‘There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.’
Edith Wharton
This week we reflected on how Mary would have felt when she heard the good news from Gabriel that she was going to have God’s son Jesus. Lots of artists have painted what they thought that this moment might have looked like. We looked at a few painting of the Annunciation and we created our own pictures of Mary and Gabriel in our floor book.
What have we been learning this week:
We have enjoyed exploring our Autumn treasures and investigating pumpkins, we have been very busy this week!
We started our music celebrations unit with Diwali, we listened to traditional Diwali music and loved dancing the 5 days of Diwali. We have enjoyed all the diferent activites this week, creating our own rangoli patterns, drawing henna patterns on hands and making our own diya lamps.
Conversation Starter
Ask your child what is Diwali the festival of? Can they tell you what they have learnt this week and discuss what they have enjoyed finding out ?
Phonics: please remember when practising your sounds at home, not to add ‘uh’ on the end. We have enjoyed learning our phonics in smaller groups. Our sounds this week were‘j’ ( short sound jump), ‘r’ (rrrr as if roaring like a lion) and ‘v’ (vvvv keep teeth on lips, feel vibration) and ‘y’ (long sound yacht).
Reading Books: please can you sign to let us know you have read together at home. These books will be changed every Monday, please can you ensure reading folders are in bags every day so books can be changed and we can listen to your child read in school.
Funky Fingers: We loved hammering golf tees into pumpkins, then pulling them out, it was tricky but it helped us strengthen our fingers.
Reception Plea:
We love making playdough for the children, it’s a great way to develop their fine motor skills. If you are able to donate flour, salt, food colouring/flavourings we would really appreciate it.
Optional Homework Challenges:
It is wonderful that the children are so excited about their learning and to see how keen they are to continue this outside of school. We welcome any opportunity to share these learning experiences with you at home, which is why we have created ‘optional challenges’ across each year group which can be explored over this Autumn 2 half term.
These challenges link to the wider area of our curriculum, there are some activities to help with retrival and some with topics that are coming up.
Below you will find the optional challenges linking to the topics and areas of learning that we will be exploring this half term. These fun challenges are designed to cover a range of skills without being stressful or time consuming for you at home. You are welcome to complete them in any order you wish and it would be lovely to see pictures or examples of things that the children have enjoyed at home.
As always, thank you for your continued support.
Purple Mash log in cards will be ready next week, I just need to make sure everyone has an account.
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 Ralphand Summer for her 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‘Roger Robin’ for always thinking about others and being a kind friend’. A ‘Lizzie Ladybird’ for a great first week back, you have come in with a big smile and are starting to share your ideas with the class.
Whole School Virtues - Intentional and Prophetic:
Thank you for being intentional with your every day acts of kindness, you welcome everyone with a huge smile and you are a role model to others.
Henry the Dog: Henry is going home with this person for a great week, you have worked so hard in your phonics and are learning new sounds every day, well done.
Important Information and Upcoming Events
Reception stay and play
Thank you for your responses and those who have changed days, I really appreciate it. Below is the session your child has been allocated. Please email me if there are any problems, if you can’t make it Grandparents or other family members are welcome to join us instead. I am looking forward to seeing you on Tuesday.
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 tells 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 Wednesday (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.DT- we will start our DT after half term, we will be making boats so if you could bring in plastic bottles/containers that would be great.
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