25.03.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

This week we have marked World Down Syndrome day by wearing odd socks. The children have also brought home their sunflowers today, these were planted on the 1st March. We talked about them yesterday and discussed how they were all different, with some growing lots and some not much at all. There are photos of our sunflower challenge in this week's newsletter too.

There will be no drop in this week as Tuesday and Wednesday are the parent/teacher consultation evenings. At these meetings there will be an opportunity to look at your child's books and to discuss their progress.

The deadline for the Easter activities has been extended by the PTA, it is now Monday.

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

• Sharing the story "Stuck", this is a very silly story about a little boy called Floyd and how his kite got stuck in a tree.
• Learning about 3D shapes in our Mathematics sessions.
• Listening to and discussing the story "It Wasn't Me" in our Circle Time session and thinking about how we would behave in that situation.
• Updating the name displays in our classrooms and thinking about how much they have improved. 
• Making Easter cards for our families.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

18.03.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone,

Thank you to everyone who has helped us raise money for Comic Relief. We will let you know the total raised in next week's newsletter. The JustGiving page is still open as an additional way to donate to our Comic Relief collection should you wish to use it. It can be found here.

Thank you for continued support in our teaching and learning about Children's Rights
RRS A2: Children's Rights apply to every child everywhere, all of the time. 

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

• Sharing the story "The Way Back Home", a fourth story about the Boy.
• Thinking about how this week's book links to the story from last week.
• Learning about 5 more words in our Vocabulary Ninja sessions.
• Using our new found knowledge to help us write some of our own penguin facts.
• Finding out about odd and even numbers and sorting our Numicon tiles in our Mathematics sessions. 
• Sharing the book "How Long is a Whale?" and using it to help us compare different sea animals by their length.

There are 2 messages this week from other teachers in school.

Firstly from Mrs Hurley:

MATHS WORKSHOPS FOR EVERYONE. DON'T MISS THIS AMAZING OPPORTUNITY!
We are delighted to announce that we are running a number of Maths workshops for adults. You can be a parent, grandparent, carer, aunt or uncle - you are all welcome! Are you someone who feels they need some support with maths? Perhaps your own experience in school wasn’t a good one. Well fear not, we have the solution to this!
Multiply courses are free and fully funded by Essex County Council as part of their Multiply Maths programme. Each course is 6 hours face-to-face in school. Each session will be between 1pm-3pm on the dates below:

EYFS 16th / 23rd / 30th April
KS1 18th / 25th April, 2nd May
KS2 10th / 17th / 24th May
Here is the link for you to register your interest.  https://forms.gle/BV9pj1FmAegMRLhw8

And from Miss Harvey:

Turn On The Subtitles

https://turnonthesubtitles.org/parents/ 

Turning on quality subtitles means your child will read a staggering number of words. Put them on and your child will read the equivalent number of words that are in all the Harry Potter books, all of the Lord of the Rings, all of the Chronicles of Narnia and everything Roald Dahl wrote, combined!

Research has shown that it can double the chance of your child leaving school as a proficient reader. You can turn them on for the whole family or most streaming services will now allow you to do it just for children’s profiles.

Perhaps, after all, there is a magic button…

Drop in this week will be on MONDAY.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

11.03.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

The children all looked fantastic on Thursday in their various costumes and we had a lovely time sharing stories both in our coloured Houses during the afternoon.

This coming week we will be:

• Sharing and discussing the story "How To Catch A Star". This was Oliver Jeffers' first book and also the first story about the Boy.
• Continuing the phase "Building 9 & 10" in our Mathematics sessions, counting backwards from 10, finding 1 more or 1 less than a number to 10 and finding different ways to make 10 using our 10 frames.
• Starting to look at non-fiction books to learn about penguins.
• Comparing our height to that of an Emperor Penguin, finding out if we are taller or shorter.
• Painting our own moose, thinking about the way Oliver Jeffers drew them in his book "This Moose Belongs To Me".
• Taking part in Comic Relief activities and raising money on Friday. (See below)

Finally a quick message from Mrs Yuille:

As a Gold RRS school we are proud to be raising money to help children achieve their Rights within the UK and in the wider global community.  This year we have set up a Just Giving page as an additional way to donate to our collection fund if preferred.   

Down Hall Comic Relief Just Giving Page

On the day children will be able to buy a red nose for £2, bring in some jokes or something funny to share in class and come to school in non-uniform for a donation of your choice.  Thank you for helping us to teach your children about The Rights, and to learn that small actions together can make a big difference!  We are looking forward to a fun Friday taking part in Comic Relief next week!  

RRS Article 2:  Children's Rights apply to every child, everywhere all of the time.

Drop in this week will be on THURSDAY.

We hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

04.03.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

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. The children have started a beautiful display, which you can see at our next drop in.

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.
• Looking at globes and maps of the world to find the South Pole and comparing it to Rayleigh, as we ran out of time for this last week.
• Starting the phase "Building 9 & 10" in our Mathematics sessions.
• Learning 5 new Vocabulary Ninja words.
• Celebrating World Book Day on Thursday. (More information below).

World Book Day is on Thursday. To promote reading within our school community, for this day the children can bring in a favourite book from home which they can share with the other children in their class. They can also bring in a prop which serves as a clue to their favourite book/character or come dressed up as a favourite character too if they so wish. On this day all the children will also receive a £1 World Book Day voucher! The letter about World Book Day can be found here.  

Drop in this week will be on TUESDAY.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley