English: Michael Rosen Day
Today, we celebrated Michael Rosen Day with a live webinar, where we had the pleasure of hearing him read some of his incredible poetry. He also shared inspiring insights and useful tips on writing poetry.
We especially enjoyed his reading of Hot Food. It was fascinating to learn how this poem brings back memories of his family, almost like a photo album playing in his mind as he reads it.
Help at home: Read the poem aloud together and make it interactive by encouraging your child to act out parts of the poem or create movements for certain words.
Binny’s Diwali
Welcome to Autumn 2, this half term our theme is Light and Dark and our first focus book was Binny’s Diwali.
Our word of the week was Festival and we looked closely at the Hindi festival of Diwali, we talked about the features of a festival- special clothes, special food, a happy celebration.
Phonics
This week, we focused on the new digraphs ff, ll, ss and the single letter phoneme j.
We’ve also learnt the tricky word; as
Tricky words are words that should be read by sight. We start by identifying which part of the word is ‘tricky’. In as, the ‘s’ is tricky because it makes the /z/ sound.
Help at home; World Nursery Rhyme Week
Next week, we’ll be celebrating World Nursery Rhyme Week.
If your child would like to, we’d love to share a recording of them telling their favourite nursery rhyme in class. Please send your videos to stjameseyfs@spherefederation.org
Mrs. Kendrew, Mrs. Rippon and Miss. Feldman and Mr. Smith.
Festivals and Remembrance
This week we have been talking about Diwali- The festival of light. We explored the meaning of Diwali and what happens during this festival. We also talked about Bonfire Night and why we celebrate this day.
The children were very creative this week and got stuck into lots of messy activities. We made Diya lamps from clay and decorated them with lots of bright colourful paints and glitter. We also made some firework pictures using our favourite colours. We made a cut out using a tube and used this to make prints on our paper to look like fireworks.
Help at Home: Next week is World Nursery Rhyme week.
We have been learning lots of new nursery rhymes since the start of September. Can your child remember which ones we have learnt and can they sing their favourite using the actions?
This Sunday is a special day where we remember all those who faught in the war. This can be a sad time for many, so here is a little video that the children in Nursery have watched this week to help them understand more. From this, we made our own poppies to display on our wreath in Early Years.
Notice:
- World Nursery Rhyme week.
- Tuesday 12 Nov– ‘ Odd socks day’ this is to symbolise that we are all different and that children should be themselves and be accepting of one another.
- Friday 15 Nov – it is non-uniform day for Children in Need.
Have a lovely weekend
The Nursery Team
Community Week – the History of Wetherby
Following a visit from the Mayor of Wetherby this morning, the children have been learning about how people chose to live in Wetherby during the Bronze Age. The location next to the River Wharfe was a significant advantage and Wetherby became even more significant when a bridge was built to cross the river.
Important places, events and people are commemorated around our market town with blue plaques. We have enjoyed researching the blue plaques and made our own.
Help at home: Learn more about the history of our wonderful market town by following the blue plaque trail. Further information can be found here: https://www.wetherbycivicsociety.org.uk/blueplaquetrail/
Community Week – healthy friendships
As part of Community Week, we have been thinking about healthy friendships.
We considered the story of Beegu who finds herself lost and without friends. We shared some ideas of what we could do to signal to Beegu that she belonged at our school.
If you would like to listen to the story of Beegu and learn how to draw Beegu, you can watch the video from Puffin here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-8oLcy1Eow
We also had a very mature debate about the vital characteristics of a healthy friendship. We all respectfully listened to the opinions of our classmates and enjoyed debating some of the characteristics which are less clear such as whether you should always feel happy in a healthy friendship.
With such considered opinions it is no surprise that there are so many healthy friendships in our class community to enjoy and celebrate!
Community Week – Stereotypes
As part of Community Week, we took part in a very exciting workshop led by Diversity Role Models (https://www.diversityrolemodels.org/) During the workshop we thought about where stereotypes come from and what harm they can do.
We challenged harmful stereotypes and thought about how we could turn these on their head.
Help at home: Lots of us were very passionate about standing up against stereotypes. If you would like more examples to discuss with your child you can find a video from the BBC here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/young-reporter/articles/zkttm39
Community Week – British Values
As part of our Community Week, we learnt about the importance of British Values. We updated our Living and Learning board with an acronym to help us to remember the values (see above.)
Help at home: Discuss with your child what the British Values look like in your family community. Do children have individual liberty to make some choices? Do you have rules that you follow as a family? Do you make some decisions by voting? Do you show mutual respect and tolerance to each other?
Me and My Community Theme Week
This week in Year 1, we explored the theme “Me and My Community”. The children learned what it means to be part of a community.
We talked about the different communities we’re part of, like our families, school, and neighbourhood, and shared ideas on how to contribute positively to each.
One highlight was our friendship web activity! We passed around a ball of string, and each child shared why they value their friends, such as, “You’re a good friend because you helped me with my maths.”
By the end, we had created a “web” of connections, visually showing how we’re all linked together.
Help at Home
To continue the conversation at home, ask your child, “What did you learn about being a good community member?” or “What do you love most about your community?”
Migration – The Red Cross
Olivia, from the Red Cross, came in to visit us as part of Me and My Community Week. She taught us about the PUSH and PULL reasons why people migrate to other countries. Sometimes, people are pushed away from their country due to war, racism and poverty. On the other hand, people may be pulled away from their country due to better jobs, climate or improved healthcare.
Olivia read about a boy named Tesfay, who travelled from Eritrea to the UK. She spoke about the struggles and difficulties he faced. Individually, we then wrote a letter to someone who was new to our community to welcome them. Children mentioned places they love to visit like Ask Italian, The Wetherby Whaler, Leeds United and the local parks and green spaces.
Finally, we spoke about how we will treat people within our community and who are new to our community.
Help at home – Ask your child about how we should treat people, especially those who are new to our community. Write a message to someone within our community – this could be someone you know well or someone who is new to the area.
Diversity Roleplay
This morning, Lyndsey from Diversity Roleplay visited our class to talk about how we should treat people within our community and how we can respond when we see/experience things that are ‘unfair’.
Two key words Lyndsey taught us were:
- Bystander – Someone who watches or sees bullying, unfairness, or unkind behaviour take place but they do nothing to help.
- Upstander – Someone who does something that stops or reduces unkindness, unfairness or bullying behaviour they see. Also, someone who helps another person who is being treated badly by showing them kindness.
We related what she taught us to our own lives and communities. Lyndsey was keen for us to be Upstanders and ‘challenge unfairness’ when we see someone being treated unfairly. This was a good opportunity for us to reflect on ourselves and how we have responded to things in the past.
Help at home – What is a bystander? What is an upstander? Can your child think of a time when they were a bystander? What could they have done differently? Is there a time when your child has been an upstander?