EasyPeasy
If you’re unsure about how best to access Easy Peasy, please do come in and ask or be ready with your questions at your child’s upcoming parents’ evening appointment.
The Hundred Decker Bus
Check out our own ‘Hundred Decker Bus’ we made this week!
As part of our topic on Transport, we were inspired by Mike Smith’s The Hundred Decker Bus so we decided to create our own.
OK – it doesn’t quite have one hundred decks (18 to be precise) but there is one deck for each member of Foundation! Be sure to come into our classroom to have a closer look so that you can quiz your child about their deck of the bus. We had some fab ideas: a deck with a swimming pool, a deck with a burger bar and a deck with rainbow!
Next week is sure to be a very busy one as we join the rest of the school in Safety Week. We’ll be learning about road safety with the NSPCC, how to approach dogs with a visit from the Dog’s Trust and all about fire safety when Wetherby Fire Station come to visit on Friday afternoon.
Thank you…
To the parents and children who came to our Marvellous Maths Stay and Play this afternoon.
The children did a great job of showing their maths skills in lots of different ways and it was lovely to catch up with our parent partners about learning both at school and at home.
EasyPeasy
You should have received a letter and information booklet introducing you to the new and FREE educational app called ‘EasyPeasy’.
‘EasyPeasy’ is going live this Saturday 26th January. If you have not opted out you will receive a text message inviting you to access the many educational game ideas that you can do at home.
Each week, you will receive a text message with a new game that you can play in any location with everyday items that you’ll already have at home. EasyPeasy is designed to support learning through play!
This week the activity will be ‘stepping stones (F2) or lunch time (F1)’. Let us know how you get on by commenting on the game. Look out for our comment with suggestions of how to adapt the game!
Snack-time learning!
In Foundation, we like to make sure our day is full of fun learning at every opportunity. This includes tidy-up times and snack times.
At snack time we often have a maths link. We take part in counting activities to see how many pieces of fruit have been handed out, work out which snack was most popular and what the difference is between them.
After visiting another school last week and ‘magpieing’ this fab idea, we had a go at writing Rocket Words on our banana skins for our friends to guess. The children loved ‘having a go’ at writing on such an unusual material and showing their friends what they know! A quick 2 minute activity that used both our reading and our writing skills 🙂
Parent Reminder
Please join us in the classroom tomorrow, for our Marvellous Maths Stay and Play, 3.15-3.45pm.
Stay and Play Reminder- Marvellous Maths
Please join us on Thursday 24th January, 3.15-3.45 pm to take part in maths activities with your child, be given information about the development of important counting principles and to get ideas of how to support maths learning at home.
Please return the slips sent home this week, to confirm your attendance.
Thank you.
Ice Art!
The most important consideration in Early Years, is the Characteristics of Effective Learning. The children are experts at playing and exploring with purpose, as they are so naturally inquisitive.
When the world gave us sub-zero temperatures this week, we used our “senses” to “explore” what was all “around us”; ICE!
We were excited to discover that the water tray had frozen overnight and left us a lovely deep ice canvas! Take a look at our artwork…
Role-play Ready!
Foundation 2 have been putting the finishing touches to the new role-play area today, by working together in their Literacy time to create a travel map of destinations! ‘Destination’ has become a wow word this week, as we have been thinking about the purpose of vehicles and their journies.
We have everywhere on our map, from Wetherby to Egypt and the North Pole to the moon! All decided by the children and written using those important phonics skills. The map looks fab on our new chalk board wall!
The role play area will give the children the opportunity to create their own vehicles for their journey, add signs and numbers, buy tickets and become the driver or passengers. We can’t wait for all of the amazing adventures we will go on!
Welcome back Foundation!
We hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year break with your families. It has been great to see Foundation children return to school happy and ready to learn!
We have some new faces in both F1 and F2 and would like to welcome our new children and parents/carers. We are also welcoming our new class teacher Mrs Valentine. Mrs Valentine will be teaching foundation Monday-Wednesday and Mrs Allen-Kelly will be teaching Wednesday to Friday.
This week we have been introducing our new topic- Transport and Journies. Next week, we will start by looking at non-fiction books and fact finding, as well as creating props and signs for our upcoming role play area.
If you have access to any bus or train timetables, car manuals, old travel tickets or anything else relevant to our new topic that you could add to our role-play area, they would be much appreciated.
Home-Link Challenge- F1 and F2
We would love to hear more news from home this week, so we have attached our ‘Time to talk’ and ‘Learning at home’ sheets to the weekly update sent home this evening. Don’t forget to keep sharing learning at home on our parent whiteboard as you enter the classroom. Our sheets are always available to tell us about the wonderful things your child has been doing at home. We would especially like to see anything linked to our topic; does your child role play with transport toys at home? Do you have a photo of you travelling together on public transport?
You can email photos and learning at home to; stjameseyfs@spherefederation.org
Parent reminder
PE will continue to take place on Thursday afternoons. Please return or bring in PE kits. Please also remember to have book bags and reading books in school each day. Books are usually changed on a Monday and Thursday or Friday. Thank you.
Christmas Countdown
Amongst the fun and chaos of Christmas, Foundation have still been working hard in the classroom. This week F2 have learnt three new diagraphs; ng, ai, ee and Sid has also brought them the rocket word ‘was’. We’ve rounded up our learning on our focus number 6; demonstrating what we know pictorially, through number stories and through different ways of showing the same value. Don’t forget, you can see our work on our ‘Fabulous Focus Numbers’ in the maths area, within the classroom.
F1 have enjoyed some festive song circle time which had a counting focus. They’ve been working on their personal, social and communication skills with their key worker, discussing happiness and sadness and the things that can make us feel that way.
We’ve looked closely at the Christmas Story and written about the people and scenes within the Nativity.
As part of our Living and Learning focus, we’ve been thinking about our school community and appreciating all of the people who work here. The children thought of some interesting questions to ask Mrs Walshaw (who works in our office), Mrs Philip (our cook) and Mr Atkins (our site manager) who came to talk to us in class. Mr Atkins also let the children help him PAT test ‘Henry the Hoover’, which led to some great discussions about electrical safety and general safety of the school, being part of his role.
On Thursday we joined our whole school community and had a lovely Christmas dinner and dance party in the hall. Check out our happy faces!:
Christmas Performance- It’s a Party!
We’re super excited to show off all our hard work in the Christmas performances this week. We look forward to seeing you on Tuesday 2-3 pm or Wednesday 6-7pm.
We understand it is difficult with the younger children but please do try to bring your children back to Wednesday’s later performance, so that the children, parents and carers at this showing can have the same experience.
Thank you for your support.
Home-link challenge
Please keep practising rocket words and reading at home. If your child has lines to say in our Christmas Production, please practise these at home.
Reading Books
Reading books were swapped on Friday and two were sent home for over Christmas (as long as previous books have been returned) If you have not returned book bags and reading books, please do. We will not be reading next week. You will only need to bring book bags on Friday, in order to take home any special learning from this term.
Christmas Stay, Play and Decorate
Don’t forget to join us on Thursday 20th December, 8.30-9.45am to look at learning journeys and join your child in some Christmas Craft fun! A letter about the session has been sent home. Please let one of the Early Years team know if you need a replacement.
Applications for F2 places- September 2019
You must apply for a school place, even if your child currently attends our setting in F1. Please see the details below:
(This poster is also available to view in the classroom)