09.03.26 - This week in Early Years

Hello!

The children looked amazing yesterday, in their World Book day costumes and the weather meant that the whole school was able to spend time reading on the field together. What a difference a little bit of sun can bring! 

We have also enjoyed finishing off lots of robots this week, these are on display in the corridor, so you can always see them during a drop in session. There are also lots of photographs in the corridors, showing the children's learning journey. It shows what a busy time they have been having.

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

          

• Sharing the story "Dinosaur Roar!", this is another rhyming book so we will be trying to find all of the rhyming words. 
• Writing a caption to go along with one of the pictures from "Dinosaur Roar!", using describing words to match the picture. 
• Continuing with our "Building 9 and 10" block in Mathematics, working on finding 1 more and 1 less than different numbers.
• Playing our new Circle Time game again, talking about what makes Trevor Triceratops happy, sad or cross.
• Enjoying Science Day on Thursday. There will be NO Forest School session as it is Science Day BUT the children will need to come in clothes that they can get mucky, due to our experiments. (As mentioned in today's newsletter).

Drop in this week will be on FRIDAY.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs Fincham and Miss Goddard

02.03.26 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello Everybody!

Thank you so much to all of you who worked with your child to discuss their ideas for our latest project. We have been enjoying reading their different ideas and finding out what they want to know about dinosaurs. Please don't worry if you've not had the chance to do this with your child, we are more than happy for them to come in next week. If you have mislaid your sheet please ask and we can pop another one in your child's bag or alternatively they are on our pages on the website. (A link was in last week's blog).

Next week is a busy week in school as the children will have their height and weight checks on Wednesday and it is World Book Day on Thursday. (Further information is below).

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

• Sharing the book Bumpus Jumpus Dinosaurumpus! 
• Listening out for and writing a list of all the rhyming words in this week's text and learning how to play some rhyming games.
• Writing numbers to 10 in our Maths books, learning how to use one square for one digit.
• Continuing to learn about consecutive consonants in our Phonics sessions, blending and segmenting words with 4 sounds. 
• Moving onto the phase "Building 9 and 10" in our Mathematics sessions. This week we will be working on our careful counting.
• Creating a special World Book Day bookmark and enjoying the day together on Thursday.
• Finishing the lovely robots, which we started last week and adding them to our display.

Now a message about World Book Day from Miss Harvey:

   

World Book Day   
Thursday 5th March

This year is the National Year of Reading, so we will be celebrating World Book Day for the whole day. Please come in wearing a costume to show your favourite book character. If you do not want to dress up, you can bring your favourite book in or a prop to give us a clue.
Here is a competition you can take part in: 
World Book Day competition
Email publicity@scholastic.co.uk with the header WBD NORA NIGHTSKY explaining why you want to win. The competition closes on the 15th April.

Our drop in this week will be on FRIDAY.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs Fincham and Miss Goddard

23.02.26 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello!

We hope you have all had a fabulous half term! We are looking forward to welcoming the children back tomorrow, for our next learning adventure! We are also looking forward to finding out their ideas for our new project "Dinosaurs". If you are unable to find the letters that came home before half term, then copies of them can be found here on the Early Years section of the website. 

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

• Sharing Harry and the Dinosaurs stories. We will be reading several of these, including "Harry and the Dinosaurs go to School" and "Harry and the Robots".
• Discussing the story "Harry and the Robots" and thinking about the ways we take care of each other.
• Labelling different parts of one of Harry's robots, using our sounds to help spell the words we need to write.
• Thinking about the days of the week and ordering and sequencing periods of time in our Mathematics sessions.
• Starting our next JIGSAW puzzle piece for PSHE - "Healthy Me".
• Enjoying our next Forest School session on Thursday.

Our drop in session this week will be on THURSDAY.

See you in the morning!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

Happy February Half Term!

Hello everyone!

We had a fantastic time yesterday, celebrating our 100th day in school. We are SO proud of the children and how much they have achieved in those 100 days. 

Next half term, we will start our next project "Dinosaurs". 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 letters can be found in your child's reading folder. We would be very grateful if you could complete this with your child as we use the children's ideas to inform our future planning. The letters have also bee added to the Early Years part of the school website, under the "Our Projects" tab. 

The next blog will be on Monday 23rd February to let you know about our first week back. Don't forget the children return to school on Tuesday 24th February due to our INSET day. 

Have a lovely break!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs Fincham and Miss Goddard

09.02.26 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

This coming Thursday is going to be a very exciting day as it will mark 100 days since we started school! Mrs Wood has said we can have a little party to celebrate - we are even getting a special cake! As it is such a special day, the children do not need to wear uniform, they can come in party clothes or comfy clothes (which ever they prefer). 

The new Luna Year begins on Tuesday 17th February, so we will be learning about this celebration during our learning this week, we will be:

• Learning about Chinese New Year. This year it is the year of the Horse.
• Sharing the story "The Great Race" to find out all about the Chinese Zodiac and how each year is named after an animal.
• Finding out about how Chinese New Year is celebrated and also watching some Dragon dancing.
• Comparing objects by their length in our Mathematics sessions.
• Creating some colourful scratch art dragons.
• Celebrating 100 days in school on Thursday!
• Enjoying our Wellbeing day on Friday - the children do not need to wear their uniform on this day, but will still have PE, so please can they wear suitable clothing.

This week's drop in will be on MONDAY.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs Fincham and Miss Goddard

02.02.26 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

Thank you for all the fantastic matchboxes this week - we have loved seeing how many little things you and your children have managed to cram inside! We still have lots to go through, so can't announce a winner yet, so there is still this weekend if you want to have a go.

We hope you have found the little video about reading helpful. (It is on the ClassDojo if you missed it). Please always let us know if there is anything else like this that you would like us to cover.

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

• Sharing the story "Stuck", this is a very silly story about a little boy called Floyd and how his kite got stuck in a tree.
• Finding out about odd and even numbers and sorting our Numicon tiles in our Mathematics sessions. 
• Creating doubles of different numbers, using paint.
• Sharing the book "How Long is a Whale?" and using it to help us compare different sea animals by their length.
• Writing some facts about Polar animals.
• Learning about Shackleton and other famous Polar explorers.
• Painting some Polar animals, to add to our fabulous penguins from last week.
• Enjoying another Forest School session on Thursday.

Drop in this week will be on MONDAY.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs Fincham and Miss Goddard 

26.01.26 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone,

Today the children have brought home a little matchbox. Please help your child fill the matchbox with as many different items as possible. (Please see the note that came home for more details). Next week, we will spend time looking at any filled matchboxes and see how many items each one holds. 

We have now learnt all of our Phase 2 and Phase 3 sounds. Before moving on, we will spend next week checking the children's phonic knowledge of these phases. Anima Phonics have popped all of the songs into one playlist. This can be accessed without a login, so if you and your child want to have a listen then the songs can all be found here. 

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

• Sharing the story "The Way Back Home", a fourth story about the Boy.
• Using a contents page and non-fiction books to find out information about penguins.
• Using our new found knowledge to help us write some of our own penguin facts.
• Comparing ourselves to an Emperor Penguin, deciding if we are taller or shorter.
• Thinking about the numbers 6, 7 and 8 and finding different ways to make them using 2 smaller numbers. 
• Setting up our own obstacle courses in our Learning Garden, making sure we take turns and share the equipment.

Drop in this week will be on TUESDAY.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs Fincham and Miss Goddard

19.01.26 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

The children enjoyed creating their own penguins this week. You may have spotted a photo of them in the newsletter today, they are very cute! The penguins are on display in our class and some of them also feature on our fabulous display in the hall - which depicts a scene from the book "Lost and Found".  

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.
• Learning the last 4 Phase 3 sounds 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".

Many thanks for all of the resources you have been sending in. We now have enough for the activity, so please don't send in any more. (We will let you know if we need some again).

Drop in this week will be on THURSDAY.

We hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Miss Wakefield, Mrs Fincham and Miss Goddard

12.01.26 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

Many thanks for 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 be really grateful and 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. (If you can't find the sheet, please ask and we can send another one home).

We also enjoyed our first Forest School session of this term, on Thursday. We were very lucky and missed most of the rain, enjoying a hot drink together. We have also elected our school councillor, congratulations to Maya-Reign.

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 again, to see if we can remember where to find the South Pole.
• Finding 1 more or 1 less in our Mathematics sessions.
• Finishing our "Lost and Found" display for the school hall by creating some penguins and snowflakes.

Many thanks for all of the tubes, boxes and pots that have come in. We will still be grateful to receive any next week too, just send them in with your child. 

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

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs Fincham and Miss Goddard

05.01.26 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

We hope you have all had a lovely Christmas break. We are looking forward to seeing the children tomorrow and hearing all about their Christmas holiday.

This week we will be 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.
• Thinking about what makes a good friend in our Circle Time session.

See you all in the morning!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs Fincham and Miss Goddard

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 are in the children's Christmas folders, which have come home today. 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.

The children do not have their Reading folders - we do! Please don't worry, we want them to have a lovely break and enjoy the Christmas celebrations.

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 Monday 5th January 2026, ready to start our next learning adventures!
With love
The Early Years Team xxx

15.12.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

WOW!! We have had a busy, busy time in Early Years. 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 Fincham and Miss Goddard

08.12.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

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 9th December - Early years will be going to St Michael's for a Christingle service
• Thursday 11th December - Christmas Jumper Day and Christmas lunch
• Friday 12th December - Father Christmas / PTA Christmas Shopping Day & Bazaar
• Friday 19th December - Early Years Nativity performance

Christmas Jumper Day - Thursday 11th 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.
• Visiting St Michael's church on Tuesday and taking part in a Christingle service.
• Working on our blending and segmenting of 3 phoneme words. 
• Thinking about our daily routines in our Mathematics sessions.
• Enjoying another Forest School session on Thursday. (The children can wear their jumpers with their Forest School trousers and bring their uniform to change into).
• Wearing our Christmas jumpers for Christmas Jumper day on Thursday and talking about Khadiza and enjoying Christmas Dinner together.

Wishing you a lovely weekend!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs Fincham and Miss Goddard

01.12.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

Over the last 2 weeks, the children have been busy creating some lovely Christmas Tree Gonks 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

• Thursday 27th until Sunday 30th November - Christmas Tree festival at Holy Trinity
• Tuesday 2nd December - Whole school trip to the Panto
• Friday 5th December - Non-uniform day - children to bring in some chocolate for the PTA Christmas Bazaar
• Friday 5th December - PTA Movie Night (a letter came home on Tuesday about this)
• Tuesday 9th December - Early years will be going to St Michael's for a Christingle service
• Thursday 11th December - Christmas Jumper Day and Christmas lunch
• Friday 12th December - Father Christmas / PTA Christmas Shopping Day & Bazaar
• Friday 19th 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.
• Working on the songs for our Nativity and picking our parts.
• Learning the first of our vowel digraphs in our Phonics sessions.
• Learning about 4 sided shapes in our Mathematic sessions.

Drop in this week will be on FRIDAY.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs Fincham and Miss Goddard

24.11.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

It was lovely to see you all at the Parent/Teacher consultations this week and have the chance to chat about how the children are doing. We hope you enjoyed looking through your child's books and seeing all of their learning.

This week also has marked Day 50 - so we are halfway to our Day 100 celebrations!

Today, the children have enjoyed an assembly by Mike Mullens. He came along with his BMX and showed us lots of different tricks, including jumping over Miss Bamber and Mrs O'Connor!! Some of the older children then got to have some workshops with him, so it has been a busy day.

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.

• Thursday 27th until Sunday 30th November - Christmas Tree festival at Holy Trinity (the Early Years children have made some of the decorations for our tree)
• Tuesday 2nd December - Whole school trip to the Panto
• Friday 5th December - Non-uniform day - children to bring in some chocolate for the PTA Christmas Bazaar
• Friday 5th December - PTA Movie Night
• Tuesday 9th December - Early years will be going to St Michael's for a Christingle service
• Thursday 11th December - Christmas Jumper Day and Christmas lunch
• Friday 12th December - Father Christmas / PTA Christmas Shopping Day & Bazaar
• Friday 19th 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.
• Enjoying our next Forest School session on Thursday.

This week's drop in will be on FRIDAY.

We hope you have a lovely weekend. 

Miss Wakefield, Mrs Fincham and Miss Goddard

17.11.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone! 

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

We all enjoyed our first Forest School session on Thursday, we will share photos of this in next week's newsletter.

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 by straying from the path and thinking about what would happen if we didn't follow a Duty Bearer's instructions.
• Continuing to learn the Phase 3 sounds in our Phonics sessions, learning the remaining consonant digraphs.
• 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.
• Creating some decorations for the Christmas Tree festival. These will be on display at Holy Trinity church in a few weeks time. 

There will be no drop in this week due to the Parent/Teacher consultations on Wednesday and Thursday. 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 Fincham and Miss Goddard

10.11.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

We have had a very busy 4 days!! Yesterday, the children brought 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. In the children's folders are the next sounds along with the first 4 Rainbow Words. These are words that we just have to remember by sight. 

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!
• Continuing with our Phase 3 Phonics, learning the sounds for the remaining letters of the alphabet.
• 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 Tuesday.
• Enjoying our first Forest School session on Thursday. (See below)

The children will need to come in on Thursday wearing their Forest School clothes, we will help them change into their uniforms after their session. Wellies and coats that the children already have in school are fine for them to use. A reminder will be sent via Dojo on Wednesday.

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

Have a lovely weekend, 

Miss Wakefield, Mrs Fincham and Miss Goddard 

03.11.25 - 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.
• Moving on to Phase 3 in our Phonics sessions.
• Continuing with our handwriting sessions, working on a new pattern.
• Creating some fabulous firework pictures using different media.
• Creating some poppies for Remembrance, which we will then wear next Tuesday.

School photographs take place on Thursday this week.

Drop in sessions will start again next week.

See you in the morning!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs Fincham and Miss Goddard

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 will start to take us longer and longer to get ready for going outside. 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 to school is Tuesday 4th 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 2nd November to let you know about our first week back. Don't forget the children return to school on Tuesday 4th November due to our INSET day. 

Have a lovely break!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs Fincham and Miss Goddard

20.10.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

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.  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.
• Singing some harvest songs together and talking about the harvest collection.
• Talking about pumpkins, using our different senses.
• Seeing how many seeds there are inside a pumpkin and counting them carefully.
• Bringing home our Christmas card designs on Friday.

Drop in this week will be on TUESDAY.

Have a lovely weekend!

Miss Wakefield and Mrs Fincham