Attendance competition
Last week’s attendance winners were Year 2 with 96.8%. Well done to all the children in the Year 2 class.
Wake up Shake up!
Today, Wake up Shake up happened indoors! Check us out in action…
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?
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!
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.
Christmas events
It’s a busy time of year with so many things happening. Here is a reminder of the Christmas events taking place over the next two weeks:
Wednesday 7th December, 2pm: Christingle Service at St James’ Church
Thursday 8th December, 2.15pm: Early Years and KS1 Christmas play
Friday 9th December, 9.30am: Early Years and KS1 Christmas play
Tuesday 13th December: Christmas dinner
Wednesday 14th December: Early Years and KS1 parties (non-uniform)
Thursday 15th December: Ks2 parties (non-uniform)
During our productions, we will be raising money for our new school charity voted for by the Junior Leadership Team. This year we will be supporting Cancer Research UK.
Author visit – Alex Willmore
This afternoon, we watched and listened to the author and illustrator Alex Willmore reading his story I did see a mammoth, live on zoom.
Afterwards, we helped Alex draw a mammoth coming up with lots of different ideas. We suggested he could draw the mammoth wearing a Christmas jumper and elf shoes.
Challenge: Have a go at drawing a mammoth at home. Think about what they might be wearing, where they are, is there anyone/anything else around them? Bring your drawings in to share with your friends.
Anti-bullying week: Odd Socks Day!
Today for our anti-bullying day, we joined the nation by focussing on the message of “reaching out”. We talked about how this had several meanings: reaching out to a trusted adult for support/advice, reaching out to the victim to see if they are okay, or reaching out to make a change.
We looked at our school’s definition of bullying :
“Bullying is when you hurt someone physically or emotionally (including online), Several Times On Purpose”
Whilst we hope this would never be the case in our school, we also discussed what you can do if you were to experience bullying at St James’:
“Start Telling Other People. You could use the Living and Learning box, the worry box, email stayingsafe@spherefederation.org or even call Childline (0800 1111).”
We celebrated the message that everyone is different and equal by wearing odd socks to school and creating our own socks.
Art Topic
This half term, our topic is Art. We will be focusing on the work of George Seurat and Bridget Riley.
Seurat used a technique called pointillism.
Zoom in and look at his Sunday Afternoon painting. Can you see all the small dots used to create the painting?
Bridget created op art pieces.
We have started by talking about the topic vocabulary, which you can see below.
Community Green Group visit
This week, we have been lucky to have lots of visits into school for our Community Week. The children have enjoyed having different visitors in school and learning about all the things that go on in our community.
This week, we enjoyed a visit from Wetherby and Boston Spa Community Green Group. The children learned all about how the group helps preserve the environment and help the local wildlife. We talked about how the children could help the environment: recycling, turning lights off, or eating less meat, and how we could help the local wildlife: by creating bug hotels, hedgehog highways, or planting bee-friendly flowers.
We finished by looking at the “8 to be great” promise. Can you promise to be any of the 8 to be great?
