28.04.25 - This coming week in Early Years

 Hello everyone!

We have had a very busy first week back! The children were fabulous during their first swimming session and Mr Attfield was very impressed. The children have been enjoying learning about caterpillars and butterflies. The children all made their very own caterpillar and sequenced the story "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". We are excitedly awaiting the arrival of some real caterpillars too, so that we can watch them grow and change. A huge thank you to all of you who have helped your children complete their minibeast ideas sheet, we have loved looking through these and will continue to do so next week. 

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

• Sharing another book by Eric Carle, this time it is all about a bad-tempered ladybird.
• Retelling the story "The Bad-Tempered Ladybird and thinking about how the ladybird behaved and whether this was the right thing to do, sharing our ideas during Circle Time.
• Watching a film showing the life cycle of a ladybird.
• Labelling the different parts of a ladybird.
• Learning about time, making different o'clock times, just like those in the story.
• Making our very own ladybirds using pebbles.
• Having fun on our Times Tables Rockstar Day! (Friday 2nd - details in the newsletter)

As we are now in the Summer Term, we will be starting to get the children ready for their move into Key Stage 1. With this is mind, it is time for them to start walking round to Early Years by themselves and saying goodbye to you at the gate. We have already got a number of children who do this and we are very proud of their independence. We would ask that from Monday you start to let your child walk to Early Years by themselves. We realise, that depending on which gate you use, some children have further to walk than others. If you come in via the Brooklyn Drive or Torquay Close gates please start by walking part of the way with your child, allowing them to do the final bit by themselves. It is often the parents that find this the most difficult, your children are used to navigating their way from one end of school to the other on a daily basis and will be fine. We also appreciate that there are times when you might need to talk to us about something, please remember that we do check our Class Dojo on a daily basis so messages can always be sent there, shared to the adult on the main school gates or indeed saved for home time.

Drop in sessions are starting back up again and this week it will take place on THURSDAY. 

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

21.04.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

We hope you have all had a lovely Easter break. We are looking forward to seeing the children again to start the Summer term and hearing all about their Easter holidays. We would be really grateful if the children could bring in their sheets about our Minibeasts project this coming week. If you are unable to find them, then they can also be found here.

On to our new learning for this coming week:

• Sharing the story "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle.
• Watching a film version of the story and comparing it to the book.
• Sequencing the events in the story.
• Creating our own repeating pattern caterpillars, printing using corks.
• Starting our new units in JIGSAW and Charanga.
• Playing a new Circle Time game, trying to pass bells around our circle without them making a sound!
• Starting our swimming lessons on Wednesday!

See you all in the morning!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

31.03.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

The children have worked hard this week with their writing and we have loved seeing how well they are using their Phonics. They have also been creative and we hope everyone loves their special cards on Sunday!

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. All meetings will take place in the hall.

Upcoming Events

Tuesday 1st April - Parent/Teacher consultations
Wednesday 2nd April - Parent/Teacher consultations

Thursday 3rd April - Mother's Day Cream Tea

Friday 4th April - PTA Easter Egg hunt and Wellbeing day

Friday 4th April - PTA Disco 

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

• Updating the name displays in our classrooms and thinking about how much they have improved. 
• Finishing our current units in Jigsaw and Charanga.
• Ordering numbers to help the Easter Bunny find the eggs.
• Making Easter cards and Easter decorations for our families.
• Checking we have answered ALL of our questions about Dinosaurs.
• Enjoying a Wellbeing day on Friday - the children do not need to come to school in uniform on this day.

Please note the children will be bringing home a different reading book for over the Easter holidays. We will continue with our Anima Phonics books after the Easter break.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

24.03.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

This week we have enjoyed the book "Dinosaur More!" and found out some facts about the dinosaurs from last week's book. The children then did some magnificent labels for their dinosaurs.

Today, the children have looked amazing in their red and pink clothes for Comic Relief. Many thanks for all of the cakes that came in for the children's cake sale. They enjoyed eating their cakes this morning! We will let you know how much has been raised next week.

As promised last week, here are some of the upcoming events.

Upcoming Events

Friday 28th March - PTA Mother's Day sale
Tuesday 1st April - Parent/Teacher consultations
Wednesday 2nd April - Parent/Teacher consultations

Thursday 3rd April - Mother's Day Cream Tea

Friday 4th April - PTA Easter Egg hunt and Wellbeing day

Friday 4th April - PTA Disco 

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.
• Learning about Mary Anning, Robert Plot and the Kraffts, all of whom have helped us understand more about dinosaurs and volcanoes.
• Writing some captions for some different fossils.
• Thinking about 3D shapes in our Mathematics sessions.

The final drop in session for this term will take place on TUESDAY.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

17.03.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

This week we have enjoyed the book "Dinosaur Roar". The children listened carefully to try and find all of the rhyming words. They also did some fabulous writing about some of the dinosaurs from the book.

There are a number of events coming up over the next weeks, so we thought it might be useful to pop them on here. We will then update them each week.

Upcoming Events

Friday 21st March - Red Nose Day (see note below)
Friday 28th March - PTA Mother's Day sale
Tuesday 1st April - Parent/Teacher consultations
Wednesday 2nd April - Parent/Teacher consultations

Thursday 3rd April - Mother's Day Cream Tea

Friday 4th April - PTA Easter Egg hunt and Wellbeing day

Friday 4th April - PTA Disco 

Red Nose Day - Comic Relief's Big 40th Birthday Bake!

This year marks 40 years of Comic Relief. Next Friday, there will be a cake sale to raise money and children are being asked to bring in a few cakes, if possible (homemade or shop bought), to be sold during the day.

Cakes will be sold at 50p a cake, so if you would like your child to take part please bring in money for this and a box to pop them in, if they are buying more than one cake to bring home.

Below is a link to our Just Giving Page if you wish to donate money in this way, but please note that this is separate to the cake sale - children will need to bring in money if they wish to buy a cake!

Down Hall's Just Giving Page

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

• Sharing the book "Dinosaur More!". This is a non-fiction version of last week's book "Dinosaur Roar!".
• Learning what non-fiction means and using our book to find out information about the different dinosaurs.
• Labelling the different parts of a dinosaur, using our segmenting skills to help us spell the words.
• Finding all of the different ways to make 10, learning to recall these number bonds.
• Learning about pumice stone and creating our very own volcano.
• Creating our own salt dough fossils.

Drop in this week will be on THURSDAY.

We hope you have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

10.03.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello!

The children looked amazing yesterday, in their World Book day costumes and the weather meant that the whole school was able to spend time reading on the field together. What a difference a little bit of sun can bring! 

We have also enjoyed making lots of robots this week, these are on display in the corridor, so you can always see them during a drop in session.

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

          

• Sharing the story "Dinosaur Roar!", this is another rhyming book so we will be trying to find all of the rhyming words. 
• Writing a caption to go along with one of the pictures from "Dinosaur Roar!", using describing words to match the picture. 
• Continuing with our "Building 9 and 10" block in Mathematics, working on finding 1 more and 1 less than different numbers.
• Learning our 15th Rainbow word in our Phonics sessions.
• Learning the definitions of 5 more words in our Vocabulary Ninja sessions.
• Learning a new Circle Time game, talking about what makes Trevor Triceratops happy, sad or cross.

Drop in this week will be on MONDAY.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

03.03.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello Everybody!

Thank you so much to all of you who worked with your child to discuss their ideas for our latest project, We have been enjoying reading their different ideas and finding out what they want to know about dinosaurs. Please don't worry if you've not had the chance to do this with your child, we are more than happy for them to come in next week. If you have mislaid your sheet please ask and we can pop another one in your child's bag or alternatively they are on our pages on the website. (A link was in last week's blog).

Next week is a busy week in school as the children will have their height and weight checks on Tuesday and it is World Book Day on Thursday. For World Book Day, the children can come dressed as their favourite character, or bring in a prop from their favourite book or just bring in their favourite book. 

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

• Sharing the book Bumpus Jumpus Dinosaurumpus! 
• Listening out for and writing a list of all the rhyming words in this week's text and learning how to play some rhyming games.
• Learning how to write in our new Maths books, by using one square for each number.
• Continuing to learn about consecutive consonants in our Phonics sessions, blending and segmenting words with 4 sounds. 
• Moving onto the phase "Building 9 and 10" in our Mathematics sessions. This week we will be working on our careful counting.
• Creating some robots, using junk modelling materials, just like Harry did in our story last week.

It has been lovely to start the term with some WOWs, please don't forget to ask if you need a new sheet.

Drop ins will start again this week and will be on FRIDAY.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

24.02.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello!

We hope you have all had a fabulous half term! We are looking forward to welcoming the children back tomorrow, for our next learning adventure! We are also looking forward to finding out their ideas for our new project "Dinosaurs". If you are unable to find the letters that came home before half term, then copies of them can be found here on the Early Years section of the website. 

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

• Sharing Harry and the Dinosaurs stories. We will be reading several of these, including "Harry and the Dinosaurs go to School" and "Harry and the Robots".
• Discussing the story "Harry and the Robots" and thinking about the ways we take care of each other.
• Labelling different parts of one of Harry's robots, using our sounds to help spell the words we need to write.
• Thinking about the days of the week and ordering and sequencing periods of time in our Mathematics sessions.
• Learning the definitions of 5 more words in our Vocabulary Ninja sessions.
• Starting our next JIGSAW puzzle piece for PSHE - "Healthy Me".

Our drop in session this week will be on THURSDAY.

See you in the morning!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

10.02.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

What a very busy time week in school! We have been exceptionally proud of how well all of our children have represented our school during this time. They are truly amazing! This is why both Buttercup and Snowdrop classes are ALL pupils of the week!

This coming Friday is going to be a very exciting day as it will mark 100 days since we started school! Mrs Wood has said we can have a little party to celebrate - we are even getting a special cake! As it also our Wellbeing day, the children do not need to wear uniform, they can come in party clothes or comfy clothes (which ever they prefer). We just ask that they are able to do PE in whatever they are wearing.

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.
• Comparing objects by their length and height 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.
• Comparing how tall we are compared with an Emperor Penguin.
• Writing some facts about polar animals
• Updating the name displays in our classrooms and thinking about how much they have improved. 
• Celebrating 100 days in school on Friday!

Drop in this week will be on TUESDAY.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

03.02.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone,

Thank you for all the fantastic matchboxes this week - we have loved seeing how many little things you and your children have managed to cram inside! We will announce the winner next week, so there is still this weekend if you want to have a go.

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

• Sharing the story "The Way Back Home", a fourth story about the Boy.
• Using a contents page and non-fiction books to find out information about penguins.
• 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. 
• Adding groups of objects together to find the total amount.
• Setting up our own obstacle courses in our Learning Garden, making sure we take turns and share the equipment.

Drop in this week will be on FRIDAY.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

27.01.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

This week the PTA "Coin Battles" have begun! Thank you to everyone who has sent in money for the jars. There are still 2 weeks to go, so plenty of time for some sabotage of the other classes!

The children have all come home with an empty matchbox today. As part of our Mathematics work this week, we have been thinking about how much different containers can hold. We have challenged the children to see how many different items they can fit into their matchbox. Please can they be returned next week so we can find out who is the winner! (The adults will be joining in too and if it is anything like previous years it is likely to become quite competitive!)

This coming Wednesday sees the start of Chinese New Year, so this will be the main focus for our learning, we will be:

• Learning about Chinese New Year. This year it is the year of the Snake.
• Sharing the story "The Great Race" to find out all about the Chinese Zodiac and how each year is named after an animal.
• Finding out about how Chinese New Year is celebrated and also watching some Dragon dancing.
• Thinking about the numbers 6, 7, 8 in our Mathematics sessions.
• Creating some dragons and snakes as part of our Chinese New Year work.

This week, Mrs Wood has reminded the children that they should be having water in their bottles as there is an increasing number bringing in squash/juice. As a Healthy School, the children SHOULD have water only.

This week's drop in will be on FRIDAY.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

20.01.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

The children enjoyed creating their own boats this week and then testing them to see how successful they would be in water! We have also created a fabulous display about the book "Lost and Found", which features some very cute penguins! You will be able to see this at our next drop in. 

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.
• Adding labels to one of the illustrations from the book.
• Starting Phase 4 in our Phonics sessions.
• Learning about capacity in our Mathematics sessions, comparing different containers. 
• Painting our own moose, thinking about the way Oliver Jeffers drew them in his book "This Moose Belongs To Me".

Drop in this week will be on THURSDAY.

We hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

13.01.25 - 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. We would love to see any of the sheets that have not come in yet, as it is lovely to include the children's ideas, so please can any outstanding ones come in 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.
• Writing some descriptions of the Boy and the Penguin.
• Continuing our work on friendships in our Circle Time sessions, thinking about what we enjoy doing with our friends. 
• Looking at globes and maps of the world to find the South Pole and comparing it to Rayleigh.
• Finding 1 more or 1 less in our Mathematics sessions.
• Starting our "Lost and Found" display for the school corridor by creating some penguins.

Our drop in sessions will restart again this week and the first one will be on TUESDAY.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

06.01.25 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone, 

We hope you have all had a lovely Christmas break. We look forward to hearing all the children's news tomorrow.

This week we will starting our new project "Lost and Found" and 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".
• Sequencing events from the story, using pictures from the film and then creating our own song to tell the story of the Boy and the Penguin.
• Continuing with our Anima Phonics sessions and starting our reading sessions again.
• Making our own repeating pattern umbrellas like the one belonging to the penguin.

See you all in the morning!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

Happy Christmas!

 

Hello everyone, 

We hope you all enjoyed our Nativity performance this morning, we are SO, SO proud of the children and how hard they have worked to put it all together. 

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 "Lost and Found". 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 were sent home yesterday and can be found in your child's folder. 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.

We have also sent home our 8 Rainbow Words. These are for using at home, the children have been introduced to all of these words this term and they are simply there as a reminder for them. As they are Rainbow Words, we do not expect the children to use their sounds to read them, instead to recall them from memory.

The children also have a reading book - this is one that they haven't read in class, but should be able to use their sounds to read.

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 7th January 2025, ready to start our next learning adventures!
With love
The Early Years Team xxx

16.12.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

WOW!! We have had a busy, busy time in Early Years. We had a fantabulous time at the Panto on Tuesday - we won't mention the journey home though! We've also had Mrs Morgan in playing some of her instruments and playing some Christmas carols. The children looked fantastic in their Christmas Jumpers and we all enjoyed the Christmas lunch. Finally, we have had an amazing day today, with a very special visitor in school along with his reindeer, followed by our Christmas shopping afternoon! We definitely need the weekend to recover before our last week of the term!

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 on Friday.
• Playing the different games on Phonics Play.
• Creating our own Fairy Light patterns and completing some Christmas counting activities in our Mathematics sessions.
• Performing our Nativity to the rest of the school on Thursday.
• Performing our Nativity to our families on Friday.

For the performance on Friday, please make your way round to the front of the school as we will be unable open all the gates. 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 also be a collection for the school charity at the end of the performance - so please bring along some pennies!

As Friday is the last day of term, it will also be a wellbeing day, so the children can come to school in comfy clothes - they will still be having PE and will also need to pop on their nativity costume, so please consider this when the children are picking their outfits!

Don't forget that school is also finishing at 2pm on Friday.

We are looking forward to sharing our Nativity with you all! Have a lovely weekend.

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

09.12.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

We have had a lovely week! We were SO proud of all of the children during our visit to St Michael's for our Christingle Service.

The children have now picked their parts for our Nativity and we will be working hard on that next week. 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

• Tuesday 10th December - Early Years trip to the Panto 
• Thursday 12th December - Christmas Jumper Day and Christmas lunch
• Friday 13th December - PTA Christmas Shopping Day (letter came home this week)
• Friday 20th December - Early Years Nativity performance

Christmas Jumper Day - Thursday 12th December

On this day, the children can wear their fabulous festive jumpers and make a £1 donation which goes to our continued sponsorship of Khadiza. The charity Action Aid use this money to ensure that Khadiza and the other children in her community enjoy their right to an education, just like all of us at Down Hall! (Articles 28 & 29)

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 display in the classrooms to show how our writing is improving.
• Working on our blending and segmenting of 3 phoneme words. 
• Wearing our Christmas jumpers for Christmas Jumper day on Thursday and talking about Khadiza and enjoying Christmas Dinner together.

Our last drop in for this year will be on THURSDAY.

Wishing you a lovely weekend!

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

02.12.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

Over the last 2 weeks, the children have been busy creating some lovely robins for the school's tree at the Christmas Tree Festival at Holy Trinity Church. The tree will be on display over this weekend, so if you are in Rayleigh and have the time, please do pop in and visit. The church is full of trees from lots of local schools and organisations and looks wonderful. (It would be great if you could vote for our tree if you do manage to visit too!)

Upcoming Events

• Wednesday 4th December - Early Years Christingle Service
• Friday 6th December - PTA Movie Night (letter came home last week)
• Tuesday 10th December - Early Years trip to the Panto
• Thursday 12th December - Christmas Jumper Day and Christmas lunch
• Friday 13th December - PTA Christmas Shopping Day (letter came home this week)
• Friday 20th December - Early Years Nativity performance

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

• Talking about the start of Advent and our Advent calendar.
• Talking 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.
• Learning some of the songs for our Nativity.
• Continuing to learn some digraphs in our Phonics sessions.
• Learning about 4 sided shapes in our Mathematic sessions.
• Visiting St Michael's church on Wednesday and taking part in a Christingle Service.

Drop in this week will be on THURSDAY.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

25.11.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone!

It was lovely to see the Snowdrop parents at the Parent/Teacher consultations this week. A new date for Buttercup parents will be sent out as soon as it has been rescheduled and we are very appreciative of your understanding regarding this. 

Upcoming Events

As we approach a busy time of year there is an increasing number of events coming up. We thought it might be helpful if we added them to the blog each week. Further information is always in the newsletter.

• Wednesday 4th December - Early Years Christingle Service
• Friday 6th December - PTA Movie Night
• Tuesday 10th December - Early years trip to the Panto
• Thursday 12th December - Christmas Jumper Day and Christmas lunch
• Friday 13th December - PTA Christmas Shopping Day
• Friday 20th December - Early Years Nativity performance

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 lists of rhyming words.
• Trying to learn the rhyme in the book, working on our memory skills!
• Continuing our work about the numbers 4 and 5 in our Mathematics sessions; by finding 1 more or 1 less than them.
• Creating our own picnic scene, like the one in the story, by carefully cutting out story book characters.

This week's drop in will be on TUESDAY.

We hope you have a lovely weekend. 

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley

18.11.24 - This coming week in Early Years

Hello everyone! 

Firstly, we just wanted to say how proud we were of the children on Monday when we all sat for the silence as part of our work about Remembrance. The children wore their poppies with pride. 

Secondly, thank you all for your kind donations for Children in Need today. The children looked fabulous in their bright clothes!

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.
• Continuing to learn the Phase 3 sounds in our Phonics sessions, completing the letters of the alphabet.
• Working on Number again in our Mathematics sessions, working with numbers to 5.
• 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.

There will be no drop in this week due to the Parent/Teacher consultations on Tuesday and Wednesday. These meetings will take place in the hall, please come into school via the entrance at the school office. 

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Wakefield, Mrs O'Connor and Miss Langley