Hello, and welcome to Spring term 2!

It has been a busy few weeks, so lets get you up to speed!

At the start of the term we had glorious weather so children spent their time exploring our new outdoor area: a builders shed, a maths shed and literacy shed. We also had a new mud kitchen delivered, along with some table and chairs. The children enjoyed their time outside!

Ash Wednesday – On Wednesday the 6th we had a visit from Miss Keogh from the Chapel in Oaklands. She explained to the children what Lent was about and the reason why, on Ash Wednesday, Catholics have an ash cross drawn on their foreheads. Every child and adult in Early Years received one!

Early Years also had a very special visitor on Thursday who bought us some bugs to look at and hold, to gather more information for our Minibeasts topic! Thank you Mrs Lipscomb, the children loved it! We were visited by 2 stick insects, an African land snail and a millipede!

The parents also dropped in for a games afternoon. Parents or grown ups from each family had the opportunity to bring the child’s favourite game and play it in school! The most popular game by far was on called ‘Don’t step in the poo!’. There were many squeals of delight as the children narrowly missed the playdough poop!

What a busy few weeks in Early Years – thank you for all that have visited us and supported us in the last few weeks.

Dear All,

We have had a busy but exciting final week to Spring 1. The children have performed their second liturgy of the school year to parents and carers. The theme for this was revelations and the story of feeding the five thousand. The children made lovely loaves and fish props with Mrs Pearson to help bring the story alive. Thank you to all the parents who came to watch and for getting involved too!

Next, the children got to watch as the crane bought in our new building. The children found this very exciting and some could even tells us what they builders were doing and why! They were all very keen to see the finished result and what the building will have inside it, but they will have to wait another 4 weeks before this happens!

Finally we had our poetry competition. Many thanks to those who supported their children at home with practising and learning their poems. It was really brilliant to see the children perform and it was evident of all the hard work you put in. It was a tough decision, but the 4 children have been chosen to go into the final. The final will take place on Friday 8th March where the children will be performing in front of the school. Costumes and actions are encouraged!

Thanks again for your support during Spring 1, we ask you to enjoy your week off. Allow time for family, rest and talking, but please also continue to work with your child on maths, phonics sounds and reading. It really makes a difference to their learning!

We hope you have a lovely half term,

The Early Years Team

Last week saw starfish class visit pizza express to make their own margarita pizza. They had a fabulous time being mini chefs for the morning!

The two year R class teachers spent 2 days on courses, learning lots of new things to implement into the school day. We are looking forward to trying them out soon.

In RE last week we looked at other faiths. Both classes looked at Sikhism and what their faith was all about. They learnt about their place of worship and their special book. They then turned their classroom into a Gurdwara, taking off their shoes and making sure that the boys and girls sat on different sides.

Dates for your diary:

Half term: 18th-22nd February

Last week saw our first snow fall of the year, and so we took the children out to play with it! We had lots of children making snowmen, snow angels and snow animals. We also had our ‘safety officers’ who were sweeping the snow so others had a clear path so they did not slip up! The children had a lovely morning in the snow and then many decided to write about their snow adventures! The year R team were very impressed with the sounds and HFW that the children are using in their writing.

It was an eventful for week for Seahorse, because as well as the snow they also had their school trip to pizza express where they got to make their very own cheese and tomato pizza! They then bought it back to school and had a pizza picnic!

Useful reminders:

• Year R have their liturgy on Tuesday 12th February
• Last day of term is Friday 15th February

In literacy this week the children have been read a story about Aliens coming to earth to destroy it! They have worked really hard to write to the Aliens to scare them into not visiting Earth! The children have done well and lucky no Aliens have turned up!

In maths we have been using Aliens to practise our subtraction. The children dressed up as Aliens and we counted them and then sent some back to their spaceship! The children loved it and some started to write their own number sentences!

For RE this week we looked at the story of Feeding the five thousand. They were amazed that 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish multiplied to feed the crowd of five thousand people. The children also had a chance to taste different types of bread, such as: Poppadoms, Pitta bread, Baguette, Crumpets and Potato Farls! They also got to touch a trout, they were using some great describing words to explain how it felt, like slimely, cold, slippery and scalely!

Hello and welcome back, we hope you all had a lovely relaxing Christmas and spent time catching up with friends and family.

The children have settled back in well this week and we have had some amazing learning done by them. The first week back certainly started off with a blast as we launched our Space topic. All the children seem to be really engaged and the whole early years team are really impressed with the children’s knowledge of space already!

The children’s achievement was also celebrated this week with Year R going to the Golden Key celebration assembly. Each week one member from each class will be nominated to win the Golden Key. Children are rewarded the Golden Key by showing good learning behaviours and using the gifts that God gave them to achieve something  amazing. Children will also have the opportunity to win Showstopper writing, this is awarded to someone who has shown they have tried hard and used their phonics to write. Finally, Marvelous Mathematician will also be award once a month to a child from each class who shown us some brilliant number or shape work. We look forward to celebrating these achievements with the rest of the school!

On Thursday we had an outdoor afternoon where we looked for signs of Spring. Children had to be detectives and let us know if there were more signs of Winter or Spring. There were a few mixed views, and some really good explanations of why the children thought it was Winter/Spring. We will continue to talk about the four seasons and keep our eyes peeled for the signs of Spring!

Some useful information and reminders:

• 29th January: Pizza Express visit for Seahorses class.
• 5th February: Pizza Express visit for Starfish class. Letters to follow in January. We will require some adult helpers!
• Tuesday 12th February 10.00 am Liturgy.
• Half term: 18th – 22nd February.

In the last 2 weeks we have stepped up the festiveness! Year R have made some lovely crafts and keepsakes for Christmas 2018.

Last week we also had Christmas jumper day, we saw some amazing jumpers, ones that lit up, cool Santa Claus’ and even a full elf costume!

The children had an early Christmas lunch, as on Tuesday the whole school sat down for a traditional Christmas dinner with Christmas carols – a huge thank you to the ladies in the kitchen who made it!

A little Christmas treat arrived for the children in the form of a Pantomime. Treehouse theatre company gave us a brilliant performance of Robin hood. The children thoroughly enjoyed watching and joining in!

Remember it is an inset day on Friday 21st December and the start of the Christmas holidays. We hope you all have a lovely Christmas and enjoy your time off to catch up on family time and sleep! We look forward to seeing you all refreshed in the New Year.

Merry Christmas from the Early Years Team.

The Nativity:
Last week reception partook in their very first Nativity at school, all went well despite a technical hitch! The children looked lovely in their costumes and all the staff in early years are so proud of them.

Advent:
Year R also had their second outing on a trip to the Church where they watched an Advent service and sung some songs. They also looked at Advent in worship and made their very own class wreath, exploring the meaning of the candles.

STEM day:
On Friday we had a whole school STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) day. In early years we thought about the materials that would be best for building Jesus’ stable. Which would be strongest and most waterproof? We put cardboard and sugar cubes in water to see what would happen and tested plastic film to see if it kept things dry. We then all had a go at building using a range of materials in the classroom: junk, lego, sugar cubes, paper straws and plastic straws and rolled up paper tubes. We had a great time finding out!!

It has been a busy week full of new experiences for Year R.

Year R had their first school trip to the library on Wednesday. Although it was a long walk we made it there and back! The lovely ladies at the library showed us around the children’s floor and told us about the exciting activities that they have on Saturdays, like Lego club and board game mornings! They then read us some of their favourite stories, they were very funny!

As well as our first school trip we have been busy practising for our Nativity. We are learning lots of new songs and get to perform on stage. Letters have been sent out for grown ups to get tickets to watch our performance as well as notifying the role that their child will be playing. Please ensure that you are bringing in costumes so they are in school and ready for our performance on Wednesday 5th December.

Dear Parents                                                                                                                           19.11.18

Next week we will be learning…

Maths: In maths next week we will be learning about more and fewer. Children will be able to select the group which has more/fewer items in it. At home you could support this learning by sharing out toys and getting the children to find which group has more /fewer toys in.

Literacy: In literacy next week we will be thinking about how to enrich our spoken language by introducing new vocabulary and exploring new words and meanings. With this in mind we will be sending home some ‘talk homework’ on a separate letter. This is designed to support our learning in school and enable the children to spend quality time with you at home talking and exploring new words. This week we will be using the Christmas story as a vehicle to explore new words. Each week we will be sending home a ‘top tip for talking’. Please see below for this weeks tip. Talking and exploring new words is so important at this stage in their development. Enjoy the talking!

Phonics: Next week we will be learning the letters h, b, f and l and learning to read the high frequency words no, to, the and go. Perhaps you could write the words on the fridge or around the house and see if they can read the words as they pass during the day?

Other events….

• We had a lovely visit to the chapel at Oaklands School last week. A big thank you to the school and Miss Keogh, the Chaplin, for letting us come and compare the symbols of worship we use in class with those in the chapel.
• On Friday 9^th we had a special assembly with the rest of the school where we looked at all the work that has been going on relating to remembrance. The children had worked with Mrs Pearson to make a cross out of purple poppies which commemorated the animals who lost their lives in the first World War.

Some useful information and reminders!

• Phonics meeting: 30 on Tuesday 20^th November.
• Please continue to bring in the costumes and ticket slips for the Nativity. It is also important that your child has lots of opportunity to practise their lines (if they have any!) so please support them at home.
• Parents evening is coming soon! We look forward to seeing you all on the evenings of either 27^th or 28^th You will be asked to sign up electronically for a session in due course.
• Reminder that there will be a whole school INSET day on Friday 30^th

Top tip for talking!

Younger children might find it difficult to tell you about their day at school. To support them, try giving choices like “did you paint a picture or play on the swings?” or ask “tell me one good thing that happened today”. You could say one good thing about your day too, just to get the conversation going.

The Early Years team