28.02.22 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

I hope you have all been enjoying the sunshine today, it has been lovely to have the chance to catch up with you and talk about how well the children have been doing. 

Many thanks for all of the children's sheets about our new project, we made a great start on it this week and are looking forward to continuing to learn more about the Boy and the Penguin next week. 

This coming week we will be:

• Sharing and discussing the story "Up and Down", which is another story about the Boy and the Penguin.
• Discussing what it means to be a good friend in our Circle Time session and linking this to what we know about the Boy and the Penguin.
• Creating our own song and musical accompaniment for the stories, adding sound effects.
• Looking at globes and maps of the world to find the South Pole and comparing it to Rayleigh.
• Learning a new tricky word in our Phonics session and playing Phoneme Bingo again.
• Starting the phase "Building 9 & 10" in our Mathematics sessions.
• Finishing our boats from last week and then testing them all in the water tray.

Don't forget Thursday is World Book Day. The information about how we are marking this in school can be found here. I look forward to finding out about the children's favourite stories. 

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield

21.02.22 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

I hope you have all had a lovely half term break. This week we will be:

• Watching and listening to the story "Lost and Found".
• Learning about the author Oliver Jeffers who wrote and illustrated the story "Lost and Found".
• Creating our own song based on the journey of the Boy and the Penguin, making sure we sequence the events in the right order.
• Learning the last of the Phase 3 sounds in our Phonic sessions.
• Making our own repeating pattern umbrellas like the one belonging to the penguin.
• Creating our own boats to sail in the water tray.

Don't forget Friday is an INSET day for the parent/teacher consultations.

See you tomorrow!

Miss Wakefield

Happy Half Term!

Happy half term everyone!

Today the children have brought home a letter about our next project "Lost and Found". We really enjoyed finding out the answers to the children's questions about dinosaurs, so it would be lovely to have their ideas once again. They have also brought home the next set of sounds that we have learnt in Phonics this week and their artwork from this half term.

This week we enjoyed creating our own volcano, just like the one Andy saw in his T-Rex adventure. I promised the children that I would put the link up for all of you, just in case you'd like to have a go at making your own volcanoes during the holiday! It can be found here. We have also made some salt dough fossils this week, again there was a clip to show us what to do, it can be found here. 

We have also enjoyed the coin run today, making hearts on the playground with all our coins.

Finally, your child has come home with their Mid-Year Report today. These are different from those we have sent out previously and give you and your child the targets that we will be working on from next half term. This report is one of the things that we can discuss during the parent/teacher consultations on Friday 25th February. Many thanks to those of you who have already made an appointment. It is assumed that you are happy for these meetings to take place via ZOOM, however if you would prefer to have a telephone call or a face-to-face meeting then please email me to let me know using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com. The information about the parent/teacher consultations can be found here. I will send out the links for the ZOOM meeting on Thursday 24th.

I hope you all have a lovely week, I will see you all on Monday 21st February!

Miss Wakefield

07.02.22 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

We have had a lovely week finding out all about Chinese New Year. We have all learnt which animal year we were born in and have created some amazing dragons!

I have been asked by Miss Sharman to let you know the following: 

After half term, we will be making some exciting changes to our PE lessons. We will be welcoming some new coaches from Jack Of All Sports to our team. 

Mrs Perrins, Mr Attfield, Mr Gray and Mr Harrington will deliver lessons along with Mrs Williamson. 

Please ensure that your child has the correct PE uniform on PE days.  This should consist of:

• Plain, navy blue tracksuit (No logos please e.g. Nike/Puma etc)
• Plain, navy blue shorts
• School t-shirt
• Plain, black trainers (No bright coloured soles or stripes please)

We are really looking forward to working with Mr Harrington and his team and can't wait to welcome them to Down Hall. If you have any questions regarding PE, please email Miss Sharman using the Year 5/6 email address: year5_6@downhallprimary.com

In Early Years, the children will now be having Mr Attfield for PE on a Friday. The children briefly met him on Monday when he came into school to visit.

I have also been asked by Mrs Hurley to let you all know about a Parent Workshop she will be running about Times Tables, please see her message below:

INVITATION TO ALL PARENTS

Times tables are at the heart of mental arithmetic, which in itself helps form the basis of a child’s understanding and ability when working with numbers. Once children have learnt their times tables to fluency and instant recall, they are then able to work more confidently through a wide range of calculations and problem solving. 

Join us for a Parent Workshop based on Times Tables and how they are taught at Down Hall Primary.

Tuesday 1st March 2022 1.30-2.15pm

At this stage Mrs Hurley will be conducting this session via Zoom but there may be a change in restrictions which will enable the session to run in the school hall with social distancing measures put in place. If this is the case then we would need to limit numbers to a maximum of 30 people. 

With special guests (Times Table Champions)

If you would like to attend, please email Mrs Hurley: year3_4@downhallprimary.com

We would love to hear from you!

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

• Sharing non-fiction texts to find out facts about different dinosaurs. 
• Looking at fossils and learning about the job of a Palaeontologist.
• Continuing with our Maths work from last week, working on addition and finding the total using our 10 frames. 
• Comparing dinosaurs by their length, height and weight, using the facts we have found.
• Learning the next vowel digraphs in our Phonics sessions. 
• Enjoying the PTA coin run on Friday. (More information below).

On Friday it is wear something red day, to help raise funds for our PTA. The children can wear something red, along with their normal PE kit for a suggested donation of £1. They are also asked to bring in some coins to take part in the coin run. Each class will be laying their coins in a long line and the class with the longest line will win a prize! Again all monies will be going to the PTA.

Don't forget that there are new arrangements for home time starting on Monday. The information about this can be found here, if you have any queries please do ask or email me using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com.

The appointments for the Parent Teacher consultations will open on Wednesday, the information about this can be found here. Again, any queries please just ask.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield