This week...

Wow, what a week!

The children are really enjoyng nursery and making new friends. We have had a fun week even though the weather hasn’t been too good.

We have visited the chapel and we each friend said a prayer for someone they love. we talked about how we were feeling and chose a pom pom to represent our emotions. I was glad to see we were mostly yellow, green and pink, phew!

Worship

Our worship this week introduced the children to the story of creation, where God created the earth, sea, stars, plants, animals and humans. The five-story sessions encouraged children to creatively explore this topic and help them to deeply know that they are created by God out of love and for love.

Click on the button below to talk about the slides at home.

Click here to read about God’s Wonderful Earth.

Michelle’s blog

Hello everyone,

We have had another fantastic week at nursery and we can’t believe some of these children have only been with us a week. We have all been so impressed with how they have taken to all the nursery routines- it’s like they have always been here!

Thank you to everyone who read last week’s blog and has sent in their child’s snack in their book bag, it makes it so much easier for the children if they can get their own snack out of their trays. Independence is a big part of what we do at nursery, as we prepare all the children for their next journey, which will be starting school. We impressed Mr Nay, the sports teacher for the school at our first PE lesson this week. He said our listening skills were amazing. Thank you, Mr Nay, we thought our PE lesson was amazing too, and we can’t wait to do PE every week. We are going to be just like athletes by the time sports day comes around.

As well as PE, we have also had lots of practice balancing in the garden as we built our own obstacle courses. We turned ours into a pirate ship and used the telescope to look for pirates. We do have good imaginations. It has been so much fun this week getting to know all our new friends and playing games together. Here are some ideas for imaginative play outside while the weather is still nice Click here.

Our busy week continued as we explored our topic of All About Me by painting our self-portraits. They are so good we are going to have to display them in our very own art gallery. We looked really closely at our features in a mirror so we could make sure we used the right colours for our hair and our eyes. We learnt about differences and similarities and this theme continued into worship this week as we learnt about the Creation and how God created everything, including us.

We learnt we are all people but we are all different. I don’t know how we found the time but we also visited the castle on the school field, for a play and decided to make our own box of props to take with us next time, lots of knight costumes, some princess ones and even a dragon. After we had been to the castle we also visited chapel, where we prayed for all our loved ones and sang a song about how God is big and mighty.

Take care everyone and have a lovely weekend

Michelle

Emma’s blog

Hello everyone,

We have had a fun packed week with lots of giggles and working our brains hard.

We have been getting to know each other by looking in the mirror and talking about what we see, eye colour skin, hair and we have been painting pictures of ourselves to go onto the nursery wall.

We continue to make our faces using paper plates, coloured buttons for eyes and wool for hair. The children drew their nose and mouth, then we talked about how they feel by discussing the expressions shown from the mouth. The children wanted to take them home so maybe try to make your own faces at home using paper plates and different household objects and talking about your feelings based on the facial expressions.

In nursery, we all like to be healthy and we have been looking and talking about healthy and unhealthy foods. We play a game with the children where there are different foods in a shopping basket and the children had to think about the foods and pick foods as to whether or not they are healthy using a thumb up for healthy and thumb down for unhealthy. It really made the children think about whether sweet foods were healthy or just for treats. I have added a link to a game below for you to play which is all about healthy foods. Click here

We have been on an adventure to the castle in the school field. The children have been really excited to see it and we had lots of fun playing in it and climbing. We decided to make a flag for the castle and get dressed up so we could play the roles of knights, princesses, witches, dragons and we even had a parrot! We talked about what we would put on our flag and the children came up with a dragon, star and moon and we called it St Patrick’s Castle which is after the name of the road the nursery and castle face onto. The photos of our castle adventure are in the blog, the children had a fanatic time.

We had an adventure out of nursery with some of the children, taking them to the library for story time with myself and Barbara. We walked all of the way there and when we got there we sat and looked at the books whilst we waited for story time. The lady at the library read three books about different animals. The children sat really nicely and enjoyed listening. When we finished, the lady gave the children a picture of a parrot so when we got back to nursery we coloured and glued coloured feathers to our parrot pictures. The children loved doing this.

We have had a fantastic second week. I wonder what fun next week will bring.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Emma

…and just a few from Justine!

Our Visit to the Castle

Such a fabulous week at nursery. Next week watch out for your child’s Purple Mash codes coming home. You will be able to access the virtual classroom and home learning that your child’s key person will post. It’s great fun!

Health and Safety notice

Could I please ask that if your child is bringing grapes, cherry tomatoes or large blueberries for snack or lunch, could you please cut them into quarters accordingly e.g. grapes need cutting into quarters. They foods can pose a choking hazard to young children

Family photos

We have started My Family wall but we are still some family photos missing. It would be great if you send in a photograph of your family for our wall. The children love to talk about everyone who lives in their house. Thank you.

Don’t forget it is the parent drop in on Tuesday 3.45-4.45 pm. We are looking forward to a catch up. Please note this is a catch up for you, could you if possible find alternative care for your child.

Lastly, I’m not sure what the weather will do this weekend but I’m sure you will find lots to do. Keep safe and I will see you all on Monday.

God Bless

Barbara

Year 6 Home Learning Friday 15th September

Homework should be completed and brought back to school for the following Thursday

 ASSEMBLY- MAKE SURE YOU KNOW YOUR LINES OFF BY HEART AND THE SONG READY FOR MONDAY WHERE POSSIBLE. Watch the video with the lyrics to help you:

English - Reading - Read, read, read, read every single day!

Geography- Can you complete the flags of South America homework- think about your presentation please.

Maths- Please complete the following IXL strands under A Place value and number sense.

A2 Place values

A5 Writing numbers up to one million in words: convert words to digits

A6 Writing numbers up to one million in words: convert digits to words

Spellings - this week we are focusing on recapping the word list from Year 5

Mrs Barker’s Spelling Group

which said word about first could down made

Year 5 Homework to be handed in on Thursday 21st September

Spellings

1. fought

2. nought

3. ought

4. bought

5. cough

6. trough

7. rough

8. tough

9. enough

10. thorough

Maths

Will be on IXL;

• A1- Place value names up to millions

• A2- value of a digit

DT

Children are to select their own greek myth (cartoon only). This is to be found on YouTube and they need to find the 4 main points of the story for each page of their book. This can be done as a drawn sketch with annotations or just written out.

Year 4 homework to be completed by Thursday 21st September

And so it begins! Homework will go live each week at 6:00 on Thursday and needs to be handed in on Thursday.

Spelling

For the first half of the year, we will be doing lots of revision of previous spelling and spelling rules, to make sure they are solid. Each week you will have 10 key words and 10 to do with a spelling rule. Please learn all for a spelling test of 10 of these words each Thursday

This week you have key words: as, said, says, are, went, was, full, house, our, but, came, Mr.

Please complete the Look, cover, say, write, check sheet given out - as you practiced with Miss Hennessey. You do not need to do it 5 times if you know it after 3 times.

Then do the purple mash quiz set in your 2dos.

Also, you have the spelling patterns wh and ph with the following words:

dolphin, alphabet, phonics, elephant, phone, when, where, which, wheel, while

Please go on Purple mash and complete the quiz for these words too.

As an extra challenge, can you think of any more words with wh or ph and make a list in your homework books?

Assembly parts

Our class assembly is all about Plants! It will take place on Thursday 5th October at 2:10 and 2:35. You are very welcome to come into school to view it.

It seems a long time away but it isn’t! I have sent home your child’s part to learn of by heart for next Thursday please, so we can begin to practice.

Science - optional homework

I would love you to go somewhere - it could even be your garden and draw some of the beautiful plants and/or trees you see on the blank paper I gave you. Can you name them?

OR

Can you find out about any weird and wonderful plants around the world and draw one in your homework book. Don’t forget to name it.

Year 5 Homework to be handed in on Thursday 14th September

Spellings

This weeks focus has been words with the silent letter b

1. thumb

2. numb

3. crumb

4. debt

5. doubt

6. limb

7. climb

8. tomb

9. comb

10. subtle

Class Council Speeches

Our leadership assemblies will take place next week, where our roles of responsibility are announced. For anyone who would like to be a class councilor this year and also be apart of the school council, then you are to prepare a speech to tell your classmates why they should vote for you. One boy and one girl will be selected as our class councilors. You can not apply for class councilor if you have already been one in a previous year.

Homework Books

As it is the first week homework handout of the year, the children are to design the front cover of their homework books. You can choose to back these books as it helps protect the condition of them. This is so we do not get these books mixed with our computing books (same size and colour).

History- London preparation- Due Monday 12th September

The children are to write 5 curious questions in their homework book that they would like to find out about the Houses of Parliament or anything else to do with London and their task is to find the answer when we go on Tuesday.

Year 4 consent forms

Please complete both the following forms so we have up to date information for your child.

Ashton Gardens trip consent online form

Please give your consent for your child to come on a trip on Wednesday to Ashton gardens and fill in the quick form below:

Year 1 Homework 8.09.23

This weekend I am sending home some Magic Moment leaves. These are providing you with the opportunity to share anything you would like to tell us about something good, polite, helpful or special that your child does out of school. It can be something as simple as folding up their uniform neatly, making their bed, working extra hard on their reading, using manners whilst out and about or achievements in and out of school clubs such as dancing, football etc.

We will share these in class giving your child a lovely opportunity to speak to an audience and be proud of their achievements. The leaves are then displayed on our tree on our classroom wall. Please don’t just fill them all in on day one. They are intended to be used only as and when they really do something special. Please let me know if you need any more.

We can’t wait to celebrate your child’s magic moments!

The children have all picked a book from our class library to take home and share with you this weekend. On Monday they will recieve their RWI reading book and once the children have completed their Star Reader test, they will have a reading book suitable for their reading ability, they can then select their own reading book. Please bear with us, we have had a few technical issues signing the children and myself on to the system, so it may take some time until it is all set up.

The children all have their own homework book. My first homework is for you to decorate it. Mrs Gregan has set the children a RE challenge can you go on a creation walk and discuss all the wonderful things that God has created? You can draw pictures, write about it or take a photo and put it in your homework book to share with the class.

Have a lovely weekend

Miss Drummond

Year 4 Weekly blog "In a world where you can be anything, be kind."

What a joy it has been this week to get to know your children! They have already settled so well into Year 4 and have welcomed our new pupil - Poppy. We are so glad you have joined us Poppy. It has been a busy week full of new learning and exciting opportunities! We began with a lovely whole school assembly on Monday where we decided our school aim this year is simple but powerful - BE KIND!

We have thought carefully this week about how we want our class to be. Everyone has rights in class to make it a fair, happy and productive place. We discussed that we therefore have responsibilities to make sure everyone gets the right to be safe, to learn well and to feel respected. We have been reading our learning character stories to remember how to be the best learner we can be. In Year 4 the children choose children that demonstrate these learning characteristics and they get to have a little version of the character on their table for the day!

In RE and RHE this week, we have focused on our mission statement, “You are precious in my eyes.’ We have made a big class sign which says ‘We are all precious in each other’s eyes,’ reminding us to treat each other like a precious jewel. We then thought about God’s Creation and how amazing it is! Children made some of their favourite parts of God’s Creation from playdough and wrote some lovely prayers of praise.

We started our new novel, “Charlotte’s Web,’ and have already practised lots of important reading skills such as predicting, asking questions, figuring out the meaning of words and ‘reading brain.’ We have taken our Star reader tests and children seem determined to meet their reading targets this half term.

Also this week, we have done a little French - starting to describe facial expressions. By the end of the unit we will be able to describe hair colour, eye colour and personality. Watch this space!

Let’s Celebrate!

It was incredibly hard to choose on the very first week in year 4. You have all done so well! The certificate winners were learning partners this week. Well done Tilly and Seth for your excellent level of concentration during teaching and when you are engaged in tasks. You both received Cooper Crab certificates for being focused learners.

Curious and Active butterfly

This half term, or virtues are ‘Curious and Active.’ This week we thank Matilda for asking such an important question about God’s Creation - why did He make us?

Notices

My contact

If you need to get in touch with me, my email is a.lyons@ourladystarofthesea.lancs.sch.uk

Swimming

Please read the blog below so you are familiar with the procedure on Thursday. If you wish your child to wear goggles, please send the reply slip back from the letter.

Induction evening

This is on Wednesday between 3:30 and 5:00. Let your child take you on a tour around year 4! They will also be able to show you pictures from our trip that day and you can find out more about our class! I will be there to chat and answer any questions you may have

Trip

Also on Wednesday, we are going on a trip to Ashton Gardens in the morning. We will be hopefully staying for a picnic lunch there. If your child has a school dinner on Wednesday, Jackie will prepare a lunch. Some children have told me their parent will make a packed lunch instead. Please could you discuss this with them and ask your child to let me know or drop me a quick email to confirm.

Labels

Please ensure all uniform is labelled - especially those new school hoodies!

Reading

Please can all children read for 20 mins per day at home. Sometimes you may want to hear them read a little too to see that they are using expression and punctuation.

Have a lovely weekend - dare I say I hope it cools down?

Mrs Lyons, Miss Hennessey, Mrs Carter and Mrs Grey

Year 5 Weekly Blog 8.9.23- "Life is an open book with blank pages, you write the story as you go”

It has been amazing to have the children back to school and to really meet the new Year 5. I have been so impressed with how well the children have settled in and got stuck straight into every task that has been set- I cannot wait for the upcoming school year. We started our week by having a catch up on the events of summer and getting to know each other and also introducing some of our class roles, responsibilities and games. We ended the day outside with the popular parachute- in which I promised the children on transition day that we would use it on our first day together. This was great fun whilst also getting to know the children better.

In English, we have been learning about the Blitz in World War Two and how so many children have to be evacuated and separated from their homes. This has been done to provide a background which leads into the opening of our new class novel (the children are very eager to know). Today, we did some role play of what it felt like being an evacuee in which the children were separated into random groups to be sent off and we also practiced getting to safety when the sirens went off.

We began our Maths topic this week of place value and we used our dienes to help get the children’s brains ticking again and thinking about mastery of number. The children showed excellent retrieval of their knowledge of numbers to 1000 and we have begun to breach into larger numbers such as 10,000 and 100,000.

We have got stuck straight into our History topic as we prepare for our trip to London. The children have learned all about Ancient Greece’s physical geography and how they rose to power- especially Athens. This has lead to us learning how democracy was discovered and how we use this in todays society.

We kickstarted our Kidsafe lessons again in RHE as we recapped on our Kidsafe rules and discussed what ‘trust’ is. The children can recall who their trusted adults are and took part in some trust themed games.

Let’s Celebrate

• Cora for being an enthusiastic learner- Your energy and enthusiasm really does light up the room. Your hand is constantly up as you want to share your ideas and contribute to the lesson. Just remember not to shout out as you don’t want to give away any of your answers.

• Erin for being a focused learner- You have been super focused this week and have been first to listen to every instruction. Your calm and collected approach has really allowed you to focus on your learning.

• Benjamin for being a creative learner- You have really impressed me with your different interpretations into our place value topic-especially when portioning large numbers. Just make sure you don’t rush and you always double check your work!

Notices

• Induction Evening: Will take place on Wednesday 13th September at 3:30-5:00. Children can take their parents of a tour around the classroom and there will be lots of information and activities for both child and parent to engage with.

• Autumn 1 Sports Timetable: Has been posted on the sports page of the website [engage-> sport]. This includes information regarding the sports clubs for this half term such as the football and netball teams, fencing and dance. Each club has a form attached on the page which needs to be filled out and any payment required before the child can participate.

• Art t-shirts: Can art t-shirts be brought in from next week.

• Trip to London: Will take place on Tuesday 12th September. Information regarding the trip is included on the letter. Any medication needed for the trip can be brought in but will have to be given to a member of staff attending the trip.

Welcome to nursery

Welcome to nursery everyone!

It has been such a lovely week, God even sent us the sunshine to enjoy. The children have enjoyed their first week even though there may have been a few wobbles.

Everyone has explored both the indoor and outdoor learning environments and we are trying very hard to remember where everything lives and the routines of the day. There is sooo much to think about.

Each week I will be writing a blog to let you know what we have been learning at nursery along with any key information you will need to know. Also, your childs key person will be posting images along with details of the weeks learning, and maybe some activities for you to try at home.

I have some housekeeping information for you:

• When bringing and collecting your child could you pleas wait at the main gate and a staff member will come to greet you. We are endeavouring to make the children as independent as possible in readiness for school. On that note School Admissions for September 2024 is now open online www.lancashire.gov.uk/schools or call 01524 581148. The closing date is the 15th January 2024.

• Could each child please bring one piece of fruit or veg for each session that they attend (two for a full day). We are encouraging the children to eat fresh fruit or vegetables as part of our healthy eating commitment. Please no sugary snacks, such as cereal bars etc.

• We are getting in muddle with belongings. Could you please make sure that anything that comes into nursery is clearly labelled.

• Each child will require an Our Lady’s book bag. Our entrance is no big enough to house large back packs and they are causing a tripping hazard. Bags can be purchase for Top Marque on Park Road St. Annes.

  Sorry to nag…..

This week the children have LOVED singing the Little Rabbit Foo story. I promised them that I would put it on the blog for you to listen to at home. Click here to watch and listen. Enjoy!!!!

Emma’s Blog

Hello everyone,

What a fantastic first week we have had. It has been lovely to hear what you have been up to over the summer break and getting to know our new children.

We have been very busy in the garden playing in the water, cooling down whilst having lots of fun. 

The children have really loved digging for the potatoes that have grown over the summer, and we found lots of different sizes. The children were so proud.

The children have also loved exploring the sand and were digging and creating roads, tunnels, and mud pies, which I was told I must REALLY eat! You can imagine I really enjoyed that!

We have started talking about our feelings, looking at the Colour Monster book. Click here to listen. We used the colours from the story to choose a coloured pom pom to show how we were feeling.

There were lots of loving and happy feelings going into our jar, which was great to see. I have attached a feelings song for you to watch, I hope you enjoy it.

I am looking forward to our next week of fun, and fingers crossed that the sun will still be shining.

Have a super weekend, and enjoy the kite festival if you are planning to go.

Take care

Emma

Michelle’s Blog

What can I say, what a fantastic start to the new nursery year we have had!

It’s never easy, starting a new place, especially when you are only 3 years old. But I have been so impressed with how all the new starters have started their nursery journey this week.

There has been so much to learn; where to put our bags and lunch boxes, when to tidy up and when to sit and listen at Carpet Kingdom. I’m sure all of you are just as pleased with your children as I am.

Getting to know each other and getting to know the nursery rhythm of the day has been our main focus this week and will be for another couple of weeks until all the rhythms of the day are embedded and come as second nature to the children. One thing that will make snack time easier for the children is if you make sure that your child has their snack separate to their lunch in their blue nursery bag. We have snack time both morning and afternoon so your child will need 2 snacks for a full day. Please can this be fruit or veg, as part of our nursey healthy eating policy. These go into the children’s drawers in the morning so please be mindful if using plastic boxes that they are not too big. We have started to give the children opportunities to be independent, such as putting their snack in their tray themselves and dispensing their own water at snack times. In order for the children to recognise their own bags at home time, we will be attaching labels with the children’s names on. Anything that you can do at home to help your child to recognise their name will be fantastic.

Apart from all that, we have also had lots of fun painting, squeezing the playdough, drawing and cutting, singing and dancing, gardening in the sunshine, lots of wet water play, working out tricky jigsaws and learning everyone’s names. No wonder we are all exhausted by Friday!

Have a fantastic weekend and we will see you next week for lots more super fun.

Michelle

and a few extra from Justine….

I’m sure you will agree that we have all been very busy.

Drop in Session

This half term we will be holding our parent drop in session on Tuesday 19th September from 3.45- 4.45 pm. All the nursery team will be there for you to have a chat with. We look forward to seeing you.

Finally, to find our more about your childs learning and how you can help, click on the following links.

Development Matters

What to expect in the Early Years Foundation Stage: a guide for parents

Have the most lovely weekend and enjoy your time together as a family. I will see everyone bright eyed and bushy tailed on Monday for another fabulous week at nursery.

God Bless

Barbara