Next week in Pearl Class

Dear Parents

In response to the Government announcement made yesterday, school will only reopen for the children of Critical Workers on Monday 4th January.

If you are a Critical Worker and would like to book a place for your child, please contact us via the phase email address. 

earlyyears@downhallprimary.com

I will blog again on Monday with home learning activities that the children can complete, along with a phonics session for them.

Any further updates will be posted on the school website, blogs and our social media platforms.  

I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year and thank you for your continued support.  

Stay safe.

Miss Wakefield

HAPPY CHRISTMAS PEARL CLASS!

Mrs Fincham and I just wanted to say thank you to all of you for your support throughout this term. We have had a lovely time learning lots and are looking forward to our next adventures in January. 

We know this has been a very strange start to school life for our lovely Pearlies, but we have worked hard to make it as "normal" as possible for them. We are incredibly proud of how well they have all settled into school. We are also very thankful for all of your support.

Unfortunately we were unable to perform a Nativity for you all...however we have still created one for you to enjoy. (It's amazing how you can create a little production in a corridor!!) 

The children all chose the part they wanted to be and every child joined in to help with the narration, we even learnt two little songs! Click here to see it. Our Nativity

A huge thanks to Mrs Balkwill who worked her magic and put it all together for us. 

After Christmas we will start our new project "Dinosaurs". A new project letter has been added to our class page on the school website which will give you a little more information. There is also a sheet for the children to complete, to give us their ideas for this project. We would be very grateful if you would complete this with your child and email their ideas to earlyyears@downhallprimary.com. 

We use the children's ideas to inform our future planning. A copy of these letters can be found on our class page on the school website, under project letters, or by clicking on the links below. 

Dinosaurs - Parents and Dinosaurs - Children

Finally, we would like to wish you all a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year! We look forward to seeing you all on Monday 4th January 2021.

Miss Wakefield and Mrs Fincham

14.12.20 - This coming week in Early Years

Thank you for all your patience last week during the parent/teacher consultations, thankfully it all worked out in the end. It was so lovely to have the chance to speak to you all.

I can't quite belief that we only have 1 week left of term. Mrs Fincham and I are so incredibly proud of Pearl Class and all their amazing achievements this term, but in particular with regards to Phonics. Thank you all for all the support you are giving the children at home, they are all growing in confidence and using their phonic knowledge to support their reading.

The school office have asked me to remind you all again 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 

Many of you have completed one of these forms but not both. I would be very grateful if you could complete them and send them to office@downhall.essex.sch.uk.

In Pearl Class we have a student working with us. Miss Mortimer is in the second year of her degree and comes into class on a weekly basis. She asked me to share the following Google form with you, which is a short questionnaire along with a consent form for the research she is carrying out as part of her degree. I would be very grateful if you could take the time to support her with her degree. If you have any queries, please do ask. The Google form can be found here: Google Form or alternatively pdf versions can be found here and here. Many thanks to those of you who have already completed this, it is much appreciated.

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

• Creating our own version of the Christmas story by dressing up as the different parts we have chosen.
• Recording some special things to share with our families.
• Finishing our Christmas cards by writing them to our families.
• Playing Phonics games and trying to beat our best time for "Tricky Word Trucks".
• Watching an online Pantomime on Wednesday.
• Creating our own Fairy Light patterns and completing some Christmas counting activities in our Mathematics sessions.

Finally, as always, please feel free to email anything to earlyyears@downhallprimary.com.

Miss Wakefield

07.12.20 - This coming week in Early Years

This week we have finished learning all of the sounds and tricky words that are in Phase 2. We will be starting Phase 3 straight after Christmas, so that the children have the next few weeks for consolidation. Most of the children will have brought home the final sounds for this phase today. We can really see how the children are becoming so confident with their Phonics and are very grateful for all the support you are giving at home.  

I have updated the Phonics page on our class page on the school website. It now contains the sounds from Set 5. Please click on this link to find the clips: Phonics page.

In Pearl Class we have a student working with us. Miss Mortimer is in the second year of her degree and comes into class on a weekly basis. She asked me to share the following Google form with you, which is a short questionnaire along with a consent form for the research she is carrying out as part of her degree. I would be very grateful if you could take the time to support her with her degree. If you have any queries, please do ask. The Google form can be found here: Google Form or alternatively pdf versions can be found here and here. 

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

• Listening to the Christmas story from the Bible.
• Making our own Christmas cards and calendars for our families.
• Updating our name display in the classroom.
• Creating Christmas pictures using 2D shapes in our Mathematics sessions.
• Wearing our Christmas jumpers for Christmas Jumper day on Friday. (Christmas jumper to be worn with PE kit please).
• Eating our Christmas party lunch on Friday.

It has been really lovely to hear the children talking about their Christmas traditions, many thanks to everyone for taking the time to talk about this at home. For the next few weeks I won't be adding any home learning suggestions as I appreciate it is a busy time of year. However please do remember the Big Cat ebook Library and of course our sound cards. Sharing a book or going through the children's sounds for just short regular bursts of time is great for helping to embed learning. 

As always, please feel free to email anything to earlyyears@downhallprimary.com. I look forward to seeing you all, albeit virtually, for the upcoming parents meetings.

Have a lovely weekend!

Miss Wakefield