Rocksteady Music School!
St James had a very exciting visit from Rocksteady Music School this morning. The key focus of the visit was to engage pupils in music, to learn about various instruments and how to play them. We started the morning with a whole school assembly, where the children learnt all about what it takes to be in a band – we also got to sing along to some of the latest hits! Then, KS1 and KS2 had separate workshops where a pupil band was put together in just 30 minutes! There was lots of resilience, teamwork and happiness shared all morning, particularly when learning to keep a consistent tempo!
We are aiming to introduce more musical connections at St James next year. Rocksteady have given us confirmation that children would really benefit from this. There will be a letter sent home later in the week with more information on musical opportunities in September.
Clean Up!
Our focus book this week was Clean Up!
We discussed key words from the story: sanctuary and island.
The book had some great messages about looking after our environment. Linked to this, our word of the week was pollution.
Phonics
Summer 2 week 3 has focused on words ending in the suffix -ed but sounding like ‘t’,’ id’ or ‘d’ such as helped, floated and stormed.
Please continue to use the Little Wandle sheets, sent home with your child each week.
Poetry Picnic
Each week we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers.
This week’s poem is Five Little Peas.
Five little peas in a pea pod pressed.
One grew. Two grew.
So did all the rest.
They grew, and they grew,
And they did not stop,
Until one day the pod went POP!
Reception to Year 1 information meeting
As the weather becomes brighter and we near the end of the academic year you may be thinking about your child’s next steps as they journey into Year 1. Moving to Year 1 is perhaps a less significant change for children, and that’s because we’re a happy and healthy place to learn where we all know each other.
A zoom meeting for parent’s starts our transition process, here you will meet the Key Stage 1 staff and find out about the Year 1 curriculum.
The zoom meeting is on Monday 30 June at 6pm please follow the link that will be emailed to you.
The next step is for your child to spend some time in the Year 1 classrooms. They’ll meet the teachers and join in with the learning, they’ll get a taste of what it’s like to be in Year 1. The whole-school transition, later in July, completes the process, by spending a morning with their new class teacher.
This is a really exciting time of year, moving on and taking those next steps whilst continuing to strengthen the effective learning behaviours they have established in Reception.
Sharing a Shell
What a week to return! We’ve had a great week our focus book was Sharing a Shell by Julia Donaldson and the children took great delight reminding me of all the Julia Donaldson books we have read together.
We’ve continued our learning on coastal habitats this week, by taking a closer look at rockpools and some of the sea creatures you may find in them. We’ve worked as a team to make a class rockpool adding in crabs, seaweed, fish, sea anemone and bristleworms. Just like the characters in the story.
Maths; counting and recognising the pattern of the counting system
This week, we’ve revisited our some of our key counting skills. Here are some of the skills that we have practised:
- tagging each object in a group of up to 10 objects (1-to-1 correspondence)
- knowing number names to 10 and their order (stable order principle)
- knowing that the last number counted gives the total in the set (cardinal principle)
- counting up to 10 things that can’t be seen or tagged, such as jumps, hops, sounds, etc. (abstraction principle)
- understanding that the quantity remains the same when (up to 10) objects are counted in a different order (order irrelevance principle)
- developing strategies to keep track of what has and has not been counted (e.g. rearranging objects into a line, moving objects as they’re counted.)
Phonics
Summer 2 week 3 has focused on:
Phase 4 words ending –s /s/
Phase 4 words ending –s /z/
Phase 4 words ending –es
Longer words
Poetry Picnic
This week’s poem is the traditional rhyming song- The Big Ship Sails
The big ship sails on the ally ally oh,
The alley ally oh,
The alley ally oh.
The big ship sails on the ally ally oh,
On the last day of September.
The captain said, ‘It will never, never do,
Never, never do,
Never, never do.’
The captain said, ‘It will never, never do,’
On the last day of September.
The big ship sank to the bottom of the sea,
The bottom of the sea,
The bottom of the sea.
The big ship sank to the bottom of the sea,
On the last day of September.
Have a happy and healthy weekend and thank you as always for your support.
Mrs. Kendrew, Mrs. Rippon, Mrs. Small and Mr. Smith
Forest School Fun!
This week the children had their first session at forest school, they learned the rules for forest school and explored the different areas. They also had the chance to look for bugs, something they are very good at and love to do!
They are definitely looking forward to their next session week.
Forest School Fun
Our Early Years classes thoroughly enjoyed their first Forest School session on Friday.
First, we met our instructor, Sarah, and Spike – the hedgehog! We learnt how to keep safe during Forest School and did brilliantly at remembering the forest safety rules.
Our morning consisted of mini-beast making, relaxing with friends in hammocks, getting busy in the mud kitchen, swinging on bars, and forest storytelling.
We can’t wait for more fun-filled weeks ahead!
What did your child enjoy most about Forest School?
We’d love to know so we can pass on the feedback!
The Night Pirates
Ahoy, Me Hearties!
This week, we’ve been reading The Night Pirates by Peter Harris.
This is a story about a group of ‘Rough, tough little girl pirates‘ who take a little boy called Tom, on an adventure.
We looked at some repeated phrases in the story and how the author had chosen to end the story exactly as it had begun.
This great book has inspired our learning in the areas of provision.
Understanding the world; Identifying land and sea
Our ‘Word of the week’ is country. We know that we live in the country of England.
We’ve been looking closely at the globe and we’ve been discussing how we can identify which parts are the land and which is the sea.
Next week our focus book is Seaside Poem.
Have a lovely week.
Summer 2
Our final theme for this year is Seaside and Cities, our first focus book this week is The Night Pirates.
This week we will be Geographers and will be looking at where we all live in England, we will also identify where we would find seaside towns on a map of the UK. Our word of the week is Country we live in the country England.
Help at home: talk to your child about where they live can they say their full address?
Literacy
We’ve been reading Walking Through the Jungle by Julie Lacome.
We have loved talking about all the different animals in the book and how they travelled.
“Creeping through the jungle I can see a tiger.”
“Stomping through the jungle I can see a elephant.”
Phonics
This week, we focused on reading and writing longer words and compound words. We learnt 4 new tricky words: were, here, little, says.
Help at home: Go on a tricky word hunt around your house. Ask an adult to write some tricky words on scrap pieces of paper and stick them up around your house. How many tricky words can you find and read?
Maths
This week, we consolidated our understanding of the composition of 5 and practised recalling the parts of 5 when 1 part is not visible. We used our fingers on 1 hand to help with the composition of 5. We looked at how many fingers are ‘up’ and and how many are ‘folded down’. We used a rhyme about 5 kittens jumping ‘down’ from the bed to help us with this.
“5 is made of __ and __
__ and __ makes 5″
Help at home: Play a game the kittens game with an adult. You need 5 objects (kittens) and a piece of material or paper (bed) Take turns to hide some kittens under the bed. Use the below stem sentence to explain what you can see.
Have a happy and healthy weekend and thank you as always for your support.
Mrs. Kendrew, Mrs. Rippon, Mrs. Small and Mr. Smith
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
This week our focus book has been The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.
We’ve had a fantastic time on the garden this week, planting more plants and developing our mud kitchen area. We’ve enjoyed smelling the new herbs that have been added and created some delicious spring dishes.
We’ve also been adding things to our amazing Bug Hotel that Mr Atkins made for us and have continued our search for minibeasts.
Help at Home: Go on a bug hunt in your garden or where you live, take some photos or draw some pictures of the minibeast you find.
Have a happy and healthy weekend and thank you as always for your support.
Mrs. Kendrew, Mrs. Rippon, Mrs. Small and Mr. Smith