20.01.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

The children enjoyed creating their own boats this week and then testing them to see how successful they would be in water! We have also created a fabulous display about the book "Lost and Found", which features some very cute penguins! You will be able to see this at our next drop in. 

This coming week we will be:

• Sharing and discussing the story "How To Catch A Star". This was Oliver Jeffers' first book and also the first story about the Boy.
• Adding labels to one of the illustrations from the book.
• Starting Phase 4 in our Phonics sessions.
• Learning about capacity in our Mathematics sessions, comparing different containers. 
• Painting our own moose, thinking about the way Oliver Jeffers drew them in his book "This Moose Belongs To Me".

Drop in this week will be on THURSDAY.

We hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

13.01.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

Many thanks for all of the children's sheets about our new project, we made a great start on it this week and are looking forward to continuing to learn more about the Boy and the Penguin next week. We would love to see any of the sheets that have not come in yet, as it is lovely to include the children's ideas, so please can any outstanding ones come in next week.

This coming week we will be:

• Sharing and discussing the story "Up and Down", which is another story about the Boy and the Penguin.
• Writing some descriptions of the Boy and the Penguin.
• Continuing our work on friendships in our Circle Time sessions, thinking about what we enjoy doing with our friends. 
• Looking at globes and maps of the world to find the South Pole and comparing it to Rayleigh.
• Finding 1 more or 1 less in our Mathematics sessions.
• Starting our "Lost and Found" display for the school corridor by creating some penguins.

Our drop in sessions will restart again this week and the first one will be on TUESDAY.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

06.01.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

We hope you have all had a lovely Christmas break. We look forward to hearing all the children's news tomorrow.

This week we will starting our new project "Lost and Found" and will be:

• Watching and listening to the story "Lost and Found".
• Learning about the author Oliver Jeffers who wrote and illustrated the story "Lost and Found".
• Sequencing events from the story, using pictures from the film and then creating our own song to tell the story of the Boy and the Penguin.
• Continuing with our Anima Phonics sessions and starting our reading sessions again.
• Making our own repeating pattern umbrellas like the one belonging to the penguin.

See you all in the morning!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

Happy Christmas!

 

Hello everyone, 

We hope you all enjoyed our Nativity performance this morning, we are SO, SO proud of the children and how hard they have worked to put it all together. 

We also wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of you for your support this term and for the lovely Christmas cards and gifts we have received. You have been very kind and we are very appreciative.  

After Christmas we will start our new project "Lost and Found". There is a project letter which will give you a little more information and there is also a sheet for the children to complete, to give us their ideas for this project. These were sent home yesterday and can be found in your child's folder. We would be very grateful if you would complete this with your child as we use the children's ideas to inform our future planning. The letters have also been added to the Early Years part of the website, under the "Our Projects" tab.

We have also sent home our 8 Rainbow Words. These are for using at home, the children have been introduced to all of these words this term and they are simply there as a reminder for them. As they are Rainbow Words, we do not expect the children to use their sounds to read them, instead to recall them from memory.

The children also have a reading book - this is one that they haven't read in class, but should be able to use their sounds to read.

Finally, we would like to wish you all a wonderful Christmas and a Happy Healthy New Year! We look forward to seeing you all on Tuesday 7th January 2025, ready to start our next learning adventures!
With love
The Early Years Team xxx

16.12.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

WOW!! We have had a busy, busy time in Early Years. We had a fantabulous time at the Panto on Tuesday - we won't mention the journey home though! We've also had Mrs Morgan in playing some of her instruments and playing some Christmas carols. The children looked fantastic in their Christmas Jumpers and we all enjoyed the Christmas lunch. Finally, we have had an amazing day today, with a very special visitor in school along with his reindeer, followed by our Christmas shopping afternoon! We definitely need the weekend to recover before our last week of the term!

On to our learning for next week, we will be:

• Watching the Key Stage 1 children perform their Christmas production on Monday.
• Finishing our Christmas cards and calendars ready to take them home to our families on Friday.
• Playing the different games on Phonics Play.
• Creating our own Fairy Light patterns and completing some Christmas counting activities in our Mathematics sessions.
• Performing our Nativity to the rest of the school on Thursday.
• Performing our Nativity to our families on Friday.

For the performance on Friday, please make your way round to the front of the school as we will be unable open all the gates. You will be able to enter the hall via the double doors in the car park. The PTA will be offering teas and coffees and there will also be a collection for the school charity at the end of the performance - so please bring along some pennies!

As Friday is the last day of term, it will also be a wellbeing day, so the children can come to school in comfy clothes - they will still be having PE and will also need to pop on their nativity costume, so please consider this when the children are picking their outfits!

Don't forget that school is also finishing at 2pm on Friday.

We are looking forward to sharing our Nativity with you all! Have a lovely weekend.

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

09.12.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

We have had a lovely week! We were SO proud of all of the children during our visit to St Michael's for our Christingle Service.

The children have now picked their parts for our Nativity and we will be working hard on that next week. The costumes are all sorted and from next week some of the children will be bringing home some words to learn and we would be very grateful if you could support them with this.

Upcoming Events

• Tuesday 10th December - Early Years trip to the Panto 
• Thursday 12th December - Christmas Jumper Day and Christmas lunch
• Friday 13th December - PTA Christmas Shopping Day (letter came home this week)
• Friday 20th December - Early Years Nativity performance

Christmas Jumper Day - Thursday 12th December

On this day, the children can wear their fabulous festive jumpers and make a £1 donation which goes to our continued sponsorship of Khadiza. The charity Action Aid use this money to ensure that Khadiza and the other children in her community enjoy their right to an education, just like all of us at Down Hall! (Articles 28 & 29)

On to our learning for next week, we will be:

• Practising our Nativity, singing the songs and learning our words.
• Starting to make our own Christmas cards and calendars for our families.
• Updating our name display in the classrooms to show how our writing is improving.
• Working on our blending and segmenting of 3 phoneme words. 
• Wearing our Christmas jumpers for Christmas Jumper day on Thursday and talking about Khadiza and enjoying Christmas Dinner together.

Our last drop in for this year will be on THURSDAY.

Wishing you a lovely weekend!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

02.12.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

Over the last 2 weeks, the children have been busy creating some lovely robins for the school's tree at the Christmas Tree Festival at Holy Trinity Church. The tree will be on display over this weekend, so if you are in Rayleigh and have the time, please do pop in and visit. The church is full of trees from lots of local schools and organisations and looks wonderful. (It would be great if you could vote for our tree if you do manage to visit too!)

Upcoming Events

• Wednesday 4th December - Early Years Christingle Service
• Friday 6th December - PTA Movie Night (letter came home last week)
• Tuesday 10th December - Early Years trip to the Panto
• Thursday 12th December - Christmas Jumper Day and Christmas lunch
• Friday 13th December - PTA Christmas Shopping Day (letter came home this week)
• Friday 20th December - Early Years Nativity performance

 On to our learning for next week, we will be:

• Talking about the start of Advent and our Advent calendar.
• Talking about different Christmas customs from around the world with our interactive Advent calendar.
• Decorating our classroom and putting up our Christmas tree in our Home Corner.
• Learning some of the songs for our Nativity.
• Continuing to learn some digraphs in our Phonics sessions.
• Learning about 4 sided shapes in our Mathematic sessions.
• Visiting St Michael's church on Wednesday and taking part in a Christingle Service.

Drop in this week will be on THURSDAY.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

25.11.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

It was lovely to see the Snowdrop parents at the Parent/Teacher consultations this week. A new date for Buttercup parents will be sent out as soon as it has been rescheduled and we are very appreciative of your understanding regarding this. 

Upcoming Events

As we approach a busy time of year there is an increasing number of events coming up. We thought it might be helpful if we added them to the blog each week. Further information is always in the newsletter.

• Wednesday 4th December - Early Years Christingle Service
• Friday 6th December - PTA Movie Night
• Tuesday 10th December - Early years trip to the Panto
• Thursday 12th December - Christmas Jumper Day and Christmas lunch
• Friday 13th December - PTA Christmas Shopping Day
• Friday 20th December - Early Years Nativity performance

On to our learning for next week, we will be:

• Reading the story "Each Peach Pear Plum" and trying to identify all the different nursery rhyme and story book characters.
• Identifying the rhyming words in our story and making lists of rhyming words.
• Trying to learn the rhyme in the book, working on our memory skills!
• Continuing our work about the numbers 4 and 5 in our Mathematics sessions; by finding 1 more or 1 less than them.
• Creating our own picnic scene, like the one in the story, by carefully cutting out story book characters.

This week's drop in will be on TUESDAY.

We hope you have a lovely weekend. 

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

18.11.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone! 

Firstly, we just wanted to say how proud we were of the children on Monday when we all sat for the silence as part of our work about Remembrance. The children wore their poppies with pride. 

Secondly, thank you all for your kind donations for Children in Need today. The children looked fabulous in their bright clothes!

Now on to our learning for next week, we will be:

• Reading different versions of the story "Little Red Riding Hood" and talking about the different characters.
• Discussing whether Red Riding Hood did the right thing during our Circle Time.
• Continuing to learn the Phase 3 sounds in our Phonics sessions, completing the letters of the alphabet.
• Working on Number again in our Mathematics sessions, working with numbers to 5.
• Using our sounds to write a shopping list for Red Riding Hood.
• Carefully weaving paper strips, remembering the pattern of over, under, over, under, to create a basket effect.

There will be no drop in this week due to the Parent/Teacher consultations on Tuesday and Wednesday. These meetings will take place in the hall, please come into school via the entrance at the school office. 

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

11.11.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

We have had a very busy 4 days!! Today the children will be bringing home the QR code for their school photo. If your child has a sibling in school then this code will also allow you to see the sibling photos. We have been really impressed with the children's recall of their sounds this week too - it has made us SO happy! Thank you to all of you for your support at home.

Now on to our learning for this coming week, we will be:

• Reading different versions of this week's story, "The Three Little Pigs".
• Building houses using different construction materials and then testing them against a big bad wolf!
• Starting Phase 3 in our Phonics sessions.
• Learning about some 2D shapes in our Mathematics sessions and going on a shape hunt to find them in our classrooms.
• Watching the CBeebies film "Poppies" and observing the 2 minute silence on Monday.

This week we will resume our drop in sessions after school. The drop in this week will be on MONDAY.

Have a lovely weekend, 

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

04.11.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone! 

We hope you have all had a lovely half term. We are looking forward to seeing the children again tomorrow and look forward to hearing all about what they have been doing during the break.

So here are our plans for the coming week, when we will be starting our new project with the traditional tale "Goldilocks and the Three Bears".

We will be:

• Reading different versions of the Goldilocks story.
• Creating some puppets of Goldilocks and the Bears to help us retell the story in our own words.
• Thinking about how to find 1 more and 1 less in our Mathematics sessions.
• Having a review week in our Phonics sessions, before we start on Phase 3.
• Continuing with our Start-Bee handwriting sessions, working on our patterns.
• Creating some fabulous firework pictures using different media.
• Creating some poppies for Remembrance, which we will then wear next Monday.

Drop in sessions will start again next week.

See you in the morning!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

Happy October Half Term!

 

We have reached the end of the children's first half term at Down Hall! We are SO proud of them all and all of their achievements and we hope you feel the same. This is just a quick blog to wish you all a lovely half term and to also explain the different things that have come home with the children today and their half term homework.

The important things for half term are:

1. Half Term homework - now that the weather is starting to turn a little colder it is taking us lots of time to get ready for our outside time. We would be very grateful if you could spend a little bit of the holiday encouraging your child to put on their coat and try to do it up by themselves. We would love to see any of the children giving it a go, so please feel free to send us any photos using ClassDojo.
2. In your child's bag is their Christmas card design and the letter explaining the process. The deadline for the children's art work to be returned is Tuesday 5th November.
3. In your child's bag is a project letter telling you about our next project "Once Upon a Time" which we start after half term. This letter is also on our website and can be found here.

There will be a blog on Sunday 3rd November to let you know about our first week back. Don't forget the children return to school on Tuesday 5th November due to our INSET day. 

Have a lovely break!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

21.10.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

We had a fabulous time on Wednesday, during World Food Day. The children iced biscuits, made pizzas, tried different foods and had lots of fun! We hope that many of you managed to come and taste some of the delicious food for yourselves after school that day. 
During the day, the children also learnt about Goal 2 of the Sustainable Development Goals - Zero Hunger - and how the small actions we can all take at a local level can make a big difference! On this note, we are collecting food for Harvest, so if you feel able to contribute please do send in some food for our collection. 

We have continued our reading sessions this week and would like to remind everyone that it would be really helpful if the books could remain in the coloured wallets and be in the children's bags everyday, but particularly on a THURSDAY. (This is a change from what was written in last week's blog). Thank you so much for all of your support with the children's reading, it was lovely to read all the lovely comments in their diaries.

On to our learning for this coming week, we will be:

• Sharing the story "Pumpkin Soup" about the Cat, the Duck and the Squirrel and talking about how they behaved towards each other in the story.
• Talking about pumpkins, using our different senses.
• Seeing how many seeds there are inside a pumpkin and counting them carefully.
• Making pumpkin soup, just like the characters in the story.
• Going on an Autumn walk around the school grounds to collect as many different coloured leaves as possible. (We ran out of time for this, this week!)
• Bringing home our Christmas card designs on Friday.

Drop in this week will be on TUESDAY.

Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

14.10.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

We have had another busy week, with our Reading sessions starting this week. The children have brought home their reading book and diary today. The books are those which the children have read during the week in school. Please write in the diary to let us know how the reading is going at home. The books will be changed every Friday. It is VERY IMPORTANT that the children have their books in their bags every day and particularly on a Friday so they can get swapped. Please use the coloured wallet for these books to try and keep them safe from water bottle spillages!

Now on to our learning for the coming week, we will be:

• Continuing our daily Phonics sessions, learning the next 4 sounds and the next Rainbow word.
• Thinking about patterns in our Mathematics sessions.
• Carefully drawing around a template and then cutting out some Autumn leaves using different coloured paper.
• Going on an Autumn walk around our school grounds, seeing how many different coloured leaves we can find.
• Taking part in World Food Day on Wednesday.
• Talking about how we have changed since we were a baby. Many thanks to everyone who has sent in a baby photo so far. PLEASE send in a photo by Monday, this can be done via ClassDojo if that is easier. 

There is no drop in this week, instead all parents are invited to come into school on Wednesday to sample some of the food from World Food Day.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

 

07.10.24 - This week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

This week has seen our second bundle of 10, meaning we have passed day 20! It is good to reflect on how much your children have already done in such a short time in school - we are very proud of how well they have adapted to our Phonics and name writing sessions and are excited for our Reading sessions that will start next week.

This week, there is a whole school message from Mrs Witherall:

Science Day! Thursday 10th October

On Thursday next week, we have invited Sublime Science to Down Hall to provide all the children with a day of scientific experiments. In light of this, could we please ask that your children come into school wearing clothes that you don't mind getting a little messy.

Should you wish to embrace your little scientist further at home, then click on the link below and this will take you to their website, where you can access 101 free experiment ideas.

Sublime Science

Now on to our learning for the coming week, we will be:

• Sharing the story "A Book of People Like Me" and thinking about things that we like and things that we don't like. 
• Continuing our daily Phonics sessions, learning the next 4 sounds and our first Rainbow word.
• Starting our Reading sessions this week, sharing books linked to our Anima Phonics sounds. (The children will bring these books home next Friday)
• Continuing our with Start-Bee sessions and trying to remember the words to the Pencil Grip song.
• Taking part in the Sublime Science day on Thursday and carrying out our own investigations. 

Thank you to everyone who has sent in a baby photo. We will need these by Monday 14th October. Please can the children either bring in a photo OR can 1 be sent in via ClassDojo for us to print out in school. 

Drop in this week will be on MONDAY.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

30.09.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

Thank you to everyone who was able to come to our Phonics Workshop today. If you were unable to attend, your child will bring home the information pack on Monday. A link to the Phonics page on the school website can also be found here. The children have also brought home their folders and sounds bag, please can the folder stay in their book bag as we will add things to it each week. The zippy wallet sound bag (which inside the folder) needs to stay at home!

On to our learning for the coming week, we will be:

• Reading another story about the Ten in the Bed characters, this time they are playing Hide and Seek.
• Continuing our Phonics sessions, learning the next 4 sounds. 
• Using our teddy bear puppets that we made last week to play a "Where's the Bear?" game.
• Starting to create our Christmas card design, these will come home when finished for you to see and order (should you decide to).
• Starting our Start-Bee handwriting sessions and learning a song about how to hold our pencils. 

In two weeks time, we will be looking at how we have changed since being a baby. It would be lovely if the children could either bring in a baby photo OR for 1 to be sent in via ClassDojo for us to print out in school. We will need them by Monday 14th October. 

This week's drop in will be on TUESDAY.

Have a lovely weekend!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

 

23.09.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

We have reached double digits for our days in school and we have discussed how we get to make a 10 bundle with our lollysticks. The children have also been having a go at writing our daily number, taking turns to have a try. 

On to our learning for next week, we will be:

• Reading and sharing the story "Ten in the Bed" and singing the number rhyme with the same name.
• Trying to recall all the different parts of a book during our story sessions.
• Starting our Phonics sessions, learning the first 4 sounds. 
• Creating some lolly stick teddy bear puppets which we will need for some upcoming learning.
• Matching, sorting and comparing objects in our Mathematics sessions. 

Don't forget our Phonics Workshop is on Friday at 2.30pm. We hope lots of you will be able to come and see how we will teach your child to read and write. 

There is no drop in this week, due to the Phonics Workshop taking place. 

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

16.09.24 - This coming week in Early Years

WOW! What a busy week! The children are probably very tired today, as are we, but we are so proud of how they have coped during their first full week! 😊 It was also lovely to see so many of you at our first drop in session too, we hope you enjoyed having a look around the classes and seeing the children's lovely work.

On to our learning for next week, we will be:

• Sharing some more stories together and talking about what happens in them, including the story "Titch".
• Thinking about the members of Titch's family and talking about our own families.
• Learning about a famous family, our Royal Family, finding out about King Charles and his family.
• Learning about some more of the characters from Anima Phonics.
• Playing some more games with our namecards.
• Continuing to sing our "How Many Days" song and finding out what happens when we get to 10 days.
• Singing number rhymes, including the silly one about the monkeys and the crocodile!

Our drop-in will take place on THURSDAY.

A reminder of a date for your diaries - we will be holding our Phonics Workshop on Friday 27th September at 2.30pm. Please note this date was on the list of dates shared on our website, but the time had not been given.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

09.09.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

We have had a lovely first 2 days in Early Years, getting to know all of the children and having fun together. The children have also enjoyed their first assembly and PE session today.

It was lovely to meet so many of you earlier this week for our parent/teacher meetings, if you did not manage to come to one of these, then please do ask and we can always see you one day after school. Thank you for all of the waterproofs, wellies and completed packs that have already come in. Please feel free to send any outstanding ones in next week.

We are excited for our first full week with the children, so on to our learning for this coming week, we will be:

• Sharing the story "Starting School" and thinking about all the things that we have done in our new classes.
• Finding out about different areas around school - exploring the ladybird garden, field and adventure playground.
• Drawing pictures of ourselves for our classroom display.
• Talking about how we can work together to make our classes a happy place to work and play. (RRS Article 31)
• Taking class photos for the Echo New Starters supplement. If you do not want your child in this photograph please let us know.
• Joining in with the Roald Dahl day on Friday.
• Going to Celebration Assembly on Friday to find out who will be our first pupils of the week.

We will be having our first drop in session on FRIDAY.

Please remember we are only ever a message away, please use Class Dojo to send us any queries or messages.

We hope you all have a lovely weekend, don't forget it is the PTA Fete from 1pm until 5pm tomorrow! 

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

Welcome to our Early Years Blog

Welcome to our Early Years Blog, we hope you will find it helpful as your child starts their life at Down Hall Primary School.

We are looking forward to meeting you all this week for our parent/teacher meetings. Please contact the school office if you have not made an appointment and they will be able to help, or alternatively email us using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com. 

See you soon!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley