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

We hope you are enjoying your first days at St. Peters. We have certainly loved having you!

What a fabulous few days we have had- a treasure hunt around the school, paddling barefoot in the stream, stories, drawing, playing and meeting new friends!

Please also remember that Wednesday is library day, so if your child is coming in for the afternoon they will need to return their school library book in order to take out another one. Group A will get to change their books next week.

See you tomorrow,

The Early Years Team

Letters and Sounds:

• Miss Moncreaff’s Phonics Group: Revision of all Phase 3 sounds
• Mrs White’s Phonics Group:

ai, ea, igh, oa

• Miss Rhoades’ Phonics Group:
• oy, ir ue, aw
• Mrs O’Carolan’s Phonics Group:

a_e, e_e, i_e, o_e, u_e

Home Learning:

Have you got any questions to ask your new teacher? Could you write them down and give them to your new teacher?

Look at him now!

A message from Arabella’s Mum about how Jesus the chick/cockerel is now doing…

“As promised here are a couple of pictures of Jesus the Cockerel finally united with (hopefully) the mothers of his chicks. His girlfriends are called Cadbury, Pecky and Flecky (though I personally can’t tell the difference between them!) and, after a few little ‘spats’ they are all getting along fine. He crows from 3am now, all day until dusk, and has a lovely strong loud crow..ha ha. And as you can see, he is a handsome fellow! He remembers all the children from your class I’m sure, and is very grateful to be able to come and live with Arabella, and comes running when he hears children’s voices! “

We had such an amazing day and saw so many animals! We also managed to take part in an animal explorers workshop where we had to follow clues to find a particular animal… Mrs O’Carolan’s group had to find an Ostrich! (Can you see the Ostrich skull in the picture above?)

Thank you also to all of the lovely parent helpers who made the trip possible…a huge thank you from everyone in Early Years.

Last week we were playing in the outside area when one of the children in our year group found a giant moth!

It was really exciting to look at the moth up close and notice all of the body parts a moth has. We finally let it go and put it in a safe place so it wouldn’t be found by any predators!

Seahorse Class have been having a go at beat-boxing… check it out!

Miss Moncreaff x