Happy Half Term!
Congratulations Foundation Class on a wonderful first half term!
It was lovely to share Foundation 2’s learning with you all at parents’ evenings this week. Thank you for attending.
A little reminder that Foundation 2 will need their PE kit, with all items named and in school, by Wednesday 01 November. To see the skills we have been developing this half term in our PE sessions, take a look at the picture above!
Have a fantastic week and we look forward to seeing you all when we return on Monday 30 October.
It’s the half-term holidays…
…and so there’s no specific homework next week. This is in-line with our Homework Policy.
During the half-term, please encourage your child to read each day, even if just for 15 minutes. As well as their current book, reading comics, newspapers, websites are all good – and why not take a trip to the library!
It would also be really helpful to help your child brush up on their times tables. Children in Year 2 should know x2, x5 and x10 (and the related division facts) by the end of the year – so give them a head start now! By the end of Year 4, children should know all their tables up to 12 x 12 (and the related division facts).
And make sure they enjoy the break, too: perhaps an autumn walk, a day out, a trip to the cinema… There are lots of things going on in Leeds – check them out.
Whatever you get up to, we’re looking forward to seeing you again on Monday 30 October.
Harvest festival
On Tuesday, Year 1 and 2 visited St James’ Church to participate in a Harvest Experience. During the experience, the children visited five different stations around the church, each with a different theme: Harvest of the Ocean, Harvest of the Earth, Harvest of the Garden, Harvest of the Flocks and Harvest of the Grain.
The children enjoyed participating in an activity at each station including making clay pots, paper boats and weaving wool. Ask your child which was their favourite activity and why.
The children were well behaved and a credit to our school. Mrs Sharp, the youth worked at St James’ Church said: “What a delight your class were today! We really enjoyed welcoming you all into church”. Well done, Year 1 and 2!
Squiggle while you wiggle!
We’ve seen many examples of fantastic learning over the past few weeks. However, one thing the Foundation 2 children have shown lots of enthusiasm for is our weekly ‘Squiggle while you wiggle’ session. These sessions focus on gross motor movements that will develop strength in the muscles we use in our writing. Movements are made to exciting music or songs that we sing together. We then move on to using our fingers to ‘squiggle’. So far we’ve squiggled in shaving foam, with chalk on the playground, with pen and paper and with our paintbrushes. Can your child sing the movement song to you from this week’s session? (clue: dragon!)
All of Foundation have opportunities to work on their physical skills all day, every day. We have outdoor and sensory exploration alongside daily ‘dough disco’. We also have our ‘fiddly fingers’ table, which has a new activity on each week. These activities are designed to work on fine motor skills, specifically working on finger muscle strength.
We’d love to see any pictures you have of your child demonstrating their physical skills at home. This could be gross motor movements (for example: running, jumping, hopping, skipping, kicking a ball, catching) or fine motor movements (for example: using scissors, writing/ drawing, threading, using tweezers). These will be used on our movement play display board, to show all their friends some great examples of how to get our bodies moving!
Shipwrecked!
Disaster has struck
The good ship, Shamrock, was shipwrecked in a freak storm this week. All our supplies and equipment were scattered far and wide.
Luckily, we had locator beacons on them so we knew where our supplies were; we just had to find their co-ordinates and then search for them.
The children quickly found the co-ordinates of our supplies and were off into the school grounds to find them all.
I’m happy to report, all the supplies were recovered intact and we are safely back on our way.
Stay tuned for more adventures.
Remarkable readers!
Our fabulous Foundation class have been looking at a new author and book this week- Julia Donaldson‘s The Gruffalo. They have all shown lots of interest in reading with adults, on their own and in groups which is marvellous to see. We’re looking forward to sharing each child’s favourite book from home with them over the next two weeks, when they’ll take a seat in our ‘magical’ story-teller’s chair!
Next
week, we’ve lots of Gruffalo themed sensory activities planned; making ‘owl ice-cream’, ‘scrambled snake’ and ‘Gruffalo crumble’. We’ll also continue our Autumn theme linked to the story. Please continue to bring in any objects you find on your own nature walks at home.
Parents as partners
Thanks for coming to the meeting this afternoon. It was great to see so many of you attending. If you missed it, read the presentation. If you’ve any questions, come in and ask a member of staff.
Seaside Adventures
What a super trip to Filey we had!
Last Tuesday, Year 1 and 2 visited Filey.
The day started on the beach by looking for physical and human features. The children took photos of the physical and human features that they found. They noticed lots more physical features in Filey than when they were looking in Wetherby!
The children enjoyed exploring the beach, building sandcastles, writing in the sand and, most of all, eating their ice-creams.
The children were well behaved all day and they were a credit to our school.
All aboard the good ship, Shamrock
Our topic of ‘Explorers’ has well and truly kicked off. Our good ship, Shamrock, will be travelling the world and exploring many varied and exotic locations.
However, we first had to learn to navigate in order to sail the seven seas. So, we’ve looked at world geography and where the continents and oceans are. Our navigator training will be continuing over the next few weeks with work on grid references and co-ordinates. As well as this, we’ll be recruiting new members of the crew along the way. Let’s hope we don’t get shipwrecked though!
This week we visited Patagonia, in South America – breathtaking and beautiful place full of mountains and glaciers. We all loved it so much we wrote a postcard home.
In coming weeks, we’ll journey to a fantasy world of knights, kings and samurai warriors when we study a series of books by Aaron Becker, known as the ‘Journey’ series.
Phonics Fun!
This week, F2 children have started phonics. We’ve had fun learning new sounds and writing letters in a range of different ways, such as salt writing with our pencils and mirror writing with our whiteboard pens!
Thank you to those of you who were able to attend the reading meeting this week. All F2 children are excited to bring their first reading book home with them tomorrow.
The F1 children have had a great week exploring natural objects on the sensory table, including seeds, leaves, conkers and pine cones. They have enjoyed making bubbles in the water tray and playing with the wild animals in the small world area. In their key worker time, they have been singing, listening to stories and thinking about the rules and routines of our classroom.
As always, this week’s planning is all based on the children’s interests so expect to see lots of Autumn, wildlife and bubbly fun on Monday morning!