A super, sunny week!
This week, we’ve made the most of the glorious weather! The children have loved being outside in the fresh air. From making soup in the sandpit to making mud pies in the mud kitchen, we’ve some fantastic imaginative play.
Literacy
On Monday, we started our new focus story, The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle. After reading the book, we talked about the events, looked at some key vocabulary and made story maps. Next week, we’ll continue to look at this book, discuss what plants need to grow and plant our own tiny (sunflower) seed.
Music
Maths
This week, we looked at the composition of seven. We used lots of different resources such as Numicon, multilink cubes and beanbags to show our parts.
In the areas this week, we’ve seen lots of children being independent learners and completing the chilli challenges.
Here they are in action…
Making spring gardens in the playdough area.
Playing take away a tower of 8 with a friend.
Reading tricky words on carrots.
Blending words in the ball pool.
Working out the missing whole on the part-whole models.
Home-Link Challenge
Coming up…
Thursday 24 March – PTA cake sale
Monday 28 March – Whole school farm visit
Monday 28 March – Decorate an Easter egg competition
Thursday 30 March – Easter service at St James’ Church
Friday 01 April – Break-up for Easter
Enjoy the spring sunshine this weekend!
This week’s bible story
The Son Who Left Home: Luke 15:11-32
Jesus told many stories that are recorded in the New Testament. His stories were often about everyday events that all the people could relate to, but they had a special purpose – they were told to help people understand more about God. Usually, the stories, or parables as they are called, spoke for themselves, but sometimes they had to be explained. Let me now tell you one of Jesus’ best-known parables.
Read the story of the son who left home.
Reflection:
Jesus told this story to show how much God loves us. Just like the son in the story, we often want our own way and do not think of the consequences. We make foolish mistakes and come to regret them later. Just like the father in the story, though, God never stops loving us and is always ready to forgive us when we admit our wrongdoing.
Prayer:
Dear Lord,
Forgive us, we pray, for the times when we have acted foolishly.
When we have wanted our own way and not listened to good advice;
when we have not considered the thoughts or feelings of others.
May we be prepared to forgive others when they are sorry for hurting or upsetting us, just as you are prepared to forgive us when we admit our wrongdoing.
Amen.
Super learning!
It’s been another busy week in the Reception classroom.
The fantastic learning just keeps coming!
Literacy
This week, we continued to look at The Hundred Decker Bus by Mike Smith. The children were amazing at retelling and remembering the key events. For the writing chilli challenge, they had to design a new deck and write a sentence about their deck. I stuck all of the children’s decks onto a roll of paper and the children came in on Thursday and saw their very own 30 decker bus displayed in their classroom.
Click here to view our bus.
Living and Learning
This week, our living and learning session was all about recognising the importance of personal hygiene including handwashing.
I asked the children, “How do we keep ourselves clean?”
LW – You get a shower and use soap.
BI – You have a bath.
EK – We need to brush our teeth.
OR – We brush our teeth in the morning and at night.
FH – We wash our clothes.
We based yesterday’s session on handwashing. Before doing our experiments, we started by thinking about why and when we wash our hands.
First, we had a go at the germ experiment, We used soap, pepper (germs) and water to see how important it is to wash our hands. The children were amazed when they watched the germs (pepper) move away from the soap on their fingers.
Then, we had a go at the mouldy bread experiment.
The first child was asked to rub their hands on a piece of bread. The second child was asked to wash their hands for 20 seconds and rub their hands on another slice of bread. Next week, the children will check and observe the bread daily to see if their predictions were right.
Click here to watch us sing our new washing hands song!
Here are some more highlights from this week…
Reading phase 3 words and scanning the QR code to see if they got it right.
Using the tissue paper to make a picture of the tulips.
Planting vegetable seeds.
Reminders!
Please make sure you write in your child’s reading record when you’ve read at home. It is important we see how your child is doing with their reading at home.
Please make sure you return the farm visit slip by Monday 21 March.
This week’s bible story
The Unforgiving Servant: Matthew 18: 21-35
Have you ever broken anything? It could be a toy or a plate from the kitchen or even a bone in your body. Some things that are broken cannot be mended, but it is often possible to mend things that we have broken. If we care for our environment, it is a very good idea to try to mend things rather than always throwing them away and then buying new things. For example, what might use to mend the following things if they were broken: a hole in the toe of my socks? a ripped page in a book? a handle that has come off a mug? a puncture in my bike tyre? a cut finger?
What could you do about mending a broken friendship?
When you fall out with one of your friends, you can’t mend that friendship with a needle and thread, or some sellotape, or superglue or a puncture kit or a sticking plaster. Read the story about the Unforgiving Servant.
Jesus explained to his friend Peter that God is like the king in the story: Christians believe God forgives us every time we tell him we are sorry for the wrong things we have done, and he wants us to treat our friends in a similar way – forgiving them each time they say ‘sorry’ to us.
Reflection:
What would you say was the key word in that story? The key word could be ‘forgiveness’.
Have a think about these questions:
‘What does it mean to forgive someone?’ (KS2) or ‘What kind of things do you need to say sorry for? (KS1).
At the end of the Bible story Jesus tells us that, if we have done something wrong, we need to say sorry to God and then he will forgive us. In a similar way, if you have fallen out with a friend, two things often need to happen: if you know you have done something wrong or upset someone, you need to be brave enough to say sorry to that person. The person to whom you have said sorry then needs to forgive you.
So, going back to the questions at the beginning of the assembly:
What might I use to mend a broken friendship? A good answer to this question would be ‘forgiveness’.
Prayer
Dear Lord,
Thank you for today’s Bible story about forgiveness.
Thank you that if we say sorry to you, you give us a fresh start.
Please help us to be forgiving people here in this school.
Amen.
Spring is coming!
This half-term’s topic is called ‘Let’s go!’ They will notice and observe the signs and changes of Spring. This week, our focus story is The Hundred Decker Bus by Mike Smith. The children drew their favourite deck and labelled the different parts. Next week, the children will design their own deck. We will also compare life in a city to life in the countryside.
FH – A city is very busy with lots of big buildings like skyscrapers.
BI – Lots of animals live in the countryside.
Over the next few weeks, we will be planting a variety of fruit and vegetable seeds. We will watch them grow and will learn what conditions are needed for them to grow.
Phonics
The children have learnt all of the phase 3 sounds. Over the next couple of weeks, they will learn to blend (read) and segment (spell) longer words for example, lemon, sunset, bedroom and farmyard. To help them read words with more than one syllable, they will be taught how to use the chunking method. For example, sunset = s-u-n /s-e-t. This method also helps when they are writing longer words.
Maths
This week, we continued to engage with activities that focussed on the purpose of counting – to find out ‘how many’ objects there are. We revisited the concept of cardinality – the idea that the last number in the count tells us how many things there are altogether. We also looked at the 1 more staircase pattern. This pattern has helped them develop a clear understanding that each number has a value of 1 more than the previous number, and 1 less than the following number.
Have a look at what else we have been up to this week.
Outdoor fun!
World Book Day
Home-Link Challenge
This week’s bible story
‘We should learn to forgive.’ (Ephesians 4.32)
Read this story about Omar and his friend Freddy.
Reflection:
Forgiving helps friends to be friendly again.
Forgiving others makes us happier.
In the bible, it says ‘We should learn to forgive.’ (Ephesians 4.32). It doesn’t always mean it will be easy to forgive. It is something that we need to learn and something we will get better at.
Prayer:
Let us say together the prayer that Jesus taught us: The Lord’s Prayer.
In this prayer, we are reminded about forgiveness: ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.’
This means that when we do something wrong we should ask for forgiveness and we should learn to forgive others when they do things that upset us.
Superhero fun!
We’ve come to the end of a long and windy half-term. Over the past 7 weeks, we’ve laughed, had fun and seen lots of amazing learning!
To give you a flavour of our fantastic last week, I’ve made a video for you to watch at home with your child. I hope you enjoy!
Thank you to all of the parents who attended the parent-teacher meetings. It was lovely to share the children’s wonderful achievements.
Reminders
Training day – Monday 28 February
World Book Day – Thursday 03 March
I hope you all have a happy and healthy half-term.
Sponsored number challenge
Tomorrow, all children will be taking part in our first sponsored number challenge for our school charity- RSPCA. Be sure to practise your child’s number facts so they’re ready to take on the challenge! Please can we have all sponsorship money handed in by Friday 18 February. Thank you for your support.
This week’s bible story
The son who left home continued: Luke 15: 11-32
This half term, our bible story that Jesus told was about the son who sold his share of his father’s farm he was to inherit and went off to the city intending to enjoy himself. You will also remember that, in the end, he decided it was a big mistake and went back home to beg his father’s forgiveness. Much to his surprise, his father forgave him completely and even threw a party for him. That’s where we left the story last time, but Jesus did not end it there – he also talked about the eldest son, who had stayed at home.
Read the story of the Lost son continued.
Reflection:
Consider the feelings of the father, the eldest brother and the younger brother at each stage of the story.
How many things related to our homes and families do we often take for granted?
Prayer:
Father God,
Help us to share gladly in the success of others.
When someone does well, may we be happy to congratulate them.
When someone falls, help us to comfort them.
Forgive us when we take things for granted and help us to appreciate all the good things we have.
Amen
Safety week
This week, we’ve been learning about stay safe. We’ve had lots of visitors in Reception.
On Monday, we had a police officer come to talk about how they help us keep safe. They listened carefully and asked lots of super questions. Of course, some of us had to try on the uniform!
We also had some fire officers from Wetherby fire station come to visit us. The children were so excited when they saw the engine! Again, they listened carefully and asked lots of interesting questions.
AM – Is there a toilet on the fire engine?
JD – What do you use that for?
FL – What do you wear?
On Tuesday, Dogs Trust came to teach us how to be safe around dogs. Ask your child if they can remember the six important rules.
On Wednesday, Hand to Mouth, who are a Christian organisation came to visit us. We joined KS1 in the hall for a collective worship. After, we did a cutting and sticking activity called, Our Daily Bread.
On Thursday, we had a road and pedestrian safety visit.
In literacy, our new focus story is Supertato. On Monday morning, the classroom door was covered in evil peas, vegetables were taped to the writing table and we found letter from the Evil Pea. On Thursday, the writing area was covered in evil peas! We found another letter from the Evil Pea and the vegetables were frozen!
They made wanted posters to try and help capture the Evil pea. Some children had a go at drawing story maps.
Reminders!
Parent-teacher meetings – Tuesday 15 & Thursday 17 February
Superhero day – Friday 18 February
Your child can come to school dressed as their favourite superhero.
Training day – Monday 28 February
Home-Link Challenge
