Week Ending 09/06/23
Date: 6th Jun 2023 @ 4:41pm
Happy Friday! Welcome back to the final half term of your child’s first year at Tarporley. We have got so much lined up for a fun-filled Summer, so keep an eye out on our weekly blog for any updates.
Dates for the diary:
Tuesday 13th June – Trip to Park Hall Farm. (Please bring a packed lunch and a drink in a small rucksack. If you have ordered a school packed lunch, this will be provided on the day. The children will need to wear wellies and may wear comfortable trousers. We ask they wear a school jumper or cardigan for easy identification). The weather looks like it's going to be hot so they will need a hat, water bottle and have suncream on before they leave. Please apply at home.
Thursday 15th June - Father's Day Shop. As we will be on our school trip on Tuesday, Reception children will have the opportunity to go and purchase from a selection of gifts today. If you would like your child to buy something, please place the money (we suggest no more than £5) in a sealed envelope with their name on.
Friday 30th June - International Mud Day celebrations- messy clothes needed! Please see below for more information.
Tuesday 4th July - 3:30-4pm Meet the Year 1 Teacher. An opportunity to meet the Year 1 staff and see the classroom.
Friday 14th July – Reports sent out
Monday 17th July – End of Year Show at the Baptist Methodist Church. Hedgehogs – 9:15am Dormice – 10:00am (or as close to as possible)
Thursday 20th July – PTA BBQ (Come and join us on the playground after school for our annual BBQ to celebrate your child's wonderful first year of school!)
International Mud Day – Mud, Glorious Mud!
On Friday 30th June, we will be celebrating the annual event that is International Mud Day. In the afternoon, children are given the opportunity to wallow in mud, cake themselves in clay, indulge in some body painting and squish gloop to their hearts content. We believe that Mud Day gives children the opportunity to connect with nature and show them how amazing and brilliant mud can be, and the range of ways it can be used and enjoyed. Whether that’s squelching, splatting, splashing, stirring, scooping, sprinkling or stamping, playing in mud is one of the best parts of being 5! The children need to wear messy clothes that you don’t mind getting muddy/may need throwing away. Please bring a towel and a spare change of clothes for them to get dressed into warmer attire at the end of the day.
Talking Point – Recycling
The Story of ‘The Odd Fish’ takes us on an eco-adventure with a clever message about looking after our blue planet. Eight million tonnes of plastic find their way into our oceans and river every year. That’s equal to dumping one rubbish truck every minute into the sea. We’ve been looking at practical ways we can all make a real difference to protect our oceans and the creature that live in them. Our BIG question this week is ‘why is working together important to tackle such a big issue?’
Little Wandle (Phonics)
This term we move onto Phase 4 in our phonics journey! The children do not learn any new phonemes or graphemes. Instead, they are taught to further manipulate the phonemes and graphemes they have already learnt. They will begin to explore more polysyllabic words (words containing more than one syllable) and read and spell words containing adjacent consonants. E.g. string, milk, brush, scoop etc. Phase 4 requires the children to blend an increasing number of sounds together.
This week we have been focusing on CVCC and CCVC words with long vowel sounds. For example, toast, growl, steep and broom. Although there are no new tricky words this half term, it is vital that your child continues to practice these in their reading books. The Big Cat Collins Phase 4 reading books are a big jump up and focus a lot more on tricky words and more complex sentence structures. All children will move onto these books when they are ready.
As always, please see the downloadable attachment below to practise the phase 4 words and tricky words we have been learning this week.
In Maths, we have been working hard at halving by sharing the 'whole' into two equal groups. We found that both odd and even numbers can be doubled together but only evens can be shared. We used our knowledge our known double facts to investigate different quantities and share them into two equal groups and found that one was always left over if it was odd. The concept that an even number can be halved is true but the language we have been encouraging is ‘can be shared into two equal parts/groups.’ This way halving can be halving one object or sharing an amount into two equal groups. If your child explains why something can/cannot be halved at home, then please upload these to Tapestry. Think about moments that make you say ‘WOW!’ For example, “there are five sweets but two people so we won’t get the same because 5 is an odd number”.
On Tuesday, we had a very exciting Show and Tell! We shared our holiday news and some of the best extreme reading locations we could find. There’s still plenty of time to upload a picture of your child reading in a peculiar place. We love seeing all the extraordinary places you can think of!
On Wednesday, we read a bit more of our story and really thought about what the author is trying to reach us. We discussed how plastic pollution makes us feel and how we can help protect the oceans.
On Thursday, we celebrated World Ocean Day and created posters to make people aware of littering and why we need to recycle.
On Friday, we learnt about an important advocate for the Blue Planet, Sir David Attenborough. We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the warm sunshine on the adventure playground.
Congratulations to our Stars of the Week, Nancy-May and Logan!
Please be aware that celebration assembly is now 9:30am!
Our mystery readers this week were Daniel’s Mum and Harry's Mum. Thank you for coming to share your story with us!
Please speak to your child’s class teacher to put a date in the diary if you would like to be mystery reader. We don’t have many spaces left until the end of the year!
Dormice still need a mystery reader next Friday if anyone would like to volunteer.
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Selwyn and Miss Nicholas
