Week Ending 14/06/24
Date: 9th Jun 2024 @ 5:44pm
Happy Friday! Yesterday school, church and community came together for two wonderful musical concerts at St Helen’s Church. In partnership with Rev Jim and supported by Mark Elder from the Baptist Methodist Church, the children learnt songs with professional vocal coach, Jake culminating in a fantastic performance based upon Christian values. Everyone had an amazing time and performed the songs with great enthusiasm. It was a really fantastic community event and a brilliant way to start off the half term with a bang. Over 300 family members, school governors and friends of the school packed into the church to see the pupils perform two great concerts. It was super to see the whole school involved from Reception to Year 6. Thank you for coming to watch!
Dates for the diary this half term:
Monday 17th June – Sports Day 9-10am (Fingers crossed the weather will hold for us)
Wednesday 10th July- Our Year 6 buddies are coming to watch our End of Year Show dress rehearsal! Again, we would be very grateful for walkers down to the Baptist Methodist Church in the morning and then back again. You may want to grab a coffee in the middle as we don’t want to spoil the show for you! Thank you.
Friday 12th July - International Mud Day celebrations- messy clothes needed!
Wednesday 17th July – End of Year Show at the Baptist Methodist Church starting at 9:15am. If you are available to help either class walk down then let the class teacher know please. We will need walkers from 8:55am ish!
Thursday 18th 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!)
Friday 19th July – Last day of Reception. School closes at 1:30pm.
Sports Day - MONDAY 17th MAY (Weather permitting)
Your child will need to come into school wearing a coloured t-shirt in their house colour. Please ensure your child brings in a labelled water bottle for the event. A member of staff will let family members in through the side gates adjacent to the main office once all the children are inside. Please wait outside drop off to access this.
Little Wandle (Phonics)
This term we continue our Phase 4 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 had explored words of varying sizes from CCV to CCCVC. Although the shorter words may appear easier, many children elongate the final sound which means they write cleeyer rather than clear. Encourage your child to blend (when reading) and segment (when writing) using pure sounds. There is more information here: For parents - Letters and Sounds (littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk)
Due to the iSingPOP rehearsals, we have not been able to have our normal weekly maths lessons. However, we have been consolidating our understanding of using a rekenrek during our Mastering Number sessions. A rekenrek is a counting frame, similar to an abacus. It has ten beads on each row, five white and five red which supports the development of number sense. Children are encouraged to push the beads to the left as a group, rather than one bead at a time, as this moves pupils on from counting in ones and improves their number sense. These are heavily used in Key Stage 1 so we thought we would start the learning now to make sure we can impress our Year 1 teachers in September.
If you would like more information on using rekenreks please follow the link: https://numbots.com/2021/09/15/introducing-rekenreks/
On Monday, we came into the classroom to find a large block of ice with peas frozen in the centre! Attached was a note from the chilly peas that wanted to get warmer. We worked together to come up with a set of instructions to try and get the peas out.
On Tuesday, the children found a wrapped present that had been left on their teachers’ chairs. The message on top told us that inside was an important book for us to read. We explored the front cover and blurb which led us to our new Pathways book, Supertato!
On Wednesday, we continued reading and explored different items on sale at the supermarket. We then played a game of ‘Sticky Hands’. The children really enjoyed reading a series of labels to segment and their partner to blend. They then swapped over cards and read their new card to another friend. We are getting really confident at reading new and unfamiliar words using our impressive phonics knowledge.
On Thursday, we took the opportunity to role play some characters we have met so far. The children came up with great speech bubbles of what each vegetable might say. They then put their marvellous ideas down on paper. In the afternoon, we had a lovely time performing at the iSingPOP concert in front of our loved ones. Thank you for coming!
On Friday, we had our final Sports Day practice in case we had forgotten anty of the races from before half term. In the afternoon, Jack the Dog with the help of Mrs Line taught us about when Jesus met his friends again.
Congratulations to our Stars of the Week, Polly and Oscar!
Our mystery reader this week was Faith’s Mum! Thank you for coming to share your story with us!
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Selwyn and Miss Woodward
