Friday 26 November 2021

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

Friday 19 November 2021

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

Friday 12 November 2021

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

Friday 5 November 2021

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