Friday 16 October 2020

19.10.20 - This week in Early Years

 This week in Early Years we will be:

  • Reading the story "Pumpkin Soup" and thinking about signs of Autumn we can see in our garden.
  • Going in an Autumn leaf hunt around the school grounds, collecting different coloured leaves.

  • Describing a pumpkin and then using our "careful counting" skills to count how many seeds are inside.
  • Drawing around templates and then using our scissor skills to create some Autumn leaves.
  • Starting our Start-Bee sessions by learning the pencil grip song!


Hopefully you saw the photo of the children in the Echo this week. A copy of this photo is also in every child's Learning Journey as a record of their start at Down Hall. 

Please remember, if you have concerns or you would like to know how your child has settled into school please send me an email using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com and I will get back to you.


Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Wakefield 

19.10.20 - This week in Year 1

This week I am starting the blog with an apology. It has been brought to my attention that there are children who have been having accidents either in school or on the way home without my knowledge. I am absolutely heartbroken to think, that as parents, you might think I would never let a child go to the toilet. Please can I reassure you all that the children are able to (and do) use the toilet whenever they ask. The only time they are asked to wait is if the toilets are already in use. Using the toilets can take longer than before as the children need to wash their hands both before and after. The children have always been encouraged to remember not to leave it until they are busting as it could be that they have to wait for one to become free. There are the same number of toilets available as there will be in Amethyst, Diamond and Emerald and the same number of children using them, so it has been an important message for them to know as the situation will remain the same as they move to their new classes. I am SO SO sorry and only wish that I had known there was an issue earlier than today.


Next week is our last week together before the children move on to their new classes. I am looking forward to having some fun with the children and we will be having some special treats throughout the week.

So we will be:

  • Learning the last 4 tricky words for Phase 4 in our Phonics sessions and then setting our world record time (and trying to beat it) on Tricky Word Trucks
  • Continuing to use the part-whole model in our Mathematics sessions to find systematic methods to record the number bonds to 10 and to solve some addition problems.
  • Continuing on our Daily Mile journey around the world. We are hoping to reach Japan and China before the children move up to their new classes.
  • Writing in our English books and Maths books for the final time before we move into our new classes.
  • Sharing the book "Meesha Makes Friends" and discussing ways we might make friends in our new classes.

Please don't forget that any learning at home can be shared in school by emailing it to me using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com. This email can also be used for any questions or concerns you have regarding how your child has been in school or about their move to their new class. Please feel free to email me, I will always get back to you.

The children will be bringing home their Learning Journey books on Friday. I hope you all enjoy sharing them at home. 

See you next week!
Miss Wakefield


Friday 9 October 2020

12.10.20 - This week in Early Years

It has been another busy week in Pearl Class. We have met the school chickens and even helped Mr Paterson feed them. We also had our first fire drill, which we did really well. 

It has also been lovely to receive and then share WOWs for some of the children. Please feel free to send these as and when they occur. These will be displayed in the class and then at the end of each term they are added to your child's Learning Journey book. Please fell free to send any WOWs in as and when they occur, these can take the form of a written comment and/or photo and as I said before just is anything that has made you proud.

Just incase you have missed the announcement on the website, there has been a new letter uploaded to the school website regarding the National Child Measurement Programme. This is for all the children in Pearl Class and the letter can be found here.

I have also had confirmation from the Echo that the children will be in their New Intake Supplement. This will be published on TUESDAY 13th OCTOBER. 

Now on to our learning! This week in Early Years we will be:

  • Checking and then signing our Class Charter, remembering it is to help us be the best team at Down Hall.
  • Playing some Circle Time games.
  • Starting to learn how to be a "careful counter" in our Number Work sessions.
  • Playing some games using our new namecards.
  • Drawing members of our families.
  • Learning about the different parts of a book during our story sessions.

Please remember, if you have concerns or you would like to know how your child has settled into school please send me an email using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com and I will get back to you.

Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Wakefield

12.10.20 - This week in Year 1

 This week in Year 1 we will be:

  • Finishing our class book "Here We Are" and discussing the messages it tells us about our Earth.
  • Learning 4 new tricky words in Phonics and thinking of "top tips" to help us remember what they are and how to write them.
  • Using the part-whole model in our Mathematics sessions to record fact families and find systematic methods to record the number bonds to 10.
  • Continuing on our Daily Mile journey around the world. We have now reached India!
  • Writing in our English books and Maths books again to show our new Year 1 teachers just how amazing we are!!

Homework:
This week in our Mathematics sessions we have been learning about the part-whole model. We watched the Numberblocks episode "Fruit Salad" as an introduction. 



Then we have been drawing our own (as shown in the picture above) and explaining which is the whole and which are the parts. The children have then recorded this as number sentences (again as shown in the picture above). So for example, if 3 is the whole then 1 and 2 are the parts. We have then gone on to record all the number sentences that we could find. 

So if 3 was the whole then the number sentences would be:
3=3+0, 3=2+1, 3=1+2, 3=0+3.

It would be great if the children could have a go at trying to work out the number sentences for any number up to 9. This will greatly support our learning next week when we work on number bonds to 10. Any homework can be emailed to me using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com

Many thanks for your continued support, have a lovely weekend!
Miss Wakefield

Friday 2 October 2020

05.10.20 - This week in Early Years

An important message to start this week's blog:

We currently live in strange times and this means that we are unable to invite you into school and it is not possible to have a "quick chat" at the beginning or end of the day at the moment. After half term there will be some form of Parent/Teacher Consultation - we will let you know details nearer the time of how we can make this happen. However, in the meantime, if you have concerns or you would like to know how your child has settled into school please send me an email using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com and I will get back to you.

Having said that I would also like to add that Mrs Fincham and I have been SO impressed with how all the children have started their school journey at Down Hall and you should all be very proud of your super children! As we said this week, when talking about at our Class Charter, Pearl Class ARE the best team at Down Hall.

Now on to our plans for next week!

This week in Early Years we will be:

  • Sharing some more stories together and talking about what happens in them.
  • Using scissors to carefully cut out different types of lines. 
  • Writing our names to start our names display in our classroom. 
  • Continuing to sing our "How Many Days" song and finding out what happens when we get to 10 days.
  • Singing our number rhymes, including the silly one about the monkeys and the crocodile!

You may have seen on our class page on the school website that we have WOWs. These are slips of paper that would normally come in from home when your child has done something that makes you proud and makes you say "WOW!" At the moment we are unable to have things coming in from home...however if there is a WOW that you would like to share, please feel free to email them to me and I will add it to our WOW wall in class. We have had WOWs for all sorts of reasons in the past; from trying a new food, sleeping in their own bed, having their hair washed or for trying to write letters. It doesn't matter what it is, it just has to be a proud moment. It would be lovely to be able to share some of these in class. Please email any to me using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com

Many thanks to everyone who has sent in a coat and wellies for their child to leave in school, it is very much appreciated and I can imagine the wellies will be used very soon given the current weather!

See you next week!
Miss Wakefield



05.10.20 - This week in Year 1

An important message to start this week's blog:

We currently live in strange times and those quick chats at the beginning and end of the day are not possible at the moment. All of you would have received reports in February about your child's progress and areas to focus upon for next steps in learning. Once new classes start after half term there will be some form of Parent/Teacher Consultation - we will let you know details nearer the time of how we can make this happen. However, in the meantime, if you have concerns or you would like to know how your child has settled back into school please send me an email using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com and I will get back to you.


Now on to our learning for next week!

This week in Year 1 we will be:

  • Reading some more of our class book "Here We Are" and linking the ideas to RRS articles, understanding that we have the right to food, drink and a place to live.
  • Learning to spell 4 phoneme words, listening carefully to make sure we write down ALL the sounds we can hear.
  • Writing our tricky words into our new Year 1 English books, seeing how many of the top tips (from last week's blog) we can remember.
  • Starting to move on to working learning about addition in our Mathematics sessions, learning about the part-whole model. 
  • Sharing and discussing the story "My Green Day" and linking this to our pledges from last week.



This week in our Mathematics sessions we have been focusing on the numbers 11-20. We have been talking about how these numbers have 2 digits. For each number we have discussed how many tens and how many ones it has, like this:
10 has 1 ten and 0 ones so 10 + 0 = 10
11 has 1 ten and 1 one so 10 + 1 = 11
12 has 1 ten and 2 ones so 10 + 2 = 12
and so on up to 20 which has 2 tens and 0 ones.

The Numberblocks episodes for 11-20 clearly show the children how the there is a ten in the teen numbers which is represented by the 1. When recording these numbers I have been reinforcing how the 1 comes first to show it has 1 ten. The Numberblocks episodes can be found on the BBC iPlayer, each one is only 5 minutes long and great to help reinforce the work we have been doing on place value. The episodes can be found here.(Series 3 and 4).

It would be fabulous if the children could have a go at writing their numbers to 20 (and beyond) and say how many tens and ones each number has. I would love to see anything they do at home, please feel free to email it to me using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com

Many thanks for you continued support, 
Miss Wakefield