Welcome back Year 1. We have been hearing all about your holidays and I am pleased to say that the children have settled back into school routines beautifully. We have had our Welcome Meeting this week and we were thrilled to see so many of you there, thank you, as always, for your continuous support as we work together to provide the children with the best learning experiences that we can. We will send home the hand-outs to anyone who was unable to attend and if you have any queries please come and see us.

Next week we will be leading a Liturgy on Creation and would love to share this with any parents or carers who are available. The children will be bringing home invitations and we look forward to seeing some of you there. The Liturgy is on Tuesday 16th September.

The children have been very excited to bring in their teddies as part of our learning context on “Bears”. They have used observational drawing skills to create representations of their bears and next week we will be preparing a Teddy Bears’ Picnic. The children will need to bring their bears to school again on Wednesday 17th and I look forward to sharing news about the teddy bears’ activities with you in our next post.

Due in: Monday 21st July 2014

You have 5 weeks to try to earn 50 home learning points.

You earn points by completing activities.

You can choose which activities you want to do and when.

□   Make a fruit salad or smoothie with a selection of African fruit. What fruit did you use and how did it taste? (10 points)

□   Make an African drum and practice drumming loudly and softly (10 points)

□   Learn some Swahili phrases (5 points)

□   Research and play a traditional African game e.g. Game Kisolo (10 points)

□   Make a sling to carry your baby dolls (5 points)

□   Junk model a car to take you on your Safari (5 points)

□   Choose a country in Africa and find out all about it. Maybe you could make a poster or book about it (25 points)

□   Can you find some African stories in your local library? (10 points)

□   Weaving and bead-work are traditional skills in Africa. Make something using these skills. (10 points)

□   Make a weather diary for Waterlooville over a few weeks. Think about how hot, windy and sunny it is.  Find out about how this compares to Africa. (15 points)

□   Make African animals out of different shapes (5 points)

□   Visit Marwell Zoo. Write about/ draw something new you learnt (30 points)

□   Watch the Lion King and write a list of all the African animals you see in it. What is the environment like there? (5 points)

□   Find out about a charity that supports people in need in Africa. Can you do some fundraising for that charity? (25 points)

This week we have been learning about shape and measure.  Could you find different shapes in your home or garden?  You might like to measure the shapes you have found.  What could you use to measure the shapes you find?

After half term we will be making a ‘setting in a shoe box’ for our versions of the story ‘Where the Wild Things Are’.

Please can all year one children bring in a shoe box.

It doesn’t need to have a lid and it can be any size!

You are welcome to donate more than one.

Please name them and bring them in during the first week back after half term.

Thank you!

As part of our Summer Extreme Reading challenge we would like you to get ‘out and about’ reading over half term. If you are going to the beach for the day or down to the park for a picnic, why not take a book with you to read in the fresh air? Try to read something once a day- comics, magazines, food menus, leaflets all count too!

We also have until the 6th June to make the most of our Bug Club online reading books trial. If the trial is successful, and we have good feedback from children, parents and teachers, then we will be investing in this for September.

http://www.bugclub.co.uk/

Please use this as much as you can over half term!

Letters and Sounds

As you will hopefully be aware the Phonics Screening Check is scheduled to take place in the week beginning 16th June. Please read as often as possible with your child, encouraging them to use all the sounds they know to sound out words and blend them together to read them. Encourage your children to play games such as ‘Buried Treasure’, ‘Picnic on Pluto’ and ‘Dragon’s Den’ on Phonics Play.

http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/PicnicOnPluto.html

http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/DragonsDen.html

http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/BuriedTreasure2.html

Thank you for your support.

Just a reminder that all children are invited to take a ‘selfie’ or have a picture taken of them reading in an ‘extreme’ situation.

Some examples are: hanging upside down, riding a horse, riding a bike, sailing, reading on a beach etc.

The idea is that it promotes reading for pleasure and the fact that reading can be done anywhere!

Here is a picture of Ms Ramsay reading in the Mary garden:

Please hand your extreme reading photos directly to Mrs D in the library.

Thank you!

This week we invited our mummies to join us for a maths lesson.

Thank you to all the mummies, grandmas and family that were able to join us.

It was a fantastic opportunity for the children to show their mummies how they solve maths problems,

using the equipment we have in school.

We had our Year One Summer Liturgy this week on Tuesday.

Thank you to all the parents, grandparents and families for joining us.

Here is the prayer we said during the Liturgy:

Dear Lord,

Thank you for our special mummies and all that they do for us.

Thank you for taking care of us and being there for us.

Amen

Follow this link to play some excellent, age-appropriate maths games.

http://www.mathschamps.co.uk/games5-7

Try out the ‘Bop a Bot 1′ game to practise your subtraction skills!