The importance of attendance
What did you do today? ‘We just played’…is the answer many parents of Reception children get. But here’s just a few of the things your child would miss if they’re absent for five consecutive days.
Phonics: Children learn four new graphemes and three tricky words each week.
Reading: Children practise reading books that closely match their phonics, plus loads of stories are read aloud and celebrated. We visit the school library once a week to choose a book to take home.
Poetry picnic: There’s a poetry session every day –another valuable activity which helps children learn to read.
Writing: We write every day using the graphemes that we’ve learned.
Handwriting: Children learn how to form letters correctly, otherwise joining letters will be difficult in Key Stage 1.
Maths: We’ve four maths sessions a week, setting the foundations for children to be successful in using and applying numbers in the future.
Alongside all of this, children learn Science, Music and other subjects. Even more importantly, children learn to concentrate in a large group, to share resources, take turns when speaking, answer in full sentences, regulate our feelings and prepare ourselves for future learning.
There’s a lot happening when ‘we just play’!
Pie Corbett (Wings) inspired writing
In our reading sessions, years 5 and 6 have been practising our reading fluency, using the poem ‘wings’ by Pie Corbett. In this poem (below), Pie Corbett uses his senses to influence his ideas on what he would do if he were to have wings.
The children were really inspired by his work, so we decided to create our own versions of the poem. We still focussed on our senses to guide our writing. Have a look at some of our fantastic pieces below!
Seaside Poems
This week our focus book has been Seaside Poems.
We have really enjoyed looking at the rhyming words and reading the different poems. We also talked about and compared two environments, a city (Leeds) and the seaside. The children did a great job talking through their ideas.
“A city has lots of tall buildings. At the seaside you see boats.”
“I can see lots of people in the city. I can see lots of sand at the seaside.”
Our world of the week this week was City the children have really enjoyed using this during their learning.
“I have been to a city called Leeds, it is bigger than Wetherby.”
“London is a really big city. I have been there.”
Poetry Picnic
This week our poem was I Have A Little Frog
I have a little frog,
His name is Tiny Tim,
I put him in the bathtub,
To see if he could swim.
He drank up all the water,
And gobbled all the soap.
And when he tried to talk,
There were bubbles in his throat.
The classroom Challenges this week have been
- to sort the images of the seaside (coast) and the city.
- to write an I can see sentence about what you can see in the seaside picture.
- to pick two animals and add the amount of feet they have together.
- to find the tricky words hidden in the outdoor area.
- to use the loom bands to make a shape in the board.
Next week our Focus book is Sharing a Shell
Reminders and Notices
Class Photos- are on Wednesday, please send your child to school in their school uniform. We will still do PE, but in our school uniform for this week.
Forest School- Is on Thursday please send your child to school in their PE kit with their forest school water proofs and wellies in a labelled plastic bag.
Please can you send your child to school with a sun hat and sun cream already applied on sunny days.
Waste Innovation- Please don’t forget to send in any donations for us to be creative.
Have a happy and healthy weekend and please don’t forget to email any pictures from home to stjames@spherefederation.org thank you as always for your support.
Mrs. Kendrew, Mrs. Rippon and Miss. Feldman.
One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab.
Welcome to Summer 2! Our theme this half term is Seaside and Cities and our first focus book has been One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab by April Pulley Sayre and Jeff Sayre.
This book is a counting book that counts familiar animals and how many legs each one has! We have had lots of fun with this story making up our own lines.
“5 is a snail and a dog!”
“6 is a dog and a man!”
“11 is a snail and a crab or 5 people and a snail!”
“100 is 10 crabs or 100 snails!”
Our word of the week was country the children have really enjoyed using this during their learning.
“I went to another country on my holiday.”
“We live in the country called England.”
Help at home: how many different countries can you name with your grown ups? can you write a list?
Also this week we released our butterflies, Mrs Rippon looked after them for us over the holidays and we had two to set free on Monday. It was great fun to watch them fly!
The classroom Challenges this week have been
- to write a message to the school fairies
- to join two materials together
- to find some shapes in the outside area
- to draw a shell or crab
- to order numbers from 1 to 10
Next week our focus book is Seaside Poems
Reminders and Notices
PE- is on Wednesday, please send your child to school in their PE and in trainers they can fasten themselves.
Forest School- is on a Thursday please can you send your child to school in their PE kits with waterproofs and wellies in a labelled plastic bag.
Please can you send your child to school with a sun hat and sun cream already applied on sunny days.
Waste Innovation- Please don’t forget to send in any donations for us to be creative.
Have a happy and healthy weekend and please don’t forget to email any pictures from home to stjames@spherefederation.org thank you as always for your support.
Mrs. Kendrew, Mrs. Rippon and Miss. Feldman.
A new Science topic – Growing and Cooking!
This half term, the children in Year 1, are learning about growing and cooking in science. They will be exploring the difference between fruit and vegetables and where they come from. They will also be preparing a simple meal!
Today, the class started by learning about the difference between fruit and vegetables. They recalled how plants are grown and discovered which parts of the plant we can eat.
We investigated the differences and similarities between a strawberry and a carrot. The children thought about smell, taste and texture.
The children identified that the main different between a fruit and a vegetable is that fruit has seeds. Which means that cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes are in fact fruits!
Science – Plants
Enquiry questions:
How do plants transport water?
Does the number of seeds within one plant pot affect the growth of the plants?
Working scientifically:
I can set up a simple practical enquiry.
Ask relevant questions and use different scientific enquiry types to answer them.
This afternoon, we carried out various science experiments that encourage us to observe over time whilst ensuring our tests are fair.
We placed a white flower into a pot of red water. We made predictions based on our prior knowledge and understanding. Tomorrow morning, we will be able to view the results and see if our predictions were correct.
The fun didn’t stop there. We then began an experiment to see what would happen if we planted one sunflower seed in a pot compared to two, four and eight. Again, we made predictions; we will take measurements over the coming weeks.
Finally, we planted our own sunflowers. We really enjoyed getting our hands dirty and it was so lovely to see the excitement in children.
Let’s hope for lots of sun and the children will be able to bring some tall sunflowers home.
Help at home – try planting some seeds of your own at home. Can you grow something you can eat? What does a plant need to grow? What is the function of the roots/stem/soil? What happens in the leaves?
Send pictures in and we can display in the classroom.
PE- Multiskills
We’ve made a great start to this week in Reception. In our PE lesson we have been working on our throwing and catching skills. First we worked on our own to bounce the ball in the hoop and then catch it. Then we worked pairs to bounce the ball to each other and catch it. It was very tricky as first but we persevered and our skills improved so much! Great work Reception!
Our Focus book this week is Walking Through the Jungle by Julie Lacome we can’t wait to share our learning with you at the end of the week.
Living and Learning: I know the importance of sleep.
Our living and learning statement for this week was:
I know the importance of sleep.
As well as individual class living and learning sessions, the whole school attended our ‘Tuesday Viewsday‘ collective worship to learn more together. We discussed the role of sleep in our lives and it’s importance/lack of importance both personally and collectively (the world).
Children put forward some fantastic points of view to debate both sides of the importance of sleep – here’s some of the quotes:
‘I think sleep is important because it gives our brain a chance to rest so that we can do well in school the next day.’ (JC, Year 6)
‘Sleep is important for us to switch off and not think about things for a while. If we didn’t sleep, we would all just be tired and moody.’ (FJ, Year 2)
‘I don’t think sleep is important because it wastes time. We could be doing other things that we like instead of sleeping.’ (NE, Year 5)
‘Sleep can be important if you have a job, but if you don’t have a job or something to get up for, you’re wasting time in your life that you could use to help others or find something that you enjoy.’ (JS, Year 5)
Help at home:
Discuss the importance of sleep for a healthy, happy lifestyle with your child. Does your child know what a good amount of sleep is? Explore their thoughts on what might happen if they don’t get enough sleep, or they sleep too much!
The Bad Tempered Ladybird
Welcome to the Summer term!! I can’t believe we are in our final term of the school year, this year has absolutely flown by so far!
This week our focus book has been The Bad Tempered Ladybird by Eric Carle.
The children have really enjoyed this story and have had fun joining in with the repeated lines. In class we have enjoyed making ladybirds and looking at the life cycle of a ladybird. We even discovered some ladybird facts. For example a group of ladybirds is called a loveliness.
Help at home: go on a walk and look out for some ladybirds, see if you can find a loveliness of ladybirds and count how many you can find.
Our Word of the week this week was frustrated the children have really enjoyed using this during their learning.
“I was frustrated when I was hungry and my dinner wasn’t ready so my mummy gave me a starter.”
“I was frustrated with my little brother for breaking my Lego.”
In Forest School we have practiced our drilling skills by using the hand drill to put holes in wood, this has helped us to get ready to make a Bug Hotel next week. We also did some litter picking to make sure we keep our school grounds safe for the animals that live here.
Help at Home On Monday 22nd April it is World Earth can you so something with your grown ups to celebrate our wonderful Earth.
Next week our focus book is The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Reminders and Notices
Forest School- We have our last week of Forest School this week. Please send your child to school in their PE kits on Friday with waterproofs and wellies in a labelled plastic bag. Please can everyone check all clothes that have gone home after forest school, a few items have been misplaced. Thank you.
Waste Innovation- Please don’t forget to send in any donations for us to be creative.
Have a happy and healthy weekend and please don’t forget to email any pictures from home to stjameseyfs@spherefederation.org thank you as always for all your support.
Mrs. Kendrew, Mrs. Rippon and Mrs. Feldman
World Book Day
Thank you so much to all the grown ups who came to our special ‘World Book Day’ stay and learn. We hope you had a lovely time, we’ve had a brilliant day celebrating.
This morning we had a whole school costume parade, we showed off our wonderful World Book Day Costumes as we danced to the ‘World Book Day’ Song by Mc Grammar. Then the teacher’s all swapped classrooms, Mr. Kilner who usually teaches in Year 3/4 came to read us a story. We loved listening to him and we loved his different voices!
Thank you so much for all your wonderful support in celebrating World Book Day, you’ve certainly helped us to raise the profile of books and reading. Reception absolute LOVE story time!
Help at Home by sharing a story.