Reflection time, Hand to mouth and home-link…
Last week, Foundation had a visit from Hand to mouth who spent a circle time with us. We had a feely bag activity, explaining The Holy Trinity. Children picked out objects representing God the King of the Earth, God who sent his son to us and God the Spirit.
The children all listened very carefully but a special mention goes to the star of the session, Chloe, who explained what she knows about our Earth and the ways we speak to God during our collective worships at St James’. She told our visitor:
“God is with us, his spirit is with us”
Later in the week, during our reflection time, we focused on our Christian value of forgiveness. We discussed how it is important to show forgiveness to others and took part in an activity where we drew a picture on a whiteboard about a time where we might have made someone feel a bit sad. We spoke about feeling sorry for these times and we rubbed our boards clean to represent God’s forgiveness and the forgiveness of others.
If you would like to see pictures and activities from our reflection times, these can be found in our presentation book, in our classroom reflection area.
Home-link Challenge- w/c 09.03.20
It is Spring time! What signs can you see out and about linked to Spring? Perhaps you can see new flowers beginning to bud, leaves or blossom beginning to grow back on the trees, lighter mornings and evenings or baby animals being born?
We would like you to take photos, draw pictures or write sentences about the first signs or Spring. As always, you can email activities and photographs to the class email address:
stjameseyfs@spherefederation.org
World Book Day 2020
This week, we’ve been celebrating World Book Day by sharing stories for ten minutes each day. Yesterday, lots of children brought in their favourite book to share with the class. Foundation had a great time dressing up as a favourite book character, whilst KS1 and KS2 visited Scholes Primary School to watch a Hobgoblin performance of Wind in the Willows.
World Book Day 2020
We just LOVE reading in Foundation! We read and explore stories every day and all year around but it is great to have a special day each year to celebrate the joy of books.
For World Book Day 2020, we dressed as our favourite characters and brought in some of our favourite stories to tell our friends about on the special story-tellers chair!
We were also lucky to have some of our parents join us for a stay and read session this morning- thank you to those who could make it.
Some of us have created book marks, drawn pictures of our story characters and played our ‘guess the story’ game too.
Check out our wonderful World Book Day photos:
Here are some quotes from our children about their favourite stories:
Connor (F1) on his non-fiction Rumble with the Dinosaurs book- “This is my favourite book about dinosaurs; T-Rex, anchisaurus, spinosaurus. Look! If you press the button it goes ROAR!”
Willow (F2) on The Gruffalo– “I’m a Gruffalo. The mouse took a stroll in the deep, dark, wood!”
Elijah (F1) on his Henry; Thomas the Tank Engine book– “It’s a Henry book… see you can buy tickets to the museum to see Henry and Thomas and all the engines. There’s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 engines”
Chloe (F2) on Snow White and the buried treasure- “In the story they find some treasure and a necklace- The norths, the seven… THE DWARVES! My favourite part was the prince going away… and this part makes me laugh cause the little dwarf goes under the rug!“
Super skippers!
What an amazing afternoon year 3 and 4 had today!
This afternoon, year 3 and 4 visited Temple Learning Academy to participate in a skipping competition against 4 other schools. The children behaved impeccably and made us very proud.
The children participated in 15 different events and we came away with 10 different certificates, including a few golds! We learnt a skip dance to “Let’s get ready to rumble” where we came 2nd! Certificates will be handed out during our achievement assembly on Friday.
Here are a few photos of us competing:
The new, national multiplication tables check
The government is introducing a new, statutory multiplication tables ‘check’ (MTC) for the first time, in June this year. Children in Year 4 will take this check.
The purpose of the check is to determine whether pupils can fluently recall their times tables up to 12, which is essential for future success in mathematics. It will also help your child’s school to identify pupils who may need additional support.
Read more about the check in this leaflet from the Standards and Testing Agency.
Living and Learning: I can show forgiveness
This week, our living and learning statement was “I can show forgiveness.”
During our living and learning session, we completed one of our reflection area challenges. We wrote on our whiteboards something that we were sorry for – something that we needed forgiveness for. Then after we’d said sorry for it, we wiped it away. We wiped away the thing we were sorry for.
Pancake Day!
Foundation had so much fun making pancakes. They carefully cracked the eggs and measured the correct amount of milk and flour. After, they mixed them together to make a smooth mixture. Miss Feldman used the frying pan to fry 10 pancakes! We watched carefully from a distance. The F2 children did some instruction writing after. Of course the best part was… EATING THEM!
One of the challenges this week was to make a playdough pancake. The children have loved pretending to flip and fry them!
Cooking and baking are fantastic real life experiences for children! If you do cooking or baking at home, please send us some pictures. We would love to see these!
Living and Learning: Safer Internet Day
This year, Safer Internet Day had the theme ‘Together for a better internet’ and we discussed what this means in a class discussion. The children had some brilliant and mature suggestions on how we can make others happy online and what makes us happy online.
“I like to make others happy online by face timing them and telling them that they’re amazing and really kind.”
“I like to make others happy online by telling people good things about them and calling to check they’re OK.”
“I like to make others happy online by making them feel like they aren’t the only ones who have experienced cyber bullying.”
“Something that makes me happy online is to play games and explore the internet.”
Spring one fun is done!
Phew… what a busy half term we have had! Thank you to all of the parents that joined us at our Parent’s Evenings this week.
We have welcomed new friends into F1, who have settled into class beautifully.
F2 have completed all of their sounds in Phonics and made their way to focus number 9 in Maths.
The class have enjoyed their gymnastics coached sessions and exploring new equipment and movements in movement play.
We have explored lots of stories, fact finding, role play and more linked to our interest-led topic of The Royal Family and castles.
We have thought lots about our Christian values of love and friendship. We have learnt about mindfulness and keeping safe online.
Generally, we have seen so much progress with all the children in both their learning and confidence and we can’t wait to see it continue for the final half of our school year!
Thank you to all of the parents that joined us at our Parent’s Evenings this week, where we were able to share this fantastic progress with you.
Next half term, the children have expressed an interest in learning about “pirates”, “mermaids” and “unicorns”- we will be developing this Fantasy Land theme throughout the term. There will also be elements of “dinosaurs” to capture another interest. Spring 2 will also see us think about growing in nature with some super exciting feathery friends to look after!
Home-Link Challenge
The home-link challenge is free-style! Pick a Fantasy Land character or topic. You could draw a labelled picture, make a model, find historical facts (pirates) or write a book review for your favourite story linked to Fantasy. We will share the children’s creations during a talk-time session the first week back to school.
Important Dates Coming Up in Foundation
Weds 26th Feb 2020, 6.00-6.45 pm- What is GLD? ;
A discussion about the expectations at the end of Early Years and what practitioners look for to determine a “Good Level of Development” (F2 parents only)
Thurs 5th March 2020, 8.30-9.30 am- World Book Day ;
Stay and Read- We are inviting children to dress up as their favourite book character for the day. Parents are invited to stay and share books with your child and take part in activities for the first hour of the school day. (F1 and F2 parents)
Mon 23rd March 2020, 3.15- 4.15 pm- Writing and Phonics Stay and Play (F2 parents only)
Is your child in Year 4?
The government is introducing a new assessment for Year 4 pupils. In June, each child in Year 4 is set to complete an online multiplication tables check (MTC). Read more about this new assessment.
There will be 25 questions covering the full range of facts children are expected to know, which means questions going up to 12 x 12. However, there’s slightly more weighting towards multiplication facts involving 6, 7, 8, 9 and 12 due to these being the most difficult to learn. For example, there will be between 2 and 4 questions involving multiplying by 6.
For each question, children are presented with a multiplication fact and an empty box. This may be written as __ x 6 or as 6 x __ .
If you’d like to practise at home, our own website has lots of spreadsheets you can download.
There are also lots of websites that you can use. This one is very similar to the MTC. It’s possible to alter the settings on this website to focus on particular times tables.
Another exciting way to practise times tables is through the ‘Times Tables Rockstars’ website. Every child has their own individual login details that enables them to access their account at school and at home. Feedback so far is that this is proving an enjoyable way to practise times tables facts at home!