06.10.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

It was lovely to see so many of you at our Phonics Workshop today. We hope you have found it helpful. I have added a link to our Phonics page on the website. This is where you can find out how we say the sound for each letter and how we teach the children to write each letter. The Phonics page can be found here.

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.

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 then bring these books home on Friday)
• Comparing objects by their size, mass or capacity in our Mathematics sessions.
• Working on our Christmas card designs, as we ran out of time last week.
• Writing a sentence again, remembering to use finger spaces. 

Thank you to everyone who has sent in a baby photo. We will need these by Monday 13th 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 THURSDAY.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield and Mrs Fincham

29.09.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

This week we have started our Phonics and Mathematics sessions. We are very proud of how the children have adapted to these new daily sessions. Don't forget the Phonics workshop is taking place on Friday 3rd at 2.30pm. This is an opportunity to find out about how we teach Phonics at Down Hall. (Please don't worry if you are unable to make it, all information given will be shared).

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 handwriting sessions and learning how to use our special lightboxes.

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 13th October. 

There is no drop in next week due to our Phonics Workshop on Friday. 

Have a lovely weekend!

Miss Wakefield and Mrs Fincham

 

22.09.25 - 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 and thinking about how to write the number 10. We also spent time in our Houses on Thursday, electing the House Captains. We were very impressed with how well the children could remember which colour house they belong in.  

Next week looks set to be another busy 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. 

A reminder - we will be holding our Phonics Workshop on Friday 3rd October at 2.30pm. This will be held in our Early Years room. If you are unable to attend then any information will come home afterwards.

This week's drop in session will be on MONDAY. 

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield and Mrs Fincham

15.09.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello Everyone!

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 amazing costumes today, we enjoyed talking about them all.

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 TUESDAY. Please remember, these are an opportunity to come into the class and have a look at what we have been doing. Many thanks to those that came today.

A date for your diaries - we will be holding our Phonics Workshop on Friday 3rd October at 2.30pm. This will be held in our Early Years room. If you are unable to attend then any information will come home afterwards.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield and Mrs Fincham

08.09.25 - 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 and 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 class.
• 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 class a happy place to work and play. (RRS Article 31)
• Taking a class photo 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, please see the newsletter for more information. (Please don't worry if your child doesn't want to dress up).
• Going to Celebration Assembly on Friday to find out who will be our first pupil 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.

Miss Wakefield and Mrs Fincham

Welcome to the 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. This blog is updated each week with information for the following week.

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. 

See you soon!

Miss Wakefield and Mrs Fincham

Thank you everyone!

 

We would just like to thank all of our fabulous families for the lovely gifts, cards, hugs and kind words. We have had a fantastic year together and know that the children are ready for Year 1, where they will continue their learning journey at Down Hall. 

Whilst the children are off to pastures new, they are also taking Mrs O'Connor, Miss Langley and Miss Bridges with them. Miss Wakefield and Mrs Fincham will miss them all, but know that we will still get to hear about their new adventures!

We hope you all have a fantabulous summer and we look forward to seeing you all in September. Please remember the children are due back on Tuesday 2nd September.

Thank you once again for your kindness and for trusting us with your lovely children this year!

With all our love,

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor, Miss Langley, Mrs Fincham and Miss Bridges xxxxx

21.07.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone! 

It is hard to believe that we are coming to the end of our journey together and that soon the summer holidays will be here! Last week we took in the children's reading books and we will be sending work home from Monday. There is not much else to say this week, just a few notices.

Upcoming Date

Tuesday 22nd July              Wellbeing day and whole school picnic

Final day arrangements

Don't forget that on the last day of term, the children can come to school wearing comfy clothes. We are also having our picnic on the field with our families from 12-1pm. The children will need to come in at 1pm for the register, before then going home for the start of the summer holidays!

See you in the morning, 

Love

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley xxx 

14.07.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone! 

We have had another lovely week, although there were some pesky wasps that tried to ruin it. Thankfully, Mrs Jimmick and her wasp traps have worked wonders.  

Upcoming Dates

Saturday 12th July            PTA Summer Fete

Monday 14th July              Reports out

Thursday 17th July            Class swaps - children spending time with their new teacher

Friday 18th July                 PTA disco

Tuesday 22nd July            Wellbeing day and whole school picnic

Reading Books

In preparation for next year, we will be collecting in all reading books by Wednesday 16th July. We would encourage you all to take part in the summer reading scheme at the library during the holidays to help keep up your child's reading during the 6 week break.

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

• Sharing the story "One Year with Kipper" and thinking about our first year at school.
• Thinking about our project and checking if we have answered all of the questions we asked at the start of the project.
• Discussing the story "The Worrysaurus" in our Circle Time session.
• Having our final JIGSAW and Charanga sessions.
• Visiting our new classes on Thursday.

Our final drop in session for the year will be on WEDNESDAY.

Have a lovely weekend, 

Love

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley xxx

07.07.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

What a crazy week of weather! The children have enjoyed our new paddling pool in the garden, apologies for any soggy clothing that has come home yesterday or today! We will be using it for the rest of the term, so please feel free to pop spare clothes in your child's book bag. The children also enjoyed meeting their new teachers on Monday, there are a further 2 visits as detailed on the letter that came home, but also below.

Upcoming Dates

Thursday 10th July            Class swaps - children spending time with their new teacher

Saturday 12th July            PTA Summer Fete

Monday 14th July              Reports out

Thursday 17th July            Class swaps - children spending time with their new teacher

Friday 18th July                 PTA disco

Tuesday 22nd July            Wellbeing day and whole school picnic

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

• Writing about real life superheroes, explaining what they do as we ran out of time last week.
• Sharing and discussing the stories "Tilda Tries Again" and "Finn's Little Fibs" in our Circle Time sessions.
• Solving different problems in our Mathematics sessions.
• Updating our name displays in our classes to show how well we are doing with our writing.
• Using our scissor skills to create some emergency vehicles.
• Visiting our new classes again on Thursday.

This week's drop in will be on MONDAY.

We hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

30.06.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

We've had a lovely week this week, releasing our butterflies into our garden on Tuesday and then showing off our beautiful wildflower garden to our special visitors today. Next week we will have our first visits to our new classes.

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

• Starting to think about some real life superheroes and how they might help us. 
• Sharing and discussing the story "Meesha Makes Friends" in our Circle Time session.
• Exploring mapping in our Mathematics sessions, including trying to make some of our own.
• Working on some difficult patterns in our handwriting sessions, remembering to try and manage it all in one pencil stroke.
• Finding out about our new classes and visiting them for the first time.

Don't forget school is open for all of our families on Thursday from 3.30pm until 5pm. This is an opportunity for you to see some of the lovely work that has been happening this year and for you and your child to visit their new classroom. Therefore, there is no separate drop in session this week. 

We hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

23.06.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

What a lovely Sports Day! We are super proud of all the children for trying their very best at everything today, even though it was a little warm at times! 

Our lovely chicks have left us today, but you can see all about them in this week's newsletter. Next week we will be moving our caterpillars as they have started to change into a chrysalis. 

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

• Sharing the Superhero story about Max and Pinky.
• Writing different sentences in our Phonics sessions, using our sounds to help us. 
• Using positional language in our Mathematics sessions, describing where different things are placed.
• Creating some speech bubbles for the flying superheroes we made last week.
• Reading and discussing the story "Perfectly Norman".

This week there will be a drop in on THURSDAY.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

16.06.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone! 

We have had an exciting week this week, with our caterpillars growing and our eggs arriving. This is really supporting the children in their understanding of life cycles. We also enjoyed our shopping this afternoon and hope that all our gifts and cards will be very much appreciated on Sunday!

Next week is Sports Day. This is on Friday and the children will be on the field all day - it is meant to be warm again too! The children need to wear their team colour, if you are not sure what this is, it is the colour of their reading folders!! (Or just ask!)

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

• Writing about our chickens, describing how they have hatched from eggs and writing about the things they can do.
• Working on patterns in our Mathematics sessions, identifying the unit of repeat and saying how many repeats there are.
• Watching the story "One Odd Day" and making our own odd creatures.
• Sharing and discussing the stories "Ravi's Roar" and "Milo's Monster" in our Circle Time sessions. 
• Creating some flying superheroes, using our hands.
• Enjoying Sports Day on Friday!

Drop in will be on Tuesday.

Have a lovely weekend!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

09.06.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone! 

We have had a fantastic day at Barleylands today, the children were fabulous and we were very lucky with the weather! Next week's newsletter is going to be all about Barleylands, so look out for some super photos of our day!

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

• Writing about Jack Jack, using some of our ideas from the word bank we created last week.  
• Discussing new Vocabulary Ninja words. 
• Working on Odd and Even numbers and Doubling in our Mathematics sessions.
• Watching the story "One Odd Day" and making our own odd creatures.
• Sharing and discussing the story "Ruby's Worry" in our Circle Time session. 
• Making some special cards to take home on Friday.

Drop in will be on Thursday.

Have a lovely weekend!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

02.06.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

We hope you have all had a lovely half term. We will be starting our new project next week, so we are looking forward to seeing all of the children's Superhero ideas! If you have misplaced the sheets, they can be found on the Early Years part of the school website, or by clicking here.

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

• Sharing our Half Term news and our ideas for our new project.
• Watching and discussing the Disney short "Jack-Jack Attack".
• Thinking about the main character in the film and what they were like, working in a group to describe Jack Jack.
• Sharing and grouping numbers of things, as we start to learn about division.
• Creating mini superhero puppets, by carefully cutting them out.
• Having our class photos taken on Thursday.
• Enjoying our whole school trip to Barleylands on Friday.

There is no drop in this week - drop in sessions will start again the following week.

See you in the morning!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

19.05.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

With just one week left of this term, time certainly seems to be flying. The children have spent this week learning about a range of minibeasts and we will continue this next week, when we finish the book "Mad About Minibeasts". Mrs O'Connor will also be sharing her knowledge about Bees. 

Miss Wakefield is off to the Isle of Wight next week, on the Year 6 residential, the lovely Snowdrops will be fine as the rest of the EYFS team will still be here! 

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

• Finishing reading the poems in the book "Mad About Minibeasts".
• Learning all about Bees with Mrs O'Connor. 
• Finishing our block on shape in our Mathematics sessions.
• Checking that we have answered all the questions posed by the children at the start of our Minibeast project and using our Phonics skills to write the answers together.
• Enjoying a Wellbeing day on Friday, as it will be the last day of this term! 

There is no drop in this week. 

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

12.05.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

It has been a crazy week here, we've packed in SO much into our 4 days. We are very proud of how respectful the children were during our silence for VE Day yesterday and it was lovely to see lots of you at Drop In today.

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

• Sharing the book "Mad About Minibeasts!" which is full of rhymes about different minibeasts.
• Learning some facts about some of those minibeasts like snails, slugs and ants.
• Listening to the Aesop Fable about the Ants and the Grasshopper and thinking about how they behaved.
• Updating our name displays in our classrooms to show how fabulous our writing is.
• Starting our next block in Mathematics sessions, working on 2D shapes.
• Discussing the book "Kipper's Monster" in our Circle Time session.

The last drop in session for this half term will be on MONDAY. 

Have a lovely weekend!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

05.05.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

The children all looked amazing in their rock star outfits today and we have enjoyed a fun packed mathematical day! 

As the weather is warmer, please do send your child in with a sun hat and sun cream. Could we please ask that sun cream has been applied before the children come to school though, as it can take a very long time to help all the children apply it.

We are looking forward to next week, when we will be very busy again, we will be:

• Sharing and discussing the story "The Very Busy Spider", which is another story by Eric Carle.
• Reading and ordering instructions to make our own spiders.
• Searching for webs and spiders in our garden and learning how and why spiders make webs.
• Creating some spider fridge magnets and then using them to carry out a science experiment.
• Finishing our ladybirds from last week as we ran out of time.
• Commemorating the 80th anniversary of VE Day on Thursday, by wearing red, white and blue to school and learning a little bit about it all.

This week's drop in will be on FRIDAY.

Have a lovely weekend.

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

28.04.25 - This coming week in Early Years

 Hello everyone!

We have had a very busy first week back! The children were fabulous during their first swimming session and Mr Attfield was very impressed. The children have been enjoying learning about caterpillars and butterflies. The children all made their very own caterpillar and sequenced the story "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". We are excitedly awaiting the arrival of some real caterpillars too, so that we can watch them grow and change. A huge thank you to all of you who have helped your children complete their minibeast ideas sheet, we have loved looking through these and will continue to do so next week. 

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

• Sharing another book by Eric Carle, this time it is all about a bad-tempered ladybird.
• Retelling the story "The Bad-Tempered Ladybird and thinking about how the ladybird behaved and whether this was the right thing to do, sharing our ideas during Circle Time.
• Watching a film showing the life cycle of a ladybird.
• Labelling the different parts of a ladybird.
• Learning about time, making different o'clock times, just like those in the story.
• Making our very own ladybirds using pebbles.
• Having fun on our Times Tables Rockstar Day! (Friday 2nd - details in the newsletter)

As we are now in the Summer Term, we will be starting to get the children ready for their move into Key Stage 1. With this is mind, it is time for them to start walking round to Early Years by themselves and saying goodbye to you at the gate. We have already got a number of children who do this and we are very proud of their independence. We would ask that from Monday you start to let your child walk to Early Years by themselves. We realise, that depending on which gate you use, some children have further to walk than others. If you come in via the Brooklyn Drive or Torquay Close gates please start by walking part of the way with your child, allowing them to do the final bit by themselves. It is often the parents that find this the most difficult, your children are used to navigating their way from one end of school to the other on a daily basis and will be fine. We also appreciate that there are times when you might need to talk to us about something, please remember that we do check our Class Dojo on a daily basis so messages can always be sent there, shared to the adult on the main school gates or indeed saved for home time.

Drop in sessions are starting back up again and this week it will take place on THURSDAY. 

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

21.04.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

We hope you have all had a lovely Easter break. We are looking forward to seeing the children again to start the Summer term and hearing all about their Easter holidays. We would be really grateful if the children could bring in their sheets about our Minibeasts project this coming week. If you are unable to find them, then they can also be found here.

On to our new learning for this coming week:

• Sharing the story "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle.
• Watching a film version of the story and comparing it to the book.
• Sequencing the events in the story.
• Creating our own repeating pattern caterpillars, printing using corks.
• Starting our new units in JIGSAW and Charanga.
• Playing a new Circle Time game, trying to pass bells around our circle without them making a sound!
• Starting our swimming lessons on Wednesday!

See you all in the morning!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley