30.11.20 - This coming week in Early Years

Another fantastic week in Pearl Class. We have now clocked up 40 days in school! This week we learnt our first 2 tricky words and found out what a digraph is. We also created another new display in class, drawing pictures of our families. 

I have updated the Phonics page on our class page on the school website. It now contains the sounds from Set 4. (Including the very exciting digraph!) Please click on this link to find the clips: Phonics page.

The school office have asked me to remind you about a couple of forms that need completing. The first is the parent consent form. The form can be found by clicking the link: Parental Consent Form

There is also a Home/School agreement. This sets our everyone's responsibilities and expectations. This can be found by clicking the link: Home School Agreement

Further information can be found in this week's newsletter. Please could any completed forms by emailed to office@downhall.essex.sch.uk, many thanks.

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

• Remembering the 3 golden rules for counting that we learnt with the Numberblocks and using them to help us become "careful counters" in our Mathematics sessions.
• Learning the last of our Phase 2 sounds and 3 more tricky words in our Phonics sessions.
• Learning how to use the shapes and fill tool when drawing on our interactive board.

• Talking about the start of Advent and our Advent calendar.
• Learning about different Christmas customs from around the world with our interactive Advent calendar.
• Decorating our classroom and putting up our Christmas tree.

Home Learning Ideas:

This week it would be lovely to know about things the Pearl families do at Christmas time. We have already had a few discussions about Christmas trees and whether they are up yet. Perhaps you and your child could spend a few minutes talking about things you do at home, maybe you have special decorations or always get new pyjamas on Christmas Eve. We would love to know about the different traditions our families have. We will be talking about this from next week. 

As always, please feel free to email anything - WOW moments, pictures, drawings etc to me using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com.

Have a lovely weekend!

Miss Wakefield

23.11.20 - This coming week in Early Years

We have had another busy week in Pearl Class this week. This week we have been learning the definitions of words and trying to spell them in our aim to all become a Vocabulary Ninja!!

I have updated the Phonics page on our class page on the school website. It now contains the sounds from Set 3. Please click on this link to find the clips: Phonics page.

Today the children have also come home with their Big Cat ebook Library login card. The parents guide for this new resource can be found here. In addition to this guide there is also a short film clip which suggests ways in which you can support your child when reading. This can be accessed by clicking on the little blue circle at the top right hand corner of the front cover of some of the books. (As shown in the photo below).

  

Each book also has a "Before Reading" page at the beginning and a "After Reading" page at the end. These are here to support you and your child when reading and will help develop the children's reading skills. As an introduction to this resource all of the children have the same set of books, this is so I can link to it in class too. Over time, the books that each child can see will be matched to their individual needs.

 

On to our new learning, this 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.
• 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.
• Using positional language to describe where an object is and using these words to describe where the characters are hiding in the story.
• Working on our scissor skills by cutting out the different characters and then creating our own version of the final picture in the story.

Home Learning Ideas:

This week it would be really great if all the children could login to our new Big Cat ebook Library. I have asked all the children to ask their grown ups to help them do this. Please could you and your child read "Humpty Dumpty" as this is one of the books that has the guide for parents. (This means you have homework too as it would be great if you could watch the guide). If you and your child encounter any problems with this new resource, please email me using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com.

Have a lovely weekend!

Miss Wakefield

IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR PEARL PARENTS

As a school we recently applied to take part in an Early Language programme. We have been successful in getting on to this programme.

All of the children in Pearl Class will be able to take part in aspects of this programme. It does involve the need to share pupil data as part of the assessment and research process.

If you DO NOT wish your child to take part, please can you email me using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com.

If I do not hear from you by Friday 20th November 2020 I will assume that you are happy for your child to take part.

Many thanks

Miss Wakefield

16.11.20 - This coming week in Early Years

I have updated the Phonics page on our class page on the school website. It now also contains the sounds that the children have learnt this week. (Set 2) The children are also bringing home their sound folder, this is to stay at home. I have also filmed a clip to show ways in which this can be used at home. The clip about the sound folder is at the bottom of the Phonics page.

Please click on this link to find the clips: Phonics page.

You may have seen in last week's newsletter and again this week that the school have purchased the Big Cat ebook Library. We are currently in the process of setting up the children's accounts and they should be bringing home their login details next Friday. I will create a link to the Parent Guide in next week's blog.

This week we will be focusing on the traditional tale "Little Red Riding Hood". We will be:

• Reading different versions of the story and talking about the different characters.
• Discussing whether Red Riding Hood did the right thing during our Circle Time.
• Learning the next 4 sounds in our Phonics sessions and working on blending and segmenting simple VC words. (Words like as, am, in, it, is, at).
• Copying, continuing and creating our own patterns in our Mathematics sessions.
• Carefully weaving paper strips, remembering the pattern of over, under, over, under, to create a basket effect.

Home Learning Ideas:

This week perhaps you might like to try one of these ideas.

1. Go for a walk in the woods and draw a picture of any animals, plants or trees you see. I'm lucky and live very close to some woods where there are foxes, badgers and squirrels, I wonder if you will see any of those?
2. Have a competition at home to see who can put on and do up their coats the fastest. Little Red Riding Hood always did her coat up to keep her warm and now that the days are getting colder it would be great if all the children could do this for themselves.
3. Share the story at home, a version of it can be found here.

We now have a display board to share all of the children's learning from home. It would be lovely to get a few more things on it. Many thanks to Grace and Bella and their families for sending in their Little Pig work from last week.

Finally, please remember that you can always contact me for WOWs, work at home, queries or worries by using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com

Have a lovely weekend, see you on Monday!

Miss Wakefield

09.11.20 - This coming week in Early Years

The children have been working hard in our daily phonic sessions and Mrs Fincham and I have been so impressed with how the children have responded to these new sessions.

As I mentioned at pick up on Friday, I have created some clips linked to our Phonics. These show how we say our sounds, our silly sentence for each sound and how we write each letter.

These clips can be found via our class page on the website or alternatively by clicking this link: Phonics page.

This page will be added to each week as we learn new sounds. 

This week we will be focusing on the traditional tale "The Three Little Pigs". We will be:

• Reading different versions of this week's story.
• Ordering numbers and numbers of objects, introducing the words more and less.
• Learning the next 4 sounds in our Phonics sessions.
• Building houses using different construction materials and then testing them against a big bad wolf!
• Watching the CBeebies film "Poppies" on Remembrance Day and observing the silence at 11am.

Home learning ideas:

To tie in with our work in class, you may like to try some of these ideas at home, it would be lovely to see what you chose to do, please feel free to email any photos etc to earlyyears@downhallprimary.com.

1. Have a look at your house, can you draw picture of it? Do you know what materials it is made from?
2. Can you find out what number you live at? I wonder who has the highest house number in Pearl Class? It would be great to find out!
3. Share the story at home, a version of it can be found here.

Thank you to all of you who have sent in a WOW for your child, it would be lovely if every child could get themselves on the WOW wall by the end of the month. WOWs so far have ranged from riding bikes, tidying rooms, practising writing and trying new foods. Anything can be a WOW, it just has to be something that makes you proud of your child. Please email any WOWs to me using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com.

Many thanks for your support,

Miss Wakefield

02.11.20 - This coming week in Early Years

Welcome back! I hope you have all had a lovely half term. This half term we will be working on our new project "Once Upon A Time". We are starting the 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.
• Comparing objects by their size, length or height in our Mathematics sessions.
• Starting our daily Phonics sessions, learning our first 4 sounds.
• Creating some fabulous firework pictures using different media.
• Making our own poppies to wear for Remembrance Day.

Home learning ideas:

To tie in with our work in class, you may like to try some of these ideas at home, it would be lovely to see what you chose to do, please feel free to email any photos etc to earlyyears@downhallprimary.com.

1. Make some porridge playdough, the recipe can be found here.
2. Compare objects by their size - who has the biggest hands in your family? Who has the smallest feet? Who is the tallest? Who is the shortest?
3. Share the story at home, a version of it can be found here.

DON'T FORGET the children have their first PE session on Friday, they will need to come to school in their PE kit that day.

Many thanks

Miss Wakefield