Hello!

We have had the most amazing day, and the children have thrown themselves fully in to their first school trip (as I’m sure you will be able to tell by how tired they are)! We have seen pigs, goats, brushed a donkey, played in the park, looked for autumn colours, met a ferret and had a lovely picnic but to name a few things.

We were so very impressed with how well-behaved the children were and were pleased by how much they got out of today. Thank you so much to all the parent helpers who made it possible (and Mr Ponsford for driving the bus)!

Here are just a few pictures of the things we got up to:

Have a lovely, restful weekend!

Mrs Stray and Miss Moncreaff

We have had a busy week so far down in Year R as we have had our first liturgy and launched our new topic- Percy the Park Keeper!

The children are working hard to become park keepers and earn a park keeper badge, so keep your eyes peeled for special awards!  We have been gardening, sweeping, digging, making mud pies, acting out the story and taking part in lots of other activities based on the Nick Butterworth stories. Ask your child what they have been up to this week and they will, we’re sure, excitedly fill you in.

Just a few reminders:

This Saturday is our Groundforce Day- if you can help in any way possible we would greatly appreciate it. Also, do not forget that this coming Monday is parents’ evening- you must have signed up by Friday 6th to get a slot! We will be running through all sorts of new information as well as discussing how your child is getting on, so please ensure that you get an appointment before they all get snapped up!

Coming soon… HOME LEARNING ADVENTURE BOOKS! These will be handed out at parents evening in addition to you having the wonderful opportunity to look through your child’s learning journey!

Have great weekend,

Mrs Stray and Miss Moncreaff

Well, we did it!

Year R have made it to the end of their first half term at school.

What a long half term too!

I’m sure your children have been very tired this week.

At school, they’ve still been trying really hard in their learning.

This week in letters and sounds we have been learning the sounds ‘h’, ‘b’ and ‘f”. We have been very impressed with the progress in letter formation, we can see a real improvement from the first few weeks. We also had some brilliant writing of CVC (3-letter) words too. This is a major leap of progress as it shows the children are applying their sounds and listening carefully to the order of where the sounds come in the beginning, middle and end of the words.

Thank you for practising this at home, it is clearly helping children to feel confident to ‘have a go’ at school. If you find your child says ‘I can’t do it’, please use our mantra of ‘don’t say no, have a go!’.

Please also remember to use your Bug Club subscription online and make the most of this fantastic reading opportunity.

After half term we will be launching our home learning pyramids in our home learning adventure books (shown at welcome meeting). Please keep an eye out for these in your book bags.

Thank you to all the parents who have sent in reply slips for our Staunton trip. Remember the deadline for this is Monday 2^nd November. Thank you to those parents who have offered to help. If you can, please ask in the school office for a St Peter’s DBS check to be carried out. If you’re planning on helping more frequently, this will help as you will be able to take a group for us.

Just a reminder of autumn term dates:

• Tuesday 3rd November 10.20am – Liturgy
• Saturday 7^th November (morning) – Ground Force Day
• Friday 13^th November 9.00am-3.00pm – Trip to Staunton
• Friday 20^th November 9.00am-11.30am – Walk to Waterlooville Library
• Thursday 26^th November 9.00am-11.30am – Seahorse Class trip to Pizza Express.
• Tuesday 1^st December 9.00am-11.30am – Walk to Sacred Heart Church
• Wednesday 9^th December 9.30-10.30am – Year R Nativity

Please let your class teacher know if you are able to volunteer as a parent helper on any of these dates. Thank you in advance!

This week in Seahorse and Starfish classes we have been concentrating on our story telling skills and our numbers. Have your children been telling you all about the Gruffalo and his child? We have loved learning all about the stories and role playing them both indoors and outside.

We have been learning the individual numerals to 8, so please practise these with your child. This could be through recognising them on doors, writing them on birthday cards, or anything fun which will help them remember what the numbers look like.

In phonics we have been looking at the letter sounds ck, e, u and r. It is really helpful for your child when you play games with their flashcards each day as this helps consolidate their knowledge.

Also, we have some good news to announce! Seahorse class won both the attendance award and the KS1 top readers award! This means we had the best attendance across Yr, Y1 and Y2 and also took out the most books from the library. Congratulations!

What a week we have had in Early Years this week!

We have been learning all about the Gruffalo and the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4.

We have also learnt the sounds ‘g’, ‘o’, ‘c’ and ‘k’.

Our role-plays have been transformed into the Gruffalo setting and we have been pretending to host Gruffalo tea parties, whilst retelling language from the Gruffalo story.

We have been to the woods twice this week. On Wednesday afternoon we spent an hour in the pouring rain making the number ‘2’. Today the weather was much better and we found some smashing conkers. We were busy picking different berries and learning about which ones were safe to eat. We have also been rolling logs across the grass and working together.

This weekend you can start using Bug Club online reading books. Your child has been assigned the correct books for their reading ability.

To log in:

1. www.activelearnprimary.co.uk
2. Log in using the information on the log-ins page of your yellow Learning Log book.
3. Click on Bug Club
4. Share a book!

If you find you are having problems logging in, please speak to your class teacher next week.

Have a lovely weekend!

We have been very busy bees down in Seahorse and Starfish Classes this week, with lots of learning and exploring going on!

On Tuesday, a photographer came from The News to take a photo of us as part of the ‘school starters’ edition of the paper and we all enjoyed striking a pose.

We have been up to lots of different bits and bobs such as tummy writing (pictured below), phonics (learning the sounds that go with the letters i, n, m and d) as well as letting our imaginations run wild in the outdoors! We have had lots of discussions about rules this week as we are getting more and more confident as the days go on. 

On Monday at 4pm we will be holding a ‘Welcome Meeting’ as a chance for you to ask any questions and find out more information about the home learning which your child will be having in their diary. We were busy writing invitations to this as part of our literacy and hope that you can attend.

Have a lovely weekend, and see you Monday!

Miss Moncreaff and Mrs Stray

It has been a VERY full week this week!

Teachers and visitors around the school have all commented on how well settled, and confident in their environment, the new Year R children are after only being full-time for one week.

It has been a very busy week.

We discovered a bear print in our outdoor play area. Then we made bear traps and barricades in our play to keep out the teddy bears.

Mrs O’Carolan was especially scared of the bear so we made posters saying ‘Beware of the Bear’ and ‘Keep Out Bears’ to help keep our play area safe.

Yesterday it was teddy bear’s birthday and he was four. We talked about how old we are and showed if we knew some significant numbers like our age, door number, brother/ sister’s age etc.

We loved reading and drawing numbers. We practised showing what the numbers represent with equipment.

Today we had our open morning so we played outside this morning and showed some visitors the lovely things we can do in our play area. We also practised our spreading skills and made toast! (Eating it was our favourite bit.)

This afternoon we went on a bear hunt to the woods. We found the naught teddy bear hiding in a tree. He has promised to leave our play area alone now. We climbed some trees, with the support of Mrs White, and we also found some woodlice.

This week we have learnt the sounds: S, A, T, P, I.

If you would like to practice them at home, make sure you say the pure sound rather than putting an ‘er’ on the end like ‘ser’, ‘per’ ‘ter’. This is a great video, showing pronunciation of sounds:

http://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/resources/sound-pronunciation-guide/

Here is a link to some games you could play:

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

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

We hope you have a lovely weekend. See you on Monday!

Mrs Stray and Miss Moncreaff

We have had such a lovely second week so far! We have been to the library, the ICT suite, out to play, the woods, and all sorts! We hope you enjoyed the crumble made from blackberries we picked on the school field.
Have a lovely weekend!
The Early Years Team

Starfish and Seahorse Class have had a fantastic first week at school!

We have been very busy learning our new routines and rules, making friends and having lots of fun of course!

Today we had our first PE discovery time. We learnt how to get changed for PE in our classrooms and the children were all very patient and tried really hard to be independent.

We can’t wait to go to the woods on Monday! Please remember to have your waterproof coat with you in school (just in case)

Below are some photos of our first week at school:

Starfish Group A

Starfish Group B

Seahorse Group A

Seahorse Group B