s order form... most art materials can be used, but colour pencils, white or silver attached to a white background and photographs are not recommended. Bold and bright designs that fill the paper produce the best effect. Large areas of white background are less effective. Important details must not be placed within 5mm of the edge of the paper.
For further inspiration go to www.cauliflowercards.co.uk and view their gallery.
1. Artwork must be attached to the order form with the arrow on the form circled indicating the top of the work.
2. Please keep designs flat and damage free, as marks will show on the final print.
Orders and payment must be made online using the unique code located at the top of the pupil order form. Please refer to your order form for further instructions.
Each order form must be unique so please do not photocopy the form for other members of your family you can get extra copies from your school.
All artwork where orders have been placed must be returned to school by: Friday 18th October.
Cards will be delivered by the beginning of December.
Dates for the Diary
- Monday 7th October 9:30am - KS1 and EYFS Harvest Festival in the school hall.Please wait outside the community entrance door (where you drop off in the morning) where a member of staff will let you in. Due to the size of the space and the number of classes, we are limiting the number of adults to 2 for each child/family.
- Saturday 12th October 10am-2pm - 175th Anniversary. Please come to help celebrate our birthday! More details have been sent via email.
- Tuesday 15th October - Individual and sibling photos. Please come to school in smart uniform including your child's red jumper/cardigan. More details will be sent nearer the time.
- Wednesday 16th October - Flu jabs. Please check your emails to give permission for your child to have the flu jab.
- Week beginning 21st October - Parents Evening (face-to-face appointment). Booking system will be sent out closer to the time.
Little Wandle - Phonics
This week we learnt four new sounds CK, E. U and R using the new Little Wandle grapheme cards and phrases. We introduced the children to their first (of many!) digraphs which was CK. A digraph is two letters that combine together to correspond to one sound (phoneme). For instance in the word sock, neck or tick. CK is a good first digraph to learn as we tell the children that it can only ever come at the end of a word and never at the start. After half term, we will be introducing more sounds with an increase in digraphs. We have also learnt the tricky word 'I'. ‘Tricky words’ are words that cannot easily be decoded (‘sounded out’ and read). This is because some of the sounds in the words are spelled in an unusual way. These words need to be learnt by heart. As always, I have attached the Little Wandle Home Learning sheet to support the sounds we have learnt in school this week.
Your child will be bringing home two books; the one they have shared with their teacher in the sessions (your child can read this independently) and a library book (a book to share as a family). It is VITAL these are returned in good condition and on time to maintain learning for everyone. If the book is lost or damaged, a fine of £5 will be asked to replace it. The Little Wandle Decodable book will be sent home on a THURSDAY after your child has finished their final read with their group. A comment will also be available in your child’s reading record on this day. Please ensure you are checking these to support reading at home. In your reading record you will find two ticks and an arrow which will be the next step in their learning. When reading with your child encourage them to turn the pages themselves and hold the book carefully, thank you.
All books (Little Wandle decodable book and sharing book) are to be returned by the following THURSDAY in order to change them. We will be keeping a log book containing the books your child will be bringing home. Please speak to me if you need further clarification.
At the back of the book there are prompts and guidance for supporting your child with the book. It is especially useful for comprehension questions and the sorts of things you could ask your child to check their understanding of what they've read.
For more information regarding books coming home, please follow the link https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/
In Maths, we have been focusing on comparing numbers 1-5. We met number 4 and 5! We continued to recognise our numbers and order them using the language ‘greater than’ and ‘less than’. E.g. 5 is greater than 4. 2 is less than 3. We have been learning some number songs to support us including 5 little ducks, 5 speckled frogs and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 to help us with saying our number names in order. These are great for reinforcing number names and exploring the concept of take away/less than/how many left. We have also been focusing on our counting skills with the help of Jack the Dog.
Things you can do at home to develop this area:
- Compare which there are more/less of within your house - begin with obviously different set sizes e.g. 10 forks and 2 spoons, 9 dolls and 1 ted, 12 cars and 1 truck etc. Then begin to compare and talk about sets that are closer in number together e.g. 10 forks and 8 spoons, 8 dolls and 7 teds etc. This can be done and is best done through play.
- Find sets which are the same e.g. 4 cars and 4 trucks - line them up one to one to see that there is the same number. This can be done and is best done through play.
- Compare and talk about numbers e.g. would you rather 5 sweets in a bag or 3 sweets in a bag - why did you choose that? If they chose 5, you are encouraging answers like '5 is more and I like sweets so I would choose the one with most sweets in or they may say 3 sweets because I don't like sweets etc.
- Sing songs involving numbers e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Once I caught a fish alive, 10 green bottles etc, stopping and then encouraging them to make predictions about what the outcome will be in stories, rhymes and songs if one is added to, or if one is taken away.
On Monday we read the story of The Little Red Hen. We added actions to the story and retold it using puppets in our choosing time. We began our second week of Reading Practice in small groups. We introduced the children to book behaviours such as reading the title and the blurb to help us find out more and use our predicting skills and holding the book correctly and using our holding fingers (thumb and index finger) to turn the pages. Please continue to practise this at home. It's a real skill!
On Tuesday we retold the story of The Little Red Hen using pictures to help us. This is a good skill to learn and can be practised after your child reads their reading book. Can they remember what happened in the right order? We drew story maps for the Little Red Hen to help us continue to retell the story.
On Wednesday, we went on the balance bikes and taught the children how to do ‘fairy legs’ which means lifting both legs off the ground to practise our balancing. Jack the Dog brought us a special story from the Bible about Joseph and his brothers. We learnt about how we need to say sorry or forgive people if they have made a mistake. We linked this to our Christian value of 'forgiveness' and thought about times where we have forgiven someone.
On Thursday we made our own Dormice bread! We kneaded, proved and turning our bread rolls into dormice by following a set of instructions. We topped it off with oodles of creamy butter, just like the Little Red Hen. Delicious!
On Friday, EYFS celebrated World Smile Day! We used the iPads to take photos of one another smiling in different areas of the school. We also went to the library to pick a Sharing Book to take home. These stories are for you to share as a family and for the children to build up a love of reading.
Sharing book
In order to encourage your child to become a lifelong reader, it is important that they learn to reading for pleasure. The sharing book is a book they have chosen for you to enjoy together. Pleaseremember that you shouldn’t expect your child to read this alone. Read it to or with them. Discuss the pictures, enjoy the story, predict what might happen next, use different voices for the characters,explore the facts in a nonfiction book. The main thing is that you have fun!
Congratulations to our Star of the Week, JJ!
Our Mystery Reader was Walter's Mum! Thank you for coming to share your story with us!
Please speak me if you would like to be Mystery Reader and we can put you in the diary. Remember you can have other family members come and read a story too. Thank you for all our volunteers for filling up this term.
Friday 29th November 3pm
Friday 6th December 3pm
Have a wonderful weekend!
Miss Selwyn
