Week Ending 14/03/25
Date: 11th Mar 2025 @ 4:35pm
Happy Friday and hello or should I say Ahoy there from our Pirate crew! It's been a busy week of discovering our new book for this half term called 'The Pirates Are Coming'. Through the next few weeks the children will learn everything there is to know about the life of a pirate by making ships, writing messages in bottles, sailing the seven seas and the treasures there are to uncover. Our Dormice children are already enjoying their first week and have found the treasure chest that was hidden deep in the grounds of the school. This has inspired so much of our choosing as the children have created their own pirates, written messages to each other on scrolls (tea-stained paper) and written lists of what treasures they would put in their own chest.
Spring Term Dates
- Friday 21st March - Comic Relief (Come dressed as a decade of your choice - 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s,
- Monday 31st March - Trip to Crown Bank Quarry Nature Reserve. Parent volunteers still needed if you're available!
- Wednesday 2ndApril – Dormice class assembly (9am – school hall)
Mother's Day Shop
Next Tuesday and Wednesday, the PTA will be running the annual Mother's Day Shop where your child can purchase something from the selection of gifts available. Each item will be carefully gift wrapped. If you would like your child to buy something, please send their money into school in labelled envelope. We suggest no more than £5. Please hand this to a member of staff on the doors. Please only bring money on your allocated day (see below).
Tuesday - KS2 and their siblings
Wednesday - KS1 and EYFS
Comic Relief
Next Friday (21st March) is Comic Relief and we will be turning RED to celebrate Red Nose Day and we are asking you either come dressed in red or as a decade of your choice. Please see above. Cash donations can also be collected on the door at drop off by a member of the EYFS team.
Easter Bonnet Competition
It is that lovely time of year when the first signs of spring are upon us and Easter! This year on Friday 25th April will be having an Easter hat/bonnet competition for the children in Key Stage One and EYFS. Please could you support your child in designing and making an Easter hat or bonnet. Your hat could be made from card, paper, or use a baseball cap/sunhat/woolly hat as a base. Then allow your child to decide what they would like on their hat, it could be flowers, signs of new life such as Lambs, chicks and chocolate eggs. It can be anything linked to Easter. Please send the hat in with your child on Friday 25th, we look forward to seeing all the wonderful hats and bonnets! Pictures of the parade will be on Twitter and Tapestry. We will send out a reminder on the first day back. An email containing more details will be sent out shortly.
Little Wandle (Phonics)
Please see the downloadable attachment below to practise the sounds/words we have been learning this week. Please can you have a quick look for any Little Wandle books you may have lying around at home. We seem to be missing a couple from a few sets of books. Thank you.
In Maths, we met Numberblock 'Ten'! We have been using the counting stick to reinforce counting forwards and backwards to ten, and starting from different points. To consolidate this, we sang the song Ten Green Bottles' which show that as each bottle falls the number gets one smaller each time. This led us to playing some riddles using the language of 'one less'. Less is a concept that children find more challenging than 'more' so please do keep consolidating this at home. We made a numberline and I pulled a clue of the bag '3 is one less than....' with the children having to copy the stem sentence and fill in the blank. This also works for 'I am one less than...' and the children to complete the answer. If you notice your child doing some marvellous maths counting with more and less please upload to Tapestry for us to celebrate!
On Monday, we came into find sand and big boot prints left in the orangery with a map which including compass marks. We discussed using the phrase ‘Never Eat Shredded Wheat’ to help us remember the four compass points. We then used real compasses during our choosing time to direct each other around the classroom. We now have lots of little pirates that make up our Reception crew.
On Tuesday, we predicted what the story might be about. We used our comprehension skills from our reading practice sessions to explain how we knew using the clues from the front cover. We then discussed what we already knew about Pirates. Arrrrrrr!
On Wednesday, we had to decode some clues left by the pirates and use the map to navigate where the treasure was buried. We explored what was inside and found out that this introduced us to our new book ‘The Pirates Are Coming’. Inside were coins, jewels, boots, an eye patch, a map, some sand, shells and a pirate hat! We then thought about what was precious to us and what we would include in our chest if we were a pirate.
On Thursday, Miss S got out the musical instruments! We listened to Michael Rosen retell his story 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'. We worked together to represent the certain sounds in the book with the instruments we had in front of us. We thought about dynamics and how we would play our instruments loudly or quietly. Miss S then reread the story and each group had to join in with playing their musical instrument at the correct point. Noisy but certainly a memorable lesson! I was so impressed I gave the class another number on the board (they'll be able to tell you what this means).
On Friday, we learnt about the Islam festival, Ramadan. We talked about how Muslims celebrate this special time by fasting, praying and giving to charity. We also practised our Three Pigs show - the children are so excited to show you!
Well done to our Star of the Week, Freddie!
Our mystery reader this week was Rose V's Mum. Thank you for coming to share a story with us!
We hope you have a lovely weekend!
Miss Selwyn
