Happy Christmas Everyone!

Hello everyone, 

We hope you all enjoyed our Nativity performance this morning, we are SO proud of the children and how hard they have worked to put it all together. We have turned their photographs into little decorations for your Christmas trees and hope that you have found these in their brown bags. If you'd like your child's photograph sent to you then please just email us using earlyyears@downhallprimary.com.

We also wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of you for your support this term and for the lovely Christmas cards and gifts we have received. You have been very kind and we are very appreciative.  

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. These can be found in the children's book bags. 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 letters 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 Thursday 5th January 2023, ready to start our next learning adventures!
With love
The Early Years Team

19.12.22 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

The children have had a very busy and exciting day today, with visits to see Father Christmas and Christmas shopping for our families. We were so lucky that Father Christmas spent the whole day at school and even came to our assembly this morning!

We have spent this week getting everything ready for our Nativity next week. We are sorry that this has meant we haven't had a chance to change any of the children's books, but we will rectify this next week. 

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

• Performing our Nativity to the rest of the school on Monday.
• Performing our Nativity to our families on Tuesday.
• Finishing off our Christmas mathematics activities from this week, counting objects and creating repeating patterns.
• Taking our Christmas cards and calendars home to share with our families.

For the performance on Tuesday all gates will be opened at 9.15am. Please make your way round to the front of the school (by the office) where you will be able to enter the hall via the double doors in the car park. The PTA will be offering teas and coffees and there will be a collection for the school charity at the end of the performance. PLEASE NOTE we have already taken photographs of the children in their costumes and you will not be able to take photos or film our Nativity, as already stated in the letter, as this would not comply with our safeguarding procedures.

The Echo should be publishing a photo of our Nativity as part of their supplement on Tuesday 20th.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

12.12.22 - This week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

We have been very busy this week, going into the hall to run through our performance and trying on our costumes. Some of the children will be bringing home their lines for our Nativity, we would be very grateful if you could help them practise their words.

On Monday your child will come home with 2 programmes for our Nativity. These act as your tickets so please bring them on the day. The performance will take place in the hall, you will be asked to enter this via the side doors which can be accessed from the school car park in Brooklyn Drive. The performance should last around 20-30 minutes. The PTA will be offering teas and coffees and there will also be a collection at the end of the performance for this year's chosen charity.

Christmas Jumper Day

The children looked fantabulous today in their Christmas Jumpers today and we have raised money that will continue to sponsor Thoko and  her local community in Malawi. We thought you might like to hear what Thoko wrote in her most recent letter to us. She writes:

Dear Down Hall

I am learning in Standard 4. I go to school everyday. I always work hard in classes and my end of term results are always good. When I finish school I want to be a nurse. Very soon we will start harvesting crops. Greetings to you!

Thoko

A local representative who oversees Action Aid's money also adds:

Dear Supporter

One of the problems in Primary Schools is the shortage of desks. As a way of addressing the issue, we bought desks and shared them with two Primary Schools in the Kalowe Zone. This initiative has helped increase the number of children who have access to sit at a desk. Thank you for your support which has really promoted education in the area.

It's amazing to think that from such a small act on our behalf, we can make such a big difference for the young people who live such a long way away but share our right to an education. Thank you all so much!

Today we also had a visit from Mrs Morgan, who brought along some of her instruments to play. She showed us how she plays the cornet, trombone and tenor horn and then she played a tune using a hose pipe and a funnel! We sang some Christmas songs together, playing different percussion instruments and had lots of fun!

Events

We have put up a poster with important dates on our noticeboard (next to the Early Years gate) along with publishing them here.

• Wednesday 14th December - Christmas Dinner at school (this needed to be pre-booked and the deadline for this has now passed)
• Friday 16th December - PTA Christmas Bazaar
• Tuesday 20th December - Our Nativity

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

• Watching the Key Stage 1 children perform their Christmas production on Monday.
• Finishing our Christmas cards and calendars ready to take them home to our families.
• Playing the different games on Phonics Play.
• Enjoying our Christmas Dinner on Wednesday.
• Creating our own Fairy Light patterns and completing some Christmas counting activities in our Mathematics sessions.
• Enjoying the PTA's Christmas Bazaar and Santa's Grotto on Friday.

The last drop in for this year will be on WEDNESDAY.

Have a lovely weekend!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

05.12.22 - This coming week in Early Years

This week has been just a little bit exciting! Our Christmas tree has returned from the Christmas Tree festival and we discovered today that it came 5th. We are sure that you would agree that the children's owls are stunning!

We have also been working hard learning the songs for our Nativity and hopefully today you all received a letter explaining the arrangements for our performance! Tickets will be issued in the form of a programme and these will come home on Monday 12th December.

The children have picked their parts and we have had a walk through of what each part does today. The costumes are all sorted and from next week some of the children will be bringing home some words to learn and we would be very grateful if you could support them with this.

Upcoming Events

We have put up a poster with important dates on our noticeboard (next to the Early Years gate) along with publishing them here.

• Friday 9th December - Christmas Jumper Day
• Wednesday 14th December - Christmas Dinner at school (this needed to be pre-booked and the deadline for this is TODAY 02/12)
• Friday 16th December - PTA Christmas Bazaar
• Tuesday 20th December - Our Nativity

Christmas Jumper Day - Friday 9th December

On this day, the children can wear their fabulous festive jumpers and make a £1 donation which goes to our continued sponsorship of Thoko.  The charity Action Aid use this money to ensure that Thoko and the other children in her community enjoy their right to an education, just like all of us at Down Hall!  

SO, to clarify, on Friday the children need to wear their normal PE kit i.e. their jogging bottoms but with their Christmas jumper (instead of their PE sweatshirt).

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

• Practising our Nativity, singing the songs and learning our words.
• Starting to make our own Christmas cards and calendars for our families.
• Updating our name displays in the classrooms in our Start-Bee sessions.
• Working on our blending and segmenting of 3 phoneme words. 
• Learning more about 2D shapes in our Mathematics sessions and using them to create some Christmas pictures.
• Voting to pick this year's school charity and then finding out from our school councillors which one has been chosen.
• Wearing our Christmas jumpers for Christmas Jumper day on Friday and talking about Thoko. 

There is no drop in this week, there will be one the following week.

Wishing you a lovely weekend!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley