We had such a great time at our party just had to share a few photos and you’ll never guess who turned up!
Merry Christmas everyone!
The children have settled back into classroom routines after the half term break and have really impressed us with their positive attitude towards each other and the learning opportunities available to them.
Classroom activities, indoors and outdoors (weather permitting) continue to be centered on developing language and communication and problem solving skills across all areas of learning with activities linked to class topics as well as evolving from children’s interests.
Our first topic this half term is ‘Me at School’, giving us a chance to explore more of the building and find out who everybody is. The children will be involved in planning routes around school and making simple plans as well as making signs to help others find their way around. We will also be thinking about how we can keep our school looking nice and maybe even adding a few of our own improvements!
Other topics this half term include ‘Magic’ with very much a focus on stories, imagination and fantasy words leading us nicely up to ‘Christmas’, a magical time in school and particularly in the Reception classroom!
Thank you for your support in reinforcing reading activities introduced in class, it really does make a difference. If you have any questions please feel free to pop in.
Jill Evans
So very proud of our Year One and Reception children for their role in supporting the Macmillan fund raising event held in school on Friday. Just standing in front of so many people is daunting enough but to perform so early in the term takes real star quality!
For those of you who were unable to come here is a short clip of Reception singing ‘Elephants have Wrinkles.’Elephants have wrinkles
Following a successful first few weeks at school we are ready and raring to go, well, until about half past 2 when our eye lids start to feel heavy and our thoughts drift towards home time, tea and snuggles! Undeterred, our first topic is ‘Bears’, developed through familiar stories and rhymes. We will be doing lots of art work to brighten up the classroom and finding out all about bears around the world.
Soon, the children will be starting their first reader, which they will bring home to share. We will be holding parent workshops this term to enable the children to show you what how we do it in class. We have been working through the first phase of the phonics program, developing listening skills and exploring rhyme. There are lots of fun activities you can do at home to support your child like sound games and making up silly rhymes.
In Numeracy, the focus is on developing vocabulary through practical activities, including counting rhymes, sorting and matching activities and number recognition games with a little help from our number characters which I hope the children will tell you all about over the next few weeks.
Alongside these activities, the children have lots of opportunity for investigative play and reinforcement activities, as well as sessions in the ICT suite and regular PE lessons. Most importantly they have time to get to know each other and to gain their confidence with us.
Thank you for your support.
Jill Evans
First of all, thank you to all of our Reception parents for helping your children settle so well into school. We have had a lovely first week and have lots of fun activities ready to keep the children busy and make their first full week fly over.
Also, a big thank you for getting involved in our ‘Crazy Sock Day’, not only did it make it easier for the children to find their shoes after PE (a cunning plan!) but gave us lots to talk about. An extra well done to all our ‘Sock Stars’ who managed to get both their socks back on all by themselves.
Can the children spot their socks in the pictures below?
A big thank you to all the parents, grand parents, aunties, uncles and friends who made our family picnic at the park such a special occasion. I now believe the curse of bad weather for Reception trips has been lifted!
It wasn’t just the weather that made our trip to the beach a great day! We are so lucky to have such super children and lovely parents and grandparents to make this a day to remember.
Mrs Evans.
You can see some photographs of the day here.
Mrs. Todd and Year 6 worked with the Reception children to show them the different races for Sports Day. The Year 6 were very proud of their buddies!
With most of the year six children away at Thurston, a small group of would be authors created something amazing this week!
Their only instruction was ‘make a book for your reception buddies.’ From here the children researched picture books, counted pages and words and wrote the story themselves. Next comes the clever part. I fully expected them to use paper and felt tips, perhaps using word processing for the text, but no, these are the children of a modern Bede Burn!
Out came the iPads and Book creator was swiftly opened! With no help from any adult, the children organised themselves into task forces, took photographs of the reception children to go into the book, recorded sounds and created a front cover.
After assembly this morning they read their finished book to the reception class. As you can see from the photographs, everyone had an amazing time and the youngest children in our school thought that the oldest ones were very clever indeed.
A brilliant effort from the year six children, well done!
Having completed our botany studies, as well as demonstrating our skills as budding entomologists, this term we will be becoming historians, finding out about what life was like in the Middle Ages, with a visit to Newcastle Keep to find out just how great it would have been to live in a castle. Not!
Reading, writing and number work will continue to build on the skills the children have developed, focussing on their needs and ability using a variety of active, practical and fun approaches with some more formal work where appropriate.
We are hoping to have our now traditional ‘Family Picnic’ at the park before the end of term. Hope to see you all there.
Thank you once again for your support.
J.Evans
