'If we are going to open up the wonderful world of story then we should be showing them the wonder'
Greg Bottril
What a great week, we started our Phonics groups and Drawing club!
This week we started our RE learning off by watching our Nativity, the children loved seeing themselves and we all sang along. They were amazing and watching it again brought a huge smile to my face. We have thought about the Three Wise Men/Kings and the journey they went on to visit Jesus. God chose to let people all over the world know about the birth of Baby Jesus. This is because God made and loves everyone. We thought about how we send messages now and that they didn’t have phones then. The star showed everyone he was here and the Three Kings saw this and knew Jesus had been born.
What have we been learning this week:
We have loved our Phonics in our groups this week and we keep making more and more progress. Don’t forget to watch the QR codes at home, Fred games are great for practising our blending skills.
Drawing club: This week we started drawing club. Drawing club is a time for children to choose to come and be creative with their imagination. After listening to a traditional tale, a well-known story or an animation from the past, the children are taken on an adventure with words, actions and descriptive drawings.
The children use their imagination to create a theme, object or character from the story and they use their stories as a conversation starter to talk about what their picture means to them.
They then choose a ‘secret/ magic code’ of numbers, letters or even words and sentences to bring magic into the drawing with their creative ideas!
All the children have been so excited and challenged themselves, when writing our secret code, it will only work if the letters/numbers are the right way round! This gives joy to our writing, the focus is about enjoying putting pen to paper and discovering the joy of writing and that words are powerful.
Each week they are introduced to vocabulary linking to the books/animation but are not in the text/video.
Our words were:
Construct: to build something
Sturdy: something is strong
Flimsy: something is not strong or solid
Taunting: deliberately being unkind or laughing at someone
Obliterate: to completely remove or destroy something, leaving nothing behind
Scarper: to leave or run away quickly to avoid being in trouble
Celebrate: to do something special for an occasion or honour someone for their achievements
Exhale: pushing the air you have breathed in, out of your body
Can they remeber the actions and what they mean?
Conversation starter
What happened to your wolf when you wrote the secret code?
PE: Mr Nay was back we had six activities going at the same time, the children had lots of fun and their skills keep improving.
Don’t forget our Wednesday indoor session is now on Friday.
Maths: We have been subitising (saying not counting) up to 6, we are so speedy. We played a game on a number track we rolled the dice had to say the number and mover our counters on the track. We have also been ordering the numberblocks, they needed our help, I did too! I kept getting all mixed up luckily the children could help me put them in the right order.
Forest School: another great week of Forest school, ask you child what they did this week.
Each week I will update the forest school blog so please check so you know when your child has their session.
Next week it is group 2 and group 3
Wednesday 22nd January:
Group 2
· Adele
· Daisy
· Harry
· Hope
· Leo
· Lillie
· Noah
· Rosalie
· Tommy
· Ruairi
Thursday 23rd January:
Group 3
· Archie
· Arla
· Diya
· Hugo
· Lily
· Maggie
· Ralph
· Rupert R
· Willow
· Arthur
Don’t forget come into school in forest school clothes and bring uniform in a bag for after. Please look at the forest school blog for more information.
Let’s Celebrate:
Lunchtime awards:
Our lunch time certificates are awarded by the lunch time team to those children who they see being wonderful role models and using marvelous manors:
Well done to our Role Model Maggie and Hugo for his Marvellous Manners.
Thank you both for being such wonderful role models and for remembering those acts of kindness everyday!
Well done to our certificate awardees: a ‘Cooper Crab’ for her focus in Phonics and a ‘Clara Clown fish’ and Sadie Spider for your hard work an dertermination with your learning.
Whole School Virtues - Faithfilled and Hopeful:
Thank you for giving me hope this week, your enthusiasm for our Drawing club has been wonderful, it was my first time teaching it this week and to see your joy and excitement has inspired me for the rest of the year.
Henry the Dog: Henry is going home with this person for an excellent week, you have been so focused in Phonics and you are always a kind caring friend too.
Important Information and Upcoming Events
MATHS MASTERY FOR PARENTS -We have become part of the Maths Mastery Parents Project with the Maths Hub. We are running fun maths workshops for parents in Reception Year 1 and Year 2. This project aims to enhance and further parental engagement in mathematics. We are inviting parents into school to learn games alongside their children - these games will then be taken home straight away and in the following weeks as part of each classes home learning. Please complete the booking form below and pop the date for your child in your diary:
Reception: Wednesday 9:00 -9:50 am 12th February
Year 1: Wednesday 9:00- 9:50 am 26th February
Year 2: Wednesday 2:10pm- 3:20 am 26th February
Next week I am planning our Stay and play sessions, they will be in Spring 2 just before we break up and the dates will be in next weeks blog so you have enough notice . Please can you fill this in, if you haven’t already. If your avalible days have changed that’s fine, just fill it in again then I can try my best to accomdate you.
Show and Tell:
Please look below to see which day your child can share their show and tell news. We love to celebrate each child’s achievements in class. So we use show and tell as an opportunity to share things that they are proud of, or to share something that is important to them. Great show and tell examples are: sharing photos, bringing in certificates or medals, a souvenir from a trip out or something that they have made at home.
Important Reminders:
Polite reminder that we are a Nut free school. Please can you bring in healthy snacks please refer to the poster for suitable snacks, we always have fruit avalible too.
PE
Our PE days are Tuesday (outside) and Friday (inside). On these days, children can come to school in their PE uniform and will remain in this for the day. We kindly ask that velcro trainers (white, black or navy) are worn as this allows the children to be indepoendent when taking their shoes off and putting them back on. Polite reminder that for health and safety reasons, no jewellery is to be worn on PE days. We kindly ask that this is removed at home before coming into school.Art T-shirt
Please can you bring in an art T-shirt, if you haven’t already, these help us keep uniforms as clean as possible.Jumpers: please can you check that your child has brought the right jumper or PE jacket home, they can easily get mixed up when bags are being packed, there are a few missing in class, thank you.
if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me at:
d.drummond@ourladystarofthesea.lancs.sch.uk
Thank you for all of your support
Have a lovely weekend
Miss Drummond, Mrs Summersall, Mrs Kroll and Miss Forster