Welcome back!
Hello!
I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas break and are looking forward to an amazing 2023. I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you for all of our lovely Christmas cards and gifts.
This week our focus book has been Lost and Found. We have used this to think about the weather in different places around the world and how different animals live in different places. Whilst outside we discovered some signs of Winter. We discussed how we thought the ice got there and what would need to happen for it to change into water.
As we read through our story we decided that we would like to make some of our own penguins. We used a range of different materials to create different parts of the penguins.
The more we read about the penguin in the story the more we wanted to learn. Harry asked “how tall is a penguin in real life?” we decided to find out and create our own real life sized penguins. We created an Emperor, Rockhopper and Macaroni penguin. Can you believe an Emperor penguin can be 115cm tall! We then used our real life sized penguins to find out if we were taller or shorter than the different penguins.
On Monday 16 January 9- 9:30 we will be holding our next stay and play session. This time we will be focusing on phase 3 phonics.
Things you could do to help with learning at home:
- letter formation
- blending sounds
- talking about things in the local environment.
Mrs Payne
Topic – Geography
This half term our topic is Geography. We’re all excited to become Geographers. Geographers are a type of scientist who studies the Earth. Geographers study the land (the physical features of the Earth) and the people who live within it (the human features).
This week, we’ve started by looking at an aerial map of our school, naming the four countries that make up the UK and their capital cities and listing some human and physical features in our environment.
We have enjoyed watching a video to help us to remember the 4 countries that make up the UK and their capital cities. (This is a YouTube link. Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog along the play bar and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.)
We have also start to look at our Geography vocabulary, which you can see below.
Challenge: Can your child name the 4 countries that make up the UK and name their capital city?
Science Rocks!
Science in Year 3 and 4 will quite literally rock this half term! Our new topic is rocks, soils and minerals.
In this week’s science lesson, we grouped (sorted) a variety of rocks based on their characteristics and physical properties. We have become familiar with using a Venn Diagram and this allowed us to identify different ways to sort the rocks.
Why not ask your child about their observations of rocks? It would also be great to ask them if they can recall any of our new science vocabulary for this term.
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year
What a busy final week of 2022 we have had in reception. We have loved all of the Christmas activities that linked in with our Nativity and the Christmas story.
We made our very own Christmas lunches at the creation table. Using our hands we created different food items and thought carefully about shapes and sizes. Our real Christmas lunch was amazing! we designed table coverings and crowns to make the lunch extra special.
In reception we love our daily poetry sessions. Here is our poem from this week. We hope you enjoy it.
I would like to say huge thank you for all of your support this term. The children are working so hard both in school and at home. It is lovely to see and hear all about home learning.
We hope you all have an amazing Christmas break and enjoy lots of family time together. Thank you to everyone for our lovely Christmas things.
Mrs Payne
Merry Christmas
During your Christmas break we hope you can:
- Spend time with the people you care about.
- Do the things that you enjoy.
- Watch your favourite program.
- Make somebody laugh and smile.
- Do something nice for somebody else.
- Visit your favourite place.
- Play with your toys
and finally have a wonderful Christmas and see you all in 2023!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Hello everyone!
What a wonderful first term we have had this year. You have all done such amazing learning and we are super proud of all your achievements! so a big well done to everyone. Here is a round up of the past few weeks as we have been very busy in Nursery.
A big thank you to all our grown-ups for coming to be a part of our Nativity this year. It was an amazing experience for everyone and so much fun!
This is our final message for 2022, Have a wonderful happy and healthy Christmas break and we will look forward to seeing you all in the New Year with some new friends too!
Merry Christmas!
Miss Ward and Miss Harvey
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas to my wonderful Year 3 class and their families.
We have our next class member on the Wall Of Stars as she earned the most raffle tickets this half term.
We have been enjoying all things festive at school and finished with a super Christmas party this week.
I can’t wait to see you all in the new year!
Living and Learning: I recognise mental health is important
Over the last few weeks, Years 5 and 6 have been reflecting on our mental health and how to look after ourselves.
Mental health is about our feelings, our thinking, our emotions and our moods – things you can’t see, but that affect our lives in lots of ways.
In our Living and Learning sessions, we have discussed the types of things that might fall under the mental health category. Here’s what we came up with:
- feelings
- inside feelings
- anxieties
- emotions
- actions
- how our brain feels
- what’s going on in our mind
- mood swings
We also came up with a list of ways to help if we, or someone we know, is struggling from poor mental health:
- Talk to someone you trust. This could be a parent/carer, teacher, friends, other family members, a therapist or Childline (0800 11 11)
- Go to a safe space. This can help take your mind off things that are worrying you. Take some time in a place you feel safe/comfortable to reflect and relax.
- Write in your journal/diary. Sometimes, it’s difficult to express our feelings/concerns by talking. If you prefer, you could write down what you want to say.
- Go outside and exercise. As we all experienced lockdowns due to Covid over the last few years, we all agreed that physical activity outdoors is a great way to make yourself feel better. This can distract you from your mind for a while and give you chance to relax and enjoy the outdoors.
Help at home:
Give your child regular opportunities to talk about their feelings/worries. In our circle times, children have really benefitted from speaking out and asking others for help. Even if the worries seem small, it’s important that the children know we are all here to help, both at home and at school.
Final Piece of Digital Art
We have been digital artists and we would like to share a few of our finished pieces. We hope you enjoy our gallery.
Christingle and Christmas Production
What a busy week we’ve had in Year 1 and 2. On Wednesday, we went to church to celebrate Christingle. The children did a fab job singing their song ‘In a Stable’ and holding their candle very carefully.
We’ve also performed our Christmas production three times to an audience. We are all so proud of how well they all did.
