We hope you had a wonderful Christmas break! Well done to all the children for working so hard with completing their home learning over the holidays as well as taking part in the Bug Club Challenge with reading lots of books!

We have had a lovely first week back settling into our learning and we are very excited that we have now launched our new topic for the term which is Titanic where we have been learning lots of facts and acting out what it might have been like to be a passenger on the ship at the time of the disaster! We are all excited to find out more on Friday when we visit the Sea City Museum!

During numeracy we are continuing to practice our addition and subtraction skills. There is homework on Abacus to support this learning. Thank you so much for your continuous support with the home learning, it is showing great impact on the children’s learning.

Miss Allen, Mrs Luter, Mrs Wickes, Mrs Hewitt and Mrs Chapman

The end of the term is here! The children have all worked so hard this term that they deserve a holiday and time to spend with their families. They are very excited at the prospect of Santa’s visit although some are a little worried that they are on the naughty list!

Don’t forget that any children who complete the reading challenge (reading 10 books) will receive special recognition in assembly in January. I have also sent some maths home learning – quick mental recall of number facts. Keep practising those number facts – bonds to 10, 20, 100, times tables, odd and even numbers, halving and doubling, add the red baubles to the green baubles etc etc…!

Most of all enjoy some special family time and we hope that you have an amazing and blessed holiday. Thank you all so much for the generous Christmas gifts. God bless you all,

Mrs. Luter, Miss Allen, Mrs. Chapman, Mrs Hewitt and Mrs Wickes.

And so the countdown to Christmas has begun! We went to Church on Tuesday and took part in a beautiful Advent service. We told the whole congregation what ‘Immanuel’ means and then shared our own name banners. Isaiah lived 600 years before Jesus but he knew that He was going to be born!

In collective worship this week we have been talking about how to get ready for Christmas. We are very excited about Father Christmas and presents and decorations but as Henry said we need to ‘decorate our hearts for Jesus’. In RE lessons we have thought about how we can do this.

We hope that you too are managing to prepare your hearts for Jesus and are not feeling too busy to spend some time just being still.

https://vimeo.com/42355080

Watch this video for ‘Advent in 2 minutes’!

Two weeks until holiday time!

Mrs. Luter and Miss Allen

Last week Mrs. D took some of our Year 2 children to visit Tracet Cordroy author of Shifty McGifty and The Grunch Grouch!

“The Hubble Bubble story was very funny” says Anne-Sophie. “She has inspired me to read even more!”

“She writes books and she wrote The Glorious Granny Bake Off – they were very good.” Toby enthusiastically told me. “I would like to be an author like her!”

Perhaps some of her books may appear in stockings this Christmas!

Have a lovely weekend. Advent begins on Sunday when we will be thinking about how we can prepare ourselves for Advent. Whilst opening those chocolate calendars try asking your children to make a special Advent promise!

Mrs. Luter

On Monday we received a newsletter from our twin school in Africa! We were very excited to read about the children and have begun to write our own newsletters back.

Mrs. Howell who retired recently came to talk to the children about Tyume Valley Schools as she is somewhat of an expert having visited 6 times now. Miss Fooks and Phoebe have also visited so were able to help us understand the similarities and differences also. So we are now going to include in our newsletters information about the area that we live in that the children may find interesting or surprising.

In maths we have been learning about fractions this week the children made excellent progress but fractions remains a concept many children and adults find tricky. Please use the language of halves, thirds and quarters around your home (when you share a pizza for example). This will really help to embed their learning.

We have a creative home learning for the children this week – this has been stuck in your children’s Home Learning Adventures and appears below.

Home Learning 19/11/15

Please complete by Tuesday 24^th November

For home learning this week we would like the children to find out about their name.

Who decided on their name?

Why was their name chosen?

What does it mean?

What sort of person were they expected to be because of their name choice? (If relevant)

Children then create a banner with their name on. Make it attractive and provide the answer to the questions on the banner.

This is related to our learning in RE when we will be finding out what the prophet Isaiah called Jesus.

It is very nearly Advent and we have started to put together our Christmas Nativity! Look out for letters with information coming soon.

Kind regards,

Mrs. Luter and Miss Allen

It’s Friday and so home learning sharing day!

We have many Geographers in the class this week. Lots of map work! Many children have also continued to learn about Saints.

We have had a very busy week with a visit from Bishop Philip and a Remembrance service. Both days were very special and we were very proud of the children’s prayerful behaviour.

Have a lovely weekend!

Mrs. Luter

Miss Allen was on her way home on Monday evening when she saw a box by the side of the road. She brought it into school as it looked like it had been accidently dropped and we wanted to return it to its owner. She read a note inside to the children.

It was from an old man who we think may have played for a football team years ago. He said in his note that he was very confused and that Waterlooville had changed a lot over the years. He was no longer able to find a place to collect a prescription, buy a newspaper or post a parcel. So we set off to Waterlooville to see if we could help. We even managed to visit the library for a quick story before returning to school.

So we have become ‘Map Detectives’ this half term. We have drawn maps of our trip and will be writing to the man to tell him what we have found out.

Later we will be comparing our local area to an area in Africa and looking at our twin school Tyume Valley.

Attached is the home learning pyramid. Please complete one of the suggestions, or one of your own, this half term. You could also continue with or start a mini project about a Saint as our RE topic is Prayers, Saints and Feasts. Also please continue to read daily, practise number bonds (to 10, 20, 100), adding and taking 1 to and from any 2 digit number, adding and taking 10.

We look forward to sharing your child’s learning with you at parents’ evening.

Map Detectives autumn 2 – click on link to open home learning.

Mrs Luter and Miss Allen

As promised here are some photos of the ukulele concert that the children performed to parents in Giraffe class on Monday. It was wonderful! Well done children I was very proud. I am sure Elephant class are looking forward to their turn.

Today we made our superhero cars. Some of which were even complete with jet packs!

Have a lovely restful half term everyone. We will post the new home learning pyramid soon. In the meantime we are learning about saints in school so could you find out about a saint for home learning? Maybe a mini project? A prayer? A poster?

We look forward to hearing about the saints that your children find out about!

Best wishes for a happy holiday!

Mrs. Luter and Miss Allen

We have been learning about how to pray the Rosary. This afternoon we all prayed part of the rosary and found out about all the different prayers that we can pray using the Rosary.

In maths we have been learning how to find out half of and double of numbers. We have used the dienes to help us. We can find half of the tens number and then the units. We have then used this to help us to solve problems.

In literacy this week we have been writing our superhero stories. Children tell your mum and dad what happens in your story! We have been using a variety of punctuation, descriptive language and new vocabulary. We have also been applying a variety of sentence types that we have been finding out about.

Look out for letters and sounds home learning to be sent home tomorrow. We look forward to sharing home learning for the last time this half term tomorrow. Next half term we will be launching a new topic which we will contact you about soon.

If any of you are able to walk to Waterlooville with us in the first week back please contact us.

Mrs. Luter

We have thoroughly enjoyed sharing the children’s bird art this week there have been some very artistic creations. They have all fluttered off to be displayed outside Mrs. Bowen’s office. The children have really been inspired by each other and Phoebe has now even written her own book about birds. She had some grumpy birds who ate some fish… this reminded me to tell the children about the night I had had with my cat! Children tell your mums and dads about my naughty cat!

On Wednesday 21st we will be having a DT day and so we need your boxes in to make our Superhero cars with before then please.

Children will be bringing home the phonics that we have been working on during the week every Friday. Please look for the sounds in books and encourage children to identify alternative spellings. For example ay, ea, a-e, a ai, eigh and ey all make the same sound! This has been quite tricky for the children as you can imagine so the more practise they get the better.

Thank you again for all your support.

Giraffe class look forward to seeing you all at their ukulele concert on Monday 19th October at 11.15 in Giraffe class.

Mrs. Luter