Friday 22 March 2024

25.03.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

This week we have marked World Down Syndrome day by wearing odd socks. The children have also brought home their sunflowers today, these were planted on the 1st March. We talked about them yesterday and discussed how they were all different, with some growing lots and some not much at all. There are photos of our sunflower challenge in this week's newsletter too.

There will be no drop in this week as Tuesday and Wednesday are the parent/teacher consultation evenings. At these meetings there will be an opportunity to look at your child's books and to discuss their progress.

The deadline for the Easter activities has been extended by the PTA, it is now Monday.


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.
  • Learning about 3D shapes in our Mathematics sessions.
  • Listening to and discussing the story "It Wasn't Me" in our Circle Time session and thinking about how we would behave in that situation.
  • Updating the name displays in our classrooms and thinking about how much they have improved. 
  • Making Easter cards for our families.

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

Friday 15 March 2024

18.03.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone,

Thank you to everyone who has helped us raise money for Comic Relief. We will let you know the total raised in next week's newsletter. The JustGiving page is still open as an additional way to donate to our Comic Relief collection should you wish to use it. It can be found here.
Thank you for continued support in our teaching and learning about Children's Rights
RRS A2: Children's Rights apply to every child everywhere, all of the time. 

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

  • Sharing the story "The Way Back Home", a fourth story about the Boy.
  • Thinking about how this week's book links to the story from last week.
  • Learning about 5 more words in our Vocabulary Ninja sessions.
  • Using our new found knowledge to help us write some of our own penguin facts.
  • Finding out about odd and even numbers and sorting our Numicon tiles in our Mathematics sessions. 
  • Sharing the book "How Long is a Whale?" and using it to help us compare different sea animals by their length.

There are 2 messages this week from other teachers in school.

Firstly from Mrs Hurley:

MATHS WORKSHOPS FOR EVERYONE. DON'T MISS THIS AMAZING OPPORTUNITY!
We are delighted to announce that we are running a number of Maths workshops for adults. You can be a parent, grandparent, carer, aunt or uncle - you are all welcome! Are you someone who feels they need some support with maths? Perhaps your own experience in school wasn’t a good one. Well fear not, we have the solution to this!
Multiply courses are free and fully funded by Essex County Council as part of their Multiply Maths programme. Each course is 6 hours face-to-face in school. Each session will be between 1pm-3pm on the dates below:

EYFS 16th / 23rd / 30th April
KS1 18th / 25th April, 2nd May
KS2 10th / 17th / 24th May
Here is the link for you to register your interest.  https://forms.gle/BV9pj1FmAegMRLhw8


And from Miss Harvey:

Turn On The Subtitles

https://turnonthesubtitles.org/parents/ 


Turning on quality subtitles means your child will read a staggering number of words. Put them on and your child will read the equivalent number of words that are in all the Harry Potter books, all of the Lord of the Rings, all of the Chronicles of Narnia and everything Roald Dahl wrote, combined!

Research has shown that it can double the chance of your child leaving school as a proficient reader. You can turn them on for the whole family or most streaming services will now allow you to do it just for children’s profiles.
Perhaps, after all, there is a magic button…

Drop in this week will be on MONDAY.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend!
Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

Friday 8 March 2024

11.03.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

The children all looked fantastic on Thursday in their various costumes and we had a lovely time sharing stories both in our coloured Houses during the afternoon.


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.
  • Continuing the phase "Building 9 & 10" in our Mathematics sessions, counting backwards from 10, finding 1 more or 1 less than a number to 10 and finding different ways to make 10 using our 10 frames.
  • Starting to look at non-fiction books to learn about penguins.
  • Comparing our height to that of an Emperor Penguin, finding out if we are taller or shorter.
  • Painting our own moose, thinking about the way Oliver Jeffers drew them in his book "This Moose Belongs To Me".
  • Taking part in Comic Relief activities and raising money on Friday. (See below)

Finally a quick message from Mrs Yuille:

As a Gold RRS school we are proud to be raising money to help children achieve their Rights within the UK and in the wider global community.  This year we have set up a Just Giving page as an additional way to donate to our collection fund if preferred.   


On the day children will be able to buy a red nose for £2, bring in some jokes or something funny to share in class and come to school in non-uniform for a donation of your choice.  Thank you for helping us to teach your children about The Rights, and to learn that small actions together can make a big difference!  We are looking forward to a fun Friday taking part in Comic Relief next week!  

RRS Article 2:  Children's Rights apply to every child, everywhere all of the time.

Drop in this week will be on THURSDAY.

We hope you all have a lovely weekend.
Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

Saturday 2 March 2024

04.03.24 - 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. The children have started a beautiful display, which you can see at our next drop in.

This coming week we will be:
  • Sharing and discussing the story "Up and Down", which is another story about the Boy and the Penguin.
  • Discussing what it means to be a good friend in our Circle Time session and linking this to what we know about the Boy and the Penguin.
  • Looking at globes and maps of the world to find the South Pole and comparing it to Rayleigh, as we ran out of time for this last week.
  • Starting the phase "Building 9 & 10" in our Mathematics sessions.
  • Learning 5 new Vocabulary Ninja words.
  • Celebrating World Book Day on Thursday. (More information below).

World Book Day is on Thursday. To promote reading within our school community, for this day the children can bring in a favourite book from home which they can share with the other children in their class. They can also bring in a prop which serves as a clue to their favourite book/character or come dressed up as a favourite character too if they so wish. On this day all the children will also receive a £1 World Book Day voucher! The letter about World Book Day can be found here 

Drop in this week will be on TUESDAY.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

Sunday 25 February 2024

26.02.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

We hope you have all had a lovely half term break. 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.
  • Spending time in our Phonic sessions revisiting sounds we have found difficult to recall. (We will be doing this over the next 3 weeks)
  • Making our own repeating pattern umbrellas like the one belonging to the penguin.
  • Creating boats, using the junk modelling materials, to sail in the water tray.


See you tomorrow!
Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

Saturday 17 February 2024

Happy Day 100!


Hello everyone!

We had a wonderful time celebrating our 100 days in school, ending the day by eating the delicious cake that Mrs Wood had got for us! 

Today the children have brought home a letter about our next project "Lost and Found". We really enjoyed finding out the answers to the children's questions about dinosaurs, so it would be lovely to have their ideas once again. If you can't find your child's sheet, they can also be found here

There will be a new blog next weekend to let you know about our plans for the first week back. There is just one piece of whole school information that we felt important to share though, which is:

World Book Day
This year, World Book Day is on Thursday 7th March. To promote reading within our school community, for this day the children can bring in a favourite book from home which they can share with the other children in their class.
They can also bring in a prop which serves as a clue to their favourite book/character or come dressed up as a favourite character too if they so wish. On this day all the children will also receive a £1 World Book Day voucher!

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

Friday 9 February 2024

12.02.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

This week we have made our own fossils and also created our own volcano, which was exciting! We watched these two clips and have linked them here in case you would like to have a go at home yourselves! Salt dough fossils and Volcano!

On Wednesday, (Valentine's Day) it is wear something red day, to help raise funds for our PTA. The children can wear something red, along with their normal school uniform for a suggested donation of £1. They are also asked to bring in some coins to take part in the coin run. Each class will be laying their coins in a long line and the class with the longest line will win a prize! Again all monies will be going to the PTA.

Most excitingly, Friday 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 also our Wellbeing day, the children do not need to wear uniform, they can come in party clothes or comfy clothes (which ever they prefer). We just ask that they are able to do PE in whatever they are wearing.

This Saturday sees the start of Chinese New Year, so this will be the main focus for our learning, we will be:


  • Learning about Chinese New Year. This year it is the year of the Dragon.
  • 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.
  • Learning 5 new Vocabulary Ninja words.
  • Comparing objects by their length in our Mathematics sessions.

This week's drop in will be on TUESDAY.

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


Friday 2 February 2024

05.02.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

Well, that wasn't quite the week we planned! We hope that everyone will be fighting fit for next week and we have carried over some of our learning to this coming week.

This week we have LOVED seeing the children's matchboxes and seeing how many items they had managed to fit in their boxes. Sadly some of the adults didn't get to share their boxes, but we will rectify that next week! If your child would still like to carry out this activity, we would love to see their matchboxes next week too.

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

  • Sharing non-fiction texts to find out facts about different dinosaurs. 
  • Looking at fossils and learning about the job of a Palaeontologist.
  • Writing some captions for some different fossils.
  • Creating our own volcano (carried over from last week) and also making some salt dough fossils.
  • Starting to learn about doubling in our Maths sessions.
  • Comparing dinosaurs by their length, height and weight, using the facts we have found.
  • Checking to see if we have answered all of the children's dinosaur questions.

Drop in this week will be on THURSDAY.

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


Friday 26 January 2024

29.01.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

This week we have enjoyed the book "Dinosaur Roar". The children listened carefully to try and find all of the rhyming words. They also did some fabulous writing about some of the dinosaurs from the book.


This week we have a message from Miss Harvey:

Buy books, change lives
Want to support our school?
Buy books through LoveReading and LoveReading4Kids and we get  25% of the cover price to buy more books!
 
The LoveReading family — LoveReading, LoveReading4Kids and LoveReading4Schools — exists because reading matters, and books change lives. We know that reading for pleasure, and improving reading standards, has a huge impact on our children’s well-being, academic achievements, and future success. Alongside that, we also know that the current funding crisis has resulted in devastating cuts to budgets in our schools, which is why LoveReading is redressing
that shortfall through creating an online bookstore with social purpose.
  
How it works:
● When you buy any book from LoveReading or LoveReading4Kids, 25% of the cover price will be given to a school of your choice, such as us!
● Book prices are competitive with at least 10% off the RRP
● After you’ve searched for the books you’d like to buy (after reading reviews and accessing opening extracts of highly recommended titles), at checkout, you’ll be able to search for your school, by adding your school name or postcode, and you allocate that money to us. It will even tell you how much your purchase has donated to us!
● We can then spend our allocated funds on LoveReading4Kids to get more books in our classrooms and library.
 
LoveReading has a huge selection of books for all ages, across all genres, at competitive prices, so make LoveReading and LoveReading4Kids your go-to bookshops to give our school the chance to access more books.
 
Sounds like a win-win situation - you get great books, while we get funds for great books to encourage even more reading for pleasure in our children. Like we said at the start, reading matters and books change lives - buying books through LoveReading will ensure that continues to happen for students at our school, and future generations.
Thank you for your ongoing support!
www.lovereading.co.uk
www.lovereading4kids.co.uk


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

  • Sharing the book "Dinosaur More!". This is a non-fiction version of last week's book "Dinosaur Roar!".
  • Learning what non-fiction means and using our book to find out information about the different dinosaurs.
  • Labelling the different parts of a dinosaur, using our segmenting skills to help us spell the words.
  • Matching the correct number of objects to a given number in our Mathematics sessions.
  • Learning about pumice stone and creating our very own volcano.
  • Continuing to think about the pulse (beat) in different pieces of music.

Drop in this week will be on TUESDAY.

We hope you have a lovely weekend
Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

Friday 19 January 2024

22.01.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello!

We have enjoyed making lots of robots this week and hope you have seen them in the newsletter today. We hope you like how the newsletter has been improved further this week, with the addition of the class pages. These will continue each week, so we will be sharing different aspects of the children's learning as we move through this half term. 

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. 
  • Moving on to the phase "Mass and Capacity" in our Mathematics sessions, thinking about how much things weigh or how much they hold.
  • Creating some dinosaur masks, carefully cutting out the shape of the head and the all important eye holes!
  • Continuing to think and talk about our zones of regulation, considering how we are feeling during Circle Time sessions.

Drop in this week will be on THURSDAY.
Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

Friday 12 January 2024

15.01.24 - 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. It has also been lovely to share the pictures and photos about dinosaurs from home too - we are always happy to look at anything project related in school.

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.
  • Recapping our latest digraphs in our Phonics sessions, working hard to spot them during our reading and writing.
  • Continuing with our work in the phase "Alive in 5!" in our Mathematics sessions. This week we will be continuing our work on 1 more and 1 less.
  • Creating some robots, using junk modelling materials, just like Harry did in our story last week.

It has been lovely to start the term with some WOWs, please don't forget to ask if you need a new sheet.

Drop ins will start again this week and will be on MONDAY.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

Sunday 7 January 2024

08.01.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Happy New Year everybody! 

We are looking forward to welcoming the children back tomorrow, for our next learning adventure! This half term will see the 100th day for the children in school too, which will be very exciting! 

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.
  • Learning 4 new vowel digraphs in our Phonics sessions as we continue to work on the  Phase 3 sounds.
  • Labelling different parts of one of Harry's robots, using our sounds to help spell the words we need to write.
  • Comparing different quantities in our Mathematics sessions, saying which has more and which has fewer. We will also be finding 1 more or 1 less than a given number as our mission for this week. 
See you in the morning!
Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

Wednesday 20 December 2023

Happy Christmas!

Hello everyone, 

We hope you all enjoyed our Nativity performance this morning, we are 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 "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 were sent home yesterday and can be found in your child's homework 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.

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 8th January 2024, ready to start our next learning adventures!
With love
The Early Years Team

Sunday 17 December 2023

18.12.23 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

The children had a very busy and exciting day on Friday, with visits to see Father Christmas and Christmas shopping for our families. We were so lucky that Father Christmas even came to our assembly and gave the certificates to the children who were Pupil of the Week!

We have spent this week getting everything ready for our Nativity next week. Homework folders will come out next week and we will also change the children's books ready for the holiday.

On to our learning for the coming week, we will be:
  • Performing our Nativity to the rest of the school on Tuesday.
  • Performing our Nativity to our families on Wednesday.
  • Finishing off our Christmas mathematics activities from this week, counting objects and creating repeating patterns.
  • Taking our Christmas cards and calendars home to share with our families.

For the performance on Wednesday, please make your way round to the front of the school as we will be unable to 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 be a collection for the school charity at the end of the performance. 

We hope you have all had a lovely weekend
Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

Sunday 10 December 2023

11.12.23 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

We have had a lovely week in Early Years. We have decorated our Home Corner and have our tree back from the Christmas Tree Festival. We have had a few visits from the Elf, who has been up to a little mischief in our classrooms! 

Upcoming Events
  • Monday 11th December - Non-uniform Day (Chocolate donation for the PTA Bazaar)
  • Friday 15th December - PTA Christmas Bazaar
  • Wednesday 20th December - Our Nativity (at 9.30am)

Christmas Jumper Day

The children looked fantabulous in their Christmas Jumpers and we have raised enough money to continue to sponsor Thoko and her local community in Malawi. 

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

  • Watching the Key Stage 1 children perform their Christmas production on Tuesday.
  • Finishing our Christmas cards and calendars ready to take them home to our families.
  • Playing the different games on Phonics Play.
  • Creating our own Fairy Light patterns and completing some Christmas counting activities in our Mathematics sessions.
  • Listening to Mrs Morgan, who will be visiting on Thursday, play some of her instruments.
  • Enjoying the PTA's Christmas Bazaar and Santa's Grotto on Friday.
The last drop in for this year will be on THURSDAY.

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

Friday 1 December 2023

04.12.23 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

What a way to begin December! The children loved seeing the heavy frost and then the snow this morning! We put their wellies to great use and they ran around on the field and our garden. We had some warm chocolate milk to warm ourselves back up during snack time too. 

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
  • Thursday 7th December - Christmas Jumper Day
  • Thursday 7th December - Christmas Dinner
  • Friday 8th December - PTA Movie Night
  • Monday 11th December - Non-uniform Day (Chocolate donation for the PTA Bazaar)
  • Friday 15th December - PTA Christmas Bazaar
  • Wednesday 20th December - Our Nativity (at 9.30am)

Christmas Jumper Day - Thursday 7th December
On this day, the children can wear their fabulous festive jumpers and make a £1 donation which goes to our continued sponsorship of Thoko in Malawi. The charity Action Aid use this money to ensure that Thoko and the other children in her community enjoy their right to an education, just like all of us at Down Hall! (Articles 28 & 29)

SO, to clarify, on Thursday, the children need to wear their normal uniform but with their Christmas jumper (instead of their Down Hall jumper/cardigan).

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.
  • Working on our blending and segmenting of 3 phoneme words. 
  • Learning more about 2D shapes in our Mathematics sessions and talking about the different shapes in a Christmas picture.
  • Wearing our Christmas jumpers for Christmas Jumper day on Thursday and talking about Thoko and enjoying Christmas Dinner together.

Finally, if you are in Rayleigh over the weekend and have the time, please pop and vote for our Christmas tree in the Holy Trinity Christmas Tree Festival. All of the children in Pearl and Quartz have made a decoration - the tree will return to school on Monday and you will also be able to see it at our drop in on TUESDAY.

Wishing you a lovely weekend!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

Friday 24 November 2023

27.11.23 - This coming week in Early Years

 Hello everyone!

This week, we have reached the milestone of 50 days in school! It has been a very busy 50 days and we are very proud of all of the children in Pearl and Quartz and how much they have learnt in this short amount of time.

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 7th December - Christmas Jumper Day
  • Friday 8th December - PTA Movie Night
 On to our learning for next week, we will be:

  • Learning some tricky sounds in our Phonics sessions this week.
  • Finding 1 more and 1 less than a number in our Mathematics sessions.
  • Talking about the start of Advent and our Advent calendar.
  • Talking about different Christmas customs from around the world with our interactive Advent calendar.
  • Finishing our decorations for our Christmas tree for the Holy Trinity Christmas Tree Festival.
  • Decorating our classroom and putting up our Christmas tree in our Home Corner.
  • Learning some of the songs for our Nativity.
Drop in this week will be on FRIDAY.

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

Friday 17 November 2023

20.11.23 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

This week we started Phase 3 in our Phonics sessions and learnt our 4th Rainbow Word. The children will have brought the 4 Rainbow Words home with them yesterday. These words are sight words that the children need to learn as they cannot be sounded out. The children have also brought home a coloured band reading book this week. These will be changed on a weekly basis, but not always on the same day. We would therefore be really grateful if reading books and reading diaries could be in the children's bags each 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.

  • Tuesday 21st November - Flu Immunisations.
  • Thursday 23rd November - School photographs - individual and sibling photographs will be taken, you do not need to ask for the sibling photo to be taken, this will be done automatically.

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 a list of rhyming words.
  • Thinking about the numbers 4 and 5 in our Mathematics sessions; finding ways to make them, recognising the numerals and finding 1 more or 1 less than them.
  • Trying to learn the rhyme in the book, working on our memory skills!
  • Learning how to use our lightboxes to help us write our names during our Start-Bee sessions.
  • Starting to make the decorations for our Christmas Tree, in readiness for the Christmas Tree Festival at Holy Trinity Church the following week.
This week's drop in will be on TUESDAY.

We hope you have a lovely weekend. 

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

Sunday 12 November 2023

13.11.23 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello! 

Apologies for the lateness in posting this blog.

This week we have finished the last of our Phase 2 sounds. The children will be moving on to completing the remainder of the alphabet as part of Phase 3. The Phonics section of the website contains all the sounds so far. The songs that we sing for each letter can be found by clicking here

We were very proud of all of the children on Friday when we all sat for the 2 minute silence as part of our work about Remembrance.


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.
  • Starting to learn the sounds in Phase 3 in our Phonics sessions.
  • Working with 2D shapes in our Mathematics sessions and going on a shape hunt around our class.
  • 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.

Drop in this week will be on TUESDAY.
Please remember there is an INSET day on Friday, so school will be closed that day to the children. 

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

Friday 3 November 2023

06.11.23 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

WOW! What a very busy week, including yesterday where the children completed 3 "must-do" jobs!! We have been really impressed with how well they have returned from the half term break.

Just a few things to mention before we talk about the learning for this coming week. 

Dinners

Please remember to pre-book your child's lunch on the new system. We are able to alter it should your child want something different that morning. We can also cancel any order if your child is unwell. It would be great if you could also tell your child what you have ordered for them as there has been a little bit of confusion this week. Any worries, problems, questions etc. please just email or ask one of us at the gate.

Poppies

Next week, the children will have the opportunity to purchase poppies within class. As well as the poppies, there are some other Royal British Legion merchandise (such as key rings, wrist bands and slap bands) which can be purchased. The suggested donation for these items are 50p for a poppy and £1 for other items. If you wish your child to get any of these, then please send them in with their money any day next week.


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 our Vocabulary Ninja sessions.
  • Learning about 1 more and 1 less in our Mathematics sessions. 
  • Making our own Poppies for Remembrance.
  • Watching the CBeebies film "Poppies" and observing the silence at 11am on Friday.


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

This week we have only sent home sound cards. We are aware that there has been a few worries regarding the flashcards. These have been sent home for the children to try to blend, maybe 1 or 2 a day, or to try and make with their sound cards. There is no expectation that the children need to learn to read all of these words. By practising 1 or 2 words each day you will be encouraging your child with their blending which will support their reading. Once we have completed all of the Phase 2 sounds we will start to send home our coloured banded books. These will be given to those children who can confidently blend sounds to read words, in the first instance. 

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