Happy Christmas Pearl Class and families!

Hello everyone, 

I hope you all enjoyed our Nativity performance this morning. It was so lovely to have an audience and I hope you agree that the children were fantastic! I have uploaded all of the photographs of the children in their costumes. They can be found on the Early Years part of the website under the "Special Events" tab, or by clicking here.

Mrs Fincham and I are SO proud of Pearl Class and have enjoyed this term. We also 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. 

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.  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 children have brought these letters home with them today but they 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 Tuesday 4th January 2022, ready to start our next learning adventures!
With love
Miss Wakefield and Mrs Fincham

29.11.21 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

Today the children have brought home the tricky words from Phase 2 that we have learnt. We call these words "tricky" as they cannot be sounded out, we simply have to learn them! The children have grown in confidence when trying to recall these words. On Monday the children in Pearl will have been in school for 50 days! It will have been a very busy 50 days and I am very proud of all of them and how much they have achieved in this short amount of time.

The next few weeks are going to be busy, with lots of things taking place in school. The first of these takes place on Friday 3rd December, when we will be taking part in the Unite The Uniforms campaign in honour of the millions of people who have served in the NHS and emergency services. The children are invited to come to school wearing the colours of the emergency services; red, blue, green or orange. We will be thinking about how these people help us and why it is important to honour them. We will make links to Children’s Rights and use our pupil voice to create thank you pictures, which we will send to our local services.  The suggested donation is £1, but please give as little or as much as you wish so that we can all join in the dressing up fun!  Donations will go towards building the UK’s first "Emergency Services Cenotaph".

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

• Finding 1 more and 1 less than a number in our Mathematics sessions.
• Starting Phase 3 in our Phonics sessions, learning 4 new sounds.
• 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 in our Home Corner.

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

22.11.21 - This coming week in Early Years

This week we particpated in Odd Sock Day, it was amazing to see all the different socks, which led on to our discussion about how we are all unique. Today we have had a lovely day raising money for Children in Need. It has been a busy, fun packed day. We will have a total for the amount raised next week.

The children have brought home their last sets of sounds for Phase 2. We have now learnt all of the Phase 2 sounds and will be having a consolidation week next week, before moving on to the start of Phase 3. Many thanks to all of you for supporting your child with their Phonics at home. 

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.
• Starting our new phase in Mathematics, "Light and Dark", finding different ways to make 4 and 5 using our new 10 frames and counters,
• 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.
• 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:

Some great success after last week's home learning with some of the children becoming experts in doing up their coats. Well done!

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

1. Play an I-Spy game. This could be in your house, the garden, in the car or anywhere! You could use your sounds to see if any of your family can spot something beginning with the sound you pick.
2.  Play a hide and seek game with a teddy at home, can you try to find it from the clues.
3. Share the story together and talk about your favourite characters. A copy of the story can be found here.

Home Learning

If your child is unable to attend school but is feeling well and you are looking for work to complete then please visit the Children's Hub page on our school website. This contains links to our Big Cat e-library, Phonics Play and White Rose Maths. You can find it here. I am also happy to send things which will link to our work for that week. Please just drop me an email using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com. 

Have a lovely weekend and take care

Miss Wakefield

15.11.21 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello! 

We've reached the end of another busy week! This week we had a review week in our Phonics sessions, concentrating on our blending and segmenting skills, so there are no new sounds. 

I was very proud of all of the children on Thursday when we all sat for the 2 minute silence as part of our work about Remembrance.

We also had great fun when the "Big Bad Wolf" visited to blow our houses down, don't worry no pigs (or children) were harmed by him!

Odd Socks Day - Monday 15th November

Don't forget that on Monday, we are participating in "Odd Socks Day" to mark Anti-Bullying Week. To take part all your child needs to do (and you if you feel inclined!) is wear odd socks to school on Monday! In class, we will be exploring the theme of "One Kind Word" and linking this message to our Right to having the best possible health, including mental health (Article 24).

Children In Need - Friday 19th November

This year to celebrate Children in Need, we will be having a pyjama day at school on Friday 19th November. Children can wear their favourite PJs to school, however please remember that all children still need to wear sensible outdoor shoes so that they will be safe going outside, and to also bring a coat. There will be a bucket for donations at the gate during the morning drop off and the suggested donation is £1.

The children will be taking part in fun activities during the day, with prizes and rewards to be won. Children in Need has strong links to our work on SMSC and RRS.  We will be looking at the charities that Children in Need supports and making specific links to the Spiritual and Social threads of SMSC and to the following RRS Articles :

Article 1: All children under 18 have all the rights in the convention. 

Article 23: Any child with a disability must be provided with support so they can live as fully and independently as possible. 

Article 27: All children have the right to a good standard of living which meets their physical, social and mental needs. 

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.
• Learning the last of our Phase 2 sounds and the last 2 Tricky Words 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.

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.

If you and your child do any of these activities then please do email them to me using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com. It is always lovely anything that the children have done.

Have a lovely weekend and stay safe

Miss Wakefield

08.11.21 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

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

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 stationery) 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.

New Collection and Gate Arrangements

From today there was a slight change to the collection arrangements at the end of the day. These will continue next week. Also, from Monday, we are asking if the Pearl Class children could come in via the Torquay Close entrance at 8.55am.

School Council Elections

Article 12 of the UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) states that every child has the right to have their voices heard in matters that affect them. With this in mind we cannot wait to get the School Council up and running so that our children can share ideas, take discussions back to classes and ALL children can be involved in decision making in a democratic way. A huge well done to everyone brave enough to put themselves forward. Classes have now voted and the results have been counted!

Congratulations to Isla our new Pearl Class School Councillor.

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.
• Starting our Start-Bee handwriting sessions and learning the pencil grip song.
• Making our own Poppies for Remembrance.
• 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.

As always, please remember you can contact me using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com. It has been lovely this week to have some WOWs for our board, we always love to celebrate the children's achievements.

Have a lovely weekend, 

Miss Wakefield

01.11.21 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone! I hope you have all had a lovely half term. 

This week in school sees the start of the new dinner menu. We are starting on Week 1 and the new menu can be found here.

This half term we will be working on our new project "Once Upon A Time". I have uploaded an overview sheet for this project to the Early Years section on the school website. It can be found here. 

So on to our learning for the coming week, we will be starting our 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 in our Mathematics sessions and deciding which character they are for.
• Continuing our Phonics sessions and learning our first 2 tricky words.
• Creating some fabulous firework pictures using different media in our new creative area.
• Bringing home our first reading books. These books will be changed on a weekly basis and it would be really helpful if the children could bring them in to school every 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.

See you in the morning!

Miss Wakefield

Happy Half Term!

Hello everyone!

WOW! We have reached the end of our first half term at school and what a busy one it has been. The children have settled into school life so well and I am very proud of how well they have adapted. 

Today the children have brought home an art folder, this has all the drawings they have been busy creating this half term. Also within the folder are the latest sound cards for this week. As before, I have updated the Phonics section on the Early Years part of the school website and it now includes the sounds from this week. These can be found here. 

Christmas Cards

Also in your child's art folder, you will find a white envelope containing their Christmas card design. This design can be professionally made into Christmas cards and other items. There is a covering letter which explains the process and how you can order your child's cards online should you wish to. If you have placed an order, tick the box on the sheet to show you have and then you must bring the design back into school on Monday 1st November as they are being collected to send to the print studio to be manufactured.

School Council Elections

In the first week back after half term, each class will be holding an election to choose one person to be part of our new school council. During half term, you might like to discuss with your child whether they would be interested in standing in this election. Discuss how a member of the school council needs to be a good listener but also able to express their own ideas and those of their class during meetings. Children choosing to stand might also like to create a poster showing why they think they would be a good candidate for the council. We look forward to sharing the results of the election at the end of our first week back. Happy campaigning!

Harvest Festival Collection

Thank you so much to all of you that have contributed to our Harvest Festival collection this year for South Essex Extended Services. Every single donation does make a difference and is given to children and families in our own local community that need it the most. 

RRS A 27: Every child has the right to a standard of living good enough to meet their physical, social and mental needs.

Finally, I look forward to meeting with you tomorrow. 

Have a lovely half term!

Miss Wakefield

18.10.21 - This coming week in Early Years

This week we have enjoyed going on an Autumn walk, exploring our Ladybird Garden to find different coloured leaves. We also enjoyed joining with Key Stage 1 on Friday for some of our playtime. It was lovely to spend some time with other children in school. We are going to continue this on a daily basis from next week.

You may have seen the box outside the gate at drop off and pick up times. This is for our Harvest Festival collection. Any contributions are greatly appreciated. We have been singing the Harvest Festival Samba during snack times this week. A link to the Harvest Blog can be found here, there is a link to the song at the bottom of the blog - enjoy!

This coming week is the start of the new times for Pearl Class. The children are now starting at 8.55am and finishing at 2.50pm. The information regarding these changes can be found here.

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.
• Talking about pumpkins, using our different senses.
• Seeing how many seeds there are inside a pumpkin and counting them carefully.
• Learning another set of sounds in our Phonics sessions.
• Continuing and creating repeating patterns in our Mathematics sessions.
• Completing the writing planned for last week - we ran out of time!
• Bringing home our Christmas card designs on Thursday.

Don't forget Friday is an INSET day, so the children are not in school that day. This is the day of our parent/teacher consultations. I will be sending the link for the ZOOM meetings out on Wednesday. The children will then have their half term break and school returns on Monday 1st November. 

As always, if you have any questions or are unsure about something then please do email me using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield

11.10.21 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

We have had an exciting week this week, starting our Phonics sessions and learning our first 4 sounds. All of the children have brought home their sound folder today. This contains the sounds we have learnt so far. On the Early Years part of the school website there are some clips which you may find helpful, I have shown them to the children and told them to say it is your homework! The clips include how to use the sounds at home and how we say our sounds in school. If you are not sure if your child is saying the sounds correctly then please use this to check. (Sounds are said differently in school to how you may have been taught them). If you have any queries then please do get in contact, using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com. The clips can be found here. 

Parent/Teacher Consultations

You are now able to book an appointment to meet with me on Friday 22nd October, 8:30am to 3:30pm. Please use the Scopay app/website to secure your slot. (The children brought home an envelope with these details this week). This meeting will be via Zoom and a meeting link will be sent to you nearer the time. Many thanks to those of you who have already booked. If you have any difficultly booking a slot, please do let me know.

Phase Group Emails

Please remember that I am always available to contact using the Early Years email. I will always respond as soon as possible, but this may not be until the following working day if sent in the evening or a Monday if sent at the weekend. 

If you wish to let me know of an absence, a medical appointment or a change in drop-off/collection arrangements, please can you contact the school office by text or email rather than use this email, as it is the office staff that will collect your child to take to the gate and, as you can imagine, I am unable to check the emails regularly during teaching hours.

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

• Learning the next 4 sounds in our Phonics sessions.
• Learning about the importance of finger spaces when trying to write.
• Continuing with our "Just Like Me!" work in Mathematics, this week we will be sorting and comparing objects.
• Going on an Autumn walk around the school grounds and seeing how many different colours we can find.
• Talking about how we have changed since we were a baby. Many thanks to everyone who has sent in a baby photo so far. PLEASE send in a photo by Monday, this can be done via email if that is easier. 

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield

04.10.21 - This coming week in Early Years

We have had another lovely week in Pearl Class. On Wednesday we successfully completed our very first fire drill! Mrs Nelson was SO impressed with us all that everyone got one of her special stickers.

In a few weeks time we will be looking at how we have changed since being a baby. It would be lovely if the children could either bring in a baby photo OR for 1 to be emailed in for us to print out in school. Please email them to earlyyears@downhallprimary.com. We need them by Monday 11th October, as we will use them that week.

The children's photo has been sent off to the Echo for their New Intake supplement. They have informed me that this will be published on Tuesday 12th October.

You may have seen on this week's newsletter, children in Pearl Class will be having their height and weight checks on 18th and 19th October. You should have all received a letter about this via email. If you haven't had it, please let me know and I will check with the office. 

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

• Starting our daily Phonics sessions, learning our first 4 sounds.
• Reading another story about the Ten in the Bed characters, this time they are playing Hide and Seek.
• Using our teddy bear puppets that we made last week to play "Where's the Bear?" game in our Maths sessions.
• Singing our silly songs together, trying to remember the new one we have learnt about the greedy crocodile.
• Starting to create our Christmas card designs, these will come home over the half term holiday for you to see. 

Have a lovely weekend!

Miss Wakefield

27.09.21 - This coming week in Early Years

We have had a busy week in Pearl Class! We have signed our school charter and agreed to follow the ideas we came up with last week. Today Mr Paterson showed us the swimming pool and our 2 helpers had to help him rescue some rubber ducks! 

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 using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com. They are displayed in the class and then at the end of each term they are added to your child's Learning Journey book. WOWs can take the form of a written comment and/or photo and as I said before just is anything that has made you proud. 

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

• Learning about the different parts of a book during our story sessions.
• Reading and sharing the story "Ten in the Bed" and then singing the number rhyme we learnt last week with the same name.
• Playing some Circle Time games.
• Creating some lolly stick teddy bear puppets.
• Playing some number games using our namecards.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield

20.09.21 - This coming week in Early Years

WOW! What a busy first week! I have been very impressed with how well all the children have settled into Pearl Class, you may have seen on the newsletter that, because of this, all the children are pupil of the week! 😊

From next week, there is a new dinner menu, this works on a 3 week basis and we start on week 1. The new menu can be found here.

I just wanted to clarify the situation regarding bags in school. The children can bring in a book bag, however we don't have anything to go in these yet, so please don't worry if your child does not have one. The children do not need to bring in any bags on a Friday as this is our PE day, they simply wear their kit to school. If you have any queries regarding this, or indeed anything, then please email me using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com.

On to our learning for next week, 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 number rhymes, including the silly one about the monkeys and the crocodile!
• Having our school photographs taken on Thursday.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield

Welcome to the Pearl Class Blog!

Welcome to our Early Years Blog, I hope you will find it helpful as your child starts their life at Down Hall Primary.

It has been lovely to meet all the children this week and I am looking forward to us starting our learning journey together. 

Following on from our ZOOM meetings, I have found some parental guidance regarding the baseline assessments, I have added it to the Pearl and Quartz pages of the school website, under the "Useful Information" tab. Alternatively it can be found by clicking here.

I have also now heard from the Echo newspaper. For those of you who DO NOT wish your child to be in this photograph, please do let either me or the office know as soon as possible. As soon as I have the date for publication I will let you know.

Just to confirm our start time for next week is 9.15am and our finish time is 2.45pm. Those children with older siblings can start at the earliest time and siblings can come home at 2.45pm. These arrangements are due to be reviewed again on the 17th September. The letter regarding this can be found here. 

A mid morning snack is provided for the children, so they will only need to bring in their water bottle and a lunchbox, unless they are having school dinners. The lunchtime menu can be found here.

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

• Welcoming everyone into Pearl Class and learning about what we do at snack time and lunch time.
• Finding out about different areas of our classroom and around school - exploring the ladybird garden, field and adventure playground.
• Drawing pictures of ourselves for our classroom display.
• Talking about how we can work together to make our classes a happy place to work and play. (RRS Article 31)
• Taking a class photo for the Echo New Starters supplement.

Please remember I am only ever an email away, there is no such thing as a silly question and I will always do my best to answer any queries. Please use the email address earlyyears@downhallprimary.com. This email address is also the place to send any WOWs for the children. 

I hope you all have a lovely weekend. 

Miss Wakefield

Thank you Pearlies

Hello everyone, 

The children have brought home their lovely bags filled with some of their things from their time in Pearl Class. Their Learning Journey books will come home to you in the Autumn Term - so please don't worry, they are not lost, I simply need time to finish them by adding our July photographs. The photo in their bag was taken on the children's first day at school and we have taken the second one today. Also in their bags is a little Welcome to Year 1 leaflet from Miss Langley and Mrs O'Connor.

I have emailed you all a link for the ZOOM meetings on Monday and fingers crossed everything works without any issues this time!

Should you need to contact Miss Langley and Mrs O'Connor regarding anything in school then you will now need to use the email ks1@downhallprimary.com. (I'm still happy to receive emails but might not be much use to you all anymore!) It would help the Key Stage 1 team if you add Year 1 to your subject heading as this will help identify your emails quicker as the account is shared with Mr Jude and Mrs Yuille. Please note that the key stage 1 email will not be monitored from Wednesday 21st July until Wednesday 1st September 2021. You might also wish to spend some time looking at the Key Stage 1 area of the school website, to find their blog, the end of year expectations and projects that are covered. This can be found here. 

The children all return to school on Thursday 2nd September and for the first few weeks we will be continuing our current arriving and leaving routines. The times for Emerald Class are 9am and 3.25pm. The letter regarding the return to school can be found here.

I can't believe we have come to the end of our little journey together. I have loved every minute with you Pearlies and you have made me SO proud every day. I know you are going to be FABULOUS in Emerald too and I will pop in to see you all when we come back in September. 

Have a wonderful summer!

Love Miss Wakefield xx

12.07.21 - This coming week in Early Years

I can't quite believe that there is only 1 week of this year left! What a year we have had and I have loved sharing it with Pearl Class.

We have enjoyed having both Miss Langley and Mrs O'Connor in class this week, the children have been wowing their new teachers with all the things they have learnt this year.

The children also enjoyed their first turn on our new Wild Flower Adventure Playground on Wednesday, it was SO much fun that we went on it again the next day! We are booked to have more turns next week too! 

This week in Dough Disco we had "Three Lions" as our track, having enjoyed "World in Motion" the week before. 😁 Hopefully you have seen the school posts regarding Monday, children will not be marked late as long as they are in school by 10am. 

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

• Sharing the story "One Year with Kipper" and thinking about our first year at school.
• Writing about our favourite things from Pearl Class.
• Learning the last 4 tricky words for Phase 4 in our Phonics sessions and learning how to spell the last of the Phase 3 tricky words.
• Updating our names on the classroom display for one last time!
• Creating mazes in our Mathematics sessions and giving each other directions so that we know how to get out!

Please remember you can always email me any queries, questions or WOWs to the Early Years email. I will be sending out the Zoom links for the parent/teacher meetings next week. 

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield

05.07.21 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

Well, what a busy week and with a fantastic end! So busy in fact that I had forgotten to post the blog until today! The children loved visiting the Big Top on Thursday and we have had a fabulous sports day on Friday. I am so proud of the children and how they supported one another as they ran their races.

Parent/Teacher Consultations

Parent/Teacher Consultations will take place via Zoom on Monday 19th July between 8:30am and 3:30pm. This will be to discuss any questions you may have about your child's report which they will be bringing home on Thursday 8th July. You can book your appointment using the Scopay system from Monday 5th July. Please email us if you have any issues with this process. Once you have booked your appointment, Zoom details will be emailed to you during the week before our meeting.

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

• Learning more Phase 4 tricky words in our Phonics sessions.
• Finishing our flying superheroes from last week by adding the final touches to our pictures and adding the speech bubbles.
• Thinking about real life superheroes and all the different ways that they can help us.
• Making patterns in our Maths sessions, using numbers, objects and colours.
• Exploring objects using our sense of smell, this is carried over from last week.
• Sharing and discussing the story "The Worrysaurus" in our Circle Time session.

I hope you have all had a lovely weekend, see you tomorrow!

Miss Wakefield

28.06.21 - This week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

Well that was another busy week that has been and gone! We enjoyed spending time with Mrs O'Connor this week and she answered questions about Year 1. We have also talked about and looked at photos of Emerald Class - we discovered that there are lots of things that are going to stay the same! We also had a sneaky look through Emerald's door when they were out doing their daily mile to see it for ourselves! 

Tricky Words

A number of parents have been asking about an updated list of the tricky words that the children learn in Phonics. Please click here for the list of words. We are currently working our way through the Phase 4 words and have reached have/like. We will be learning the remainder over the next 3 weeks. 

Hares About Town

This summer, if you head into Southend, you are in for a "hare-raising" surprise! The Hares About Town trail starts on the 1st July. There are 30 hares dotted all around the town, each with their own story to tell. Accompanying the hares are over 50 leverets, including our school leveret Lenny. 

Miss Wakefield and Mrs Holmes were very lucky to have a sneak preview of all the Hares on Tuesday. They are AMAZING and include a hare that has been created by one of the parents at school. Mrs Cairns' hare "View of Lepus" can be found in Priory Park.

We have been given some trail maps to sell, on behalf of Fair Havens. The suggested donation for these is £1 and we will be selling them at the gate, after school next week. 

PE Kit

A reminder that PE kit for Friday is a light blue t-shirt with navy blue tracksuit bottoms/leggings or navy shorts. Trainers should be black. We appreciate that if PE kit no longer fits, people are making do with what they have until the summer and this is fine, however, please be mindful of our uniform policy when restocking in the holidays.

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

• Learning the next tricky words from Phase 4 in our Phonics sessions. We will also be trying to spell some CVCC words.
• Working on some number problems in our Mathematics sessions.
• Continuing our work on senses, this week we will be using our Super Sense of smell!
• Creating some flying Superheroes using our handprints and then writing a speech bubble for them.
• Reading and discussing the 4th book in our Tom Percival series, this one is called "Meesha Makes Friends".
• Taking part in Sports Week, scoring points for our houses.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend, see you on Monday!

Miss Wakefield

21.06.21 - This coming week in Early Years

 Hello everyone, 

This week has been a very busy week in Pearl Class, so much so that we didn't manage to fit in all of our planned activities - but more about that later. We were visited by Mr Law and Mrs Hurley on Wednesday, who spent time showing us an exciting way to learn our 2 times tables. We will be giving this a go next week, along with the rest of the school, as we trial this new method.

Classes for next year

You may have seen the letter that has been added to the website today regarding the class arrangements for September. It can also be found here. Both Miss Langley and Mrs O'Connor have already been spending time with the children and will continue to do so for the remainder of this term.

New School Website

Over the past few months we have been working on refreshing our school website. This started with the individual phase group pages and now includes the whole of the website. We have added lots more photographs of our wonderful children and premises and hope to add more in the future. We have also had a little rearrangement of the information available to hopefully make it easier to access the information you need. There is also a "Children's Hub" tab at the end of the taskbar which gives quick links to many of the common learning platforms that your child might find useful to support their learning. We hope you like the changes and a massive thank you to Mrs Balkwill for working so hard in driving this project through to completion! Visit our lovely new site here.

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

• Writing about one of the characters from the film, including important information, for example discussing whether they used their powers for good or bad things. (This is what we didn't get done last week!)
• Learning about odd and even numbers in our Mathematic sessions.
• Using our "Super Senses" in another game, this time focussing on the sense of sight.
• Sharing and discussing the story "Perfectly Norman" in our Circle Time session.

As always, please feel free to email me with any queries or any WOWs for the children using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield

14.06.21 - This coming week in Early Years

 Hello everyone!

Firstly apologies for the delay in posting this week's blog - unfortunately technology has not been my friend, but hopefully it is all sorted now!

A few important things first:

End of Term Reports

On the 8th July, your child will receive their end of term report detailing their progress and areas for future development. Although there are no formal assessments made this year, due to the National lockdown at the beginning of Spring Term, the report will contain an indication as to whether your child is working towards or working at national expectations. There will be an opportunity to discuss this report in a Zoom parent/teacher meeting after you have received the report. Further details of all of this will follow shortly so keep an eye on the weekly newsletter!

Hot Weather

The past week as finally seen some lovely summer weather. On hot days, please ensure you have applied sun cream to your child before school and it would be great if you could also send them in with a hat too. We continue to encourage the children to drink their water throughout the day and they are able to refill their bottles should they drink it all.

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

• Continuing to watch and discuss the film "The Incredibles".
• Writing about one of the characters from the film, including important information, for example discussing whether they used their powers for good or bad things.
• Trying to recall the 2 Phase 4 tricky words we learnt last week and starting to learn how to spell some of our Phase 3 tricky words.
• Learning about sharing in our Mathematic sessions.
• Using our "Super Senses" in a feely bag game.
• Sharing and discussing the story "Ravi's Roar" in our Circle Time session.
• Making some special cards to take home on Friday.

See you all tomorrow!

Miss Wakefield

07.06.21 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone! 

What an unusual half term...it was actually sunny! I hope you have all enjoyed the last week and that the children are looking forward to coming back tomorrow.

We will be starting our new project "Superheroes" this week. Many thanks to those of you who have asked your children the Superhero questions, this will help with our ideas for the project. If you haven't had a chance to do this yet, please do as it is always lovely to know what the children would like to know more about. The information about our latest project can be found here.

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

• Watching and discussing the Disney short "Jack-Jack Attack".
• Thinking about the characters in the film and what they were like, working in a group to describe them.
• Starting Phase 4 in our Phonics sessions.
• Learning about doubles in our Mathematic sessions.
• Creating mini superhero puppets, by carefully cutting them out.
• Sharing and discussing the story "Ruby's Worry" in our Circle Time session.

See you all tomorrow!

Miss Wakefield

Happy Half Term

WOW! What a fabulous half term we have had in Pearl Class. We have celebrated both the 100th school day since the children started in September and the 100th day that the children have physically been in school. So much learning has taken place and I am SO proud of the Pearlies.

When we come back, the children will start their new project "Superheroes". I have updated this section of the Early Years site with some information for you about the project and a sheet for the children to complete too. These can be found here.

I look forward to hearing about the children's ideas for our project. Please email them to me using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com.

During the half term holiday there will be an art installation in Rayleigh in conjunction with the Head to Toe Clubfoot Charity. Children from several schools in Rayleigh, including Down Hall, have created colourful feathers and these will form part of the decorations in the High Street. All of the children in Pearl Class have made their own feather so you may like to go and take a look. 

It would be really great if, over the half term, you could just have a quick check of your child's uniform and whether their name is still visible. As the weather starts to get warmer, jumpers and cardigans get taken off more and more and it is much easier for us to sort them if the children's names are clear. 

Have a lovely half term, I will see you all again when term starts on Monday 7th June.

Thank you for your continued support
Miss Wakefield

24.05.21 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

Just one week left of this term and I am so very proud of the Pearlies. They have all been working hard again this week and I was thrilled with their writing as so many of them used their sounds to help them spell the words they needed. We have also been enjoying the film "A Bug's Life" and this will again be our focus for next week.

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

• Continuing to use the film "A Bug's Life" in our story time, collecting words to describe the characters Flik and Hopper.
• Using the words we collect to help us write about either Flik or Hopper, making sure we add those describing words to help the reader.
• Using our Bug's Life Cine Sacks to help us retell the story of the film.
• Finishing our First Then Now phase in Mathematics. We will be using shapes to make new shapes.
• Checking that we have answered all the questions posed by the children at the start of our Minibeast project.
• Finishing Phase 3 in Phonics and getting ready to start Phase 4 after half term. We have already been adding some of the Phase 4 elements but we will start this properly after the holiday.
• Talking about ways to keep ourselves healthy during Circle Time and sharing a very silly story all about the importance of eating vegetables!

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield

17.05.21 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

WOW! Another week has gone past and we now only have 2 weeks until half term!! The children have done some brilliant writing this week and Mrs Fincham and I were very proud of their great efforts. As we always say to the children great effort does lead to great progress.

As a Gold Level Rights Respecting School, we believe that children's voices should be heard. Over the next fortnight the children in school will be taking part in The Big Ask. However as the children in Pearl Class are 4-5 years old, I will be sending you an email with a link to take part in the survey as there is a parent section for children of this age. You can find out more about our RRS Gold Level award by clicking here.

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

• Using the film "A Bug's Life" in our story time and thinking about how this film is similar to the story we shared last week.
• Starting to think about the characters in the film and how they behave. We will then be linking this to our Circle Time session and talking about whether we would want someone to behave like Hopper did.
• Labelling the different parts of either Flik or Hopper, using a ruler to carefully draw the lines. 
• Sharing some non-fiction books to find out about some of the minibeasts in the film.
• Continuing to use First Then and Now stories but this time when taking away numbers in our Mathematics sessions.
• Recapping the last of our Phase 3 vowel digraphs in our Phonics sessions. We will be moving on to Phase 4 after half term!

IMPORTANT NOTICES:

On Thursday and Friday there is a change to the dinner menu.  

On Friday we are having a "Denim for Dementia" day where the children can wear some denim along with their uniform to raise money. 

If you wish to purchase your child's school photograph, this needs to be returned by Monday 24th May.

Further information regarding these important notices can be found in this week's newsletter - which can be found by clicking here. If you have any queries please remember you can always contact me using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield

10.05.21 - This coming week in Early Years

Another week has flown past and we have, as always, been very busy! We have enjoyed exploring the Ladybird Garden whilst on our minibeast hunts. We were able to find lots of different minibeasts, including ladybirds, ants, spiders, worms, slugs and woodlice. We collected some twigs and leaves for our minibeast display too. 

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

• Watching and talking about the Aesop Fable "The Grasshopper and the Ants".
• Writing about either the Grasshopper or the Ants, using our sounds to help us spell the words.
• Learning about addition in our Mathematics sessions as we move onto the next Phase "First Then Now"
• Discussing the characters from this week's story in our Circle Time session and thinking about how kind the ants were to the grasshopper.
• Continuing our minibeast hunts, this time seeing what we can find on the field.
• Learning how to use some new equipment in our learning garden, remembering what we have been doing in PE with our partners.

We have almost reached the end of Phase 3 for Phonics now and the children continue to grow in confidence with their blending and segmenting. It would be really helpful if you could spend a little time each and every day supporting the children with their sounds - perhaps by playing with their sound cards, or by visiting the Phonics Play website. The children enjoy the games on this site and any reinforcement of their sounds also really supports their Reading and Writing skills. The Phonics Play website can be found here.

Reading on a daily basis is also extremely important, if you have misplaced your child's Big Cat login or have any questions or concerns regarding your child's reading or phonics then please do email me using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield