Dear parents/carers,

We have had another lovely week in Class 2! We hope that you enjoyed our Nativity as much as we have enjoyed practising and performing it for you all!

We were so lucky to have a helicopter visit from Father Christmas on Wednesday afternoon! It was so exciting to see him so close to school.

We had an amazing time at the Pantomime on Thursday morning. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves was fantastic, and both children and adults thoroughly enjoyed it.

In Maths, Year 1 have been answering subtraction equation subtraction using a number line, making the correct amount of jumps in the correct direction! Reception children have continued their learning on subitising. They are brilliant at subitising to 5 and have been extending this knowledge by looking at different arrangements of these numbers.

In RE we have been learning about the ways that Christians celebrate Christmas, both in their homes and in church. It has made some of us very excited for Christmas!

Reminders for this week:

• If you opted for your child to have the travelling Mary and Joseph it will continue on Monday. Names will be pulled out of a hat.
• PE is Thursday (not Friday this week)
• No forest school next week.
• Wednesday is Christmas Jumper Day with school uniform, and it is also Christmas Dinner Day.
• On Friday we are going to the church for our Christmas Service, so children need to be in full school uniform.
• The last day of term is Friday 16^th December, we return on Wednesday 4^th
• Children have got their guided reading books and if chosen, they may have a book from the class library to share with you this weekend.
• Please remember to bring book bags in school every day.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Mrs Jones.

Another great week in Class 2!

We have been extremely busy this week practising hard for our nativities. We are so excited to perform for you all next week.

In literacy, Reception children have been exploring the story ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. We thought about the foods we would like to pack in a picnic basket for our own grannies and then made a list of these items using our phonetic knowledge.

Year One children have been busy with their reading quizzes and also completed independent writing activities where they created their own characters and setting descriptions inspired by our text ‘Where the Wild Things are’. We have been thinking REALLY hard about using our Fred fingers to spell, breaking down larger words into syllables and using our tracking finger to read back our writing to ensure it makes sense.

Reading is still a huge focus in Class 2, please ensure that your child’s reading folder is in school every day as I try to read with children throughout the day. We are continuing with our reading rocket prizes, so many children are so close to 10 ticks now. Some children are even close to 20!!

I will also be giving out dojo prizes for children who bring me accurate, independent writing!!

In maths, Reception children have been understanding object permanence. We have been using a certain amount of blocks to build a tower, knocking it down and understanding that we still have the same amount.

Year One children have begun their subtraction unit. They have explored subtraction practically and then begun to record their learning pictorially by drawing objects and then crossing them out.

We have also had our class elf arrive from the North Pole. The children took part in a democratic vote and have decided to call him ‘Elfie’. The children are very excited to have our special visitor.

No forest school next week.

Dates for your diary:

Monday 5th: Reception Nativity

Tuesday 6th: Year 1 Nativity

Thursday 8th: Pantomime visit

Have a great weekend!

Mrs Jones.

We have had another wonderful week in Class 2.

On Monday we celebrated Anti-Bullying week by wearing odd socks. We have been able to understand what bullying is and will look at what we can do to tackle bullying next week.

On Thursday we enjoyed ‘St Mary’s book day’. The children LOVED dressing up as their favourite characters and spent the day engaged in the reading and retelling of their favourite books. We made puppets and engaged in role-play to retell the stories, built story settings using construction toys and made bookmarks to take home!

On Friday we celebrated ‘children in need’ by wearing something spotty and taking time to understand more about the charity and who it helps.

We have also been busy preparing for our class assembly on Tuesday 22nd November at 9:15 am. The children are so, so excited to show you all of their lovely learning.

If that wasn’t enough we have also been preparing for our nativity performances. Year One children will attend the KS1 performance on Tuesday 6th December and Reception children will take part in the EYFS performance on Monday 5th December. Children have all taken home a letter outlining dates, timings, ticket information and costume information. If you have not received a letter then please let me know and I can get a new one sent out 🙂

In Maths, Year One children have been consolidating their knowledge of numbers to 10. We have worked hard to write down number sentences accurately using addition and equal signs in the correct places. We have understood that the addition of numbers is cumulative (can be done in any order) by thinking about ‘switchers’. We have also understood how to record number bonds systematically, starting with 0+10=10, 1+9=10, 2+8=10 etc. to ensure that we find all of the possible ways to make a number.

Reception children have been thinking about ‘parts and wholes’ of quantities and real objects. We played a guessing game in which I covered up parts of objects and asked children to guess what the whole was, slowly revealing more parts until the whole was revealed. We have also made split-pin characters understanding that a leg is a part, the head is a part but the entire character is the whole. The children were also able to recreate patterns and repeating patterns using Duplo to understand that the blocks were parts and the tower was the whole. They then extended their learning by counting how many parts of each colour were needed to create the tower. We then moved on to parts and wholes of quantities 2 and 3, understanding number bonds, and composing and decomposing the numbers.

In literacy, Year One children have begun to explore ‘setting descriptions’ in their new book ‘Where the Wild Things are’. The children have been exposed to jungle sounds and videos to develop language before heading out to forest school and pretending to walk through the jungle, using their senses to describe their setting. I have been super impressed with the children’s imaginative language and use of adjectives, keep up the good work!

Reception children have also been exploring adjectives when describing the ‘Big, Bad, Wolf’ from their new text ‘The Three Little Pigs’. The children have used the story sack and home corner to engage in imaginative role play to develop their language and understanding. They were then able to use their phonetic knowledge to write down some descriptions of the wolf. I was so amazed by their writing skills that I challenged the children to put their ideas into sentences using the sentence starter ‘he is..’. They produced some wonderful work using their Fred fingers to spell.

PE days – Thursday and Friday
Forest school – Thursday. (Please provide wellies/boots/old trainers and a coat).

I am looking forward to another lovely week in Class 2 next week.
Have a great weekend,
Mrs Jones.

Well Class 2, what an absolutely fantastic first half term we have had! I just want to say a HUGE thank you for all of your hard work over the last few weeks. I understand that it can be tricky starting school for the first time or transitioning from Early Years to KS1 but no matter what journey you are on, you have all given 100% and should be so, so proud!
In Literacy, Year one have finished their work on the story ‘Grandad’s Island’ where they have written a final character description for Grandad, thinking about his appearance, personality and feelings throughout the story. They have worked so hard to remember their capital letters, finger spaces and full stops as well as using their Fred fingers to spell. Using our tracking finger to read back our work has helped us to improve accuracy, ensure that we remember all of the components of the sentence and check that our work makes sense. Year One can be a challenge for children as we begin to write as a whole class rather than in small groups guided by a teacher but the children have been amazing and I cannot be more proud!
Reception children have linked their literacy to Black History Month where they have listened to the story of Rosa Parks in the ‘little people, big dreams’ collection. Children were able to talk about what made Rosa special and how important it is that we are all treated fairly and equally. They were then able to use the phonetic knowledge to begin writing captions for the story. I am so, so proud of their wonderful writing considering how early we are in the year! I am equally blown away by their mature attitudes and positive mindset, they just love to learn! Congratulations Reception, keep up the good work!
In maths, Year one children consolidated their knowledge of ‘greater than and less than’ by comparing three groups and using the language of ‘most, greatest and fewest’. They have also consolidated their understanding of the number track and number lines before completing an end-of-unit quiz! Each day we have also practised counting forwards to 20 and backwards from 10 in our rockets. We have also worked incredibly hard on instant recall of number bonds to 10 by asking (who’s 6’s best friend?) – See if you can practise this over half term! Now we have a secure foundation, in the next half term, we will be applying our knowledge, by understanding place value within 20.
Reception children have consolidated their understanding of numbers to 5. Not only have they been able to count forwards and backwards, subitise (know an amount without counting) and find bonds to 5, but they have also learnt that there are many ways to represent these numbers i.e. numeral 3, 3 counters, 3 pieces of fruit, 3 sticks outside, a triangle with 3 sides etc. See if you can practise your bonds to 5 and 10 and also find numbers within the environment over the holidays!
Both year groups have finished their respective topics. Next half term Year One children will be learning about ‘Castles and Knights’ where we will have a history focus on castles, thinking about when and why they were built and their features. In science, we will explore everyday materials, linking this to our topic by thinking about what castles were made out of. On the first week back at school we will be creating our own castles using junk modelling. If parents and carers could collect cardboard boxes, tubes and egg boxes over the next week and bring them to school when we return then we would be very grateful! 🙂
Reception children will begin their topic ‘Once upon a time’. They will explore many traditional tales, thinking about the characters and settings within the stories and any ‘morals’ of the story. We will use music and expressive arts to think about how we can represent aspects of the story. Children will have so much fun creating puppets, constructing the story settings and role-playing to develop their language and literacy skills.
Our PE days will remain as Thursday and Friday.
Forest School sessions will continue on a Thursday afternoon. We now have a welly rack outside of the classroom if any children would like to leave their wellies in school (please ensure they are labelled). Alternatively, children could bring their wellies to and from school on a Thursday.
Don’t forget that we have a ‘spooky menu’ for our return on Monday 31st October.
Have an absolutely wonderful half-term! Get some rest but make sure to have lots of fun! I can’t wait to hear all about your adventures when you return to school!
Mrs Jones

Dear parents/careers,
We have had another wonderful week in Class 2.
In maths, Year 1 have been using the mathematical language of ‘more than, greater than, equal to, less than and fewer than’ to compare quantities. They have then been using these symbols to represent their learning: <, >, =.
Children in Reception have continued their work on subitising, quickly identifying numbers 1-5 and speedily showing quantities on their fingers. They have also been thinking about the composition of numbers when subsiding larger numbers i.e. ‘I know this is 6 because there are two rows of 3’.
In Literacy, Year 1 children have continued their work on ‘Grandad’s Island’. This week they have learnt how to use conjunctions to make their sentences even better. They then used prior knowledge of adjectives to create a character description of Grandad.
Reception children have been focussing on the book ‘we are family’. They have worked as a small group to discuss the activities they like to do at home with their families. They then created pictures of these events, using their phonetic knowledge to write captions and short sentences.
In science we were meteorologists, creating rain gauges to measure the rainfall over the week.
In Geography we have learnt the difference between the weather and a climate, exploring the globe to understand places with hot climates and those with cold climates.

Have a lovely weekend, see you on Monday!

We have had another wonderful week in class 2.

In Literacy, Year 1 have started their new story ‘Grandad’s Island’. They have started the week by making predictions about the book, using their reading detective skills to make informed guesses by looking at the title, the illustrations and reading the blurb (also could the synopsis). They have then used adjectives to describe Grandad’s appearance and personality, using their Fred fingers to spell words phonetically. Reception children have read their story ‘We are family’ and thought about their morning routine. We have discussed similarities and differences, such as everyone having breakfast but some families doing this before they get dressed and some families doing it after they are dressed.

In maths, Year 1 children have been comparing groups using the language of ‘more than’, ‘greater than’, ‘less than’ and ‘fewer than’. They have used careful counting to think about whether there are enough objects for certain groups i.e. enough fruit for the children at snack time or enough pencils for the children to do their work. If there were too few pencils, we used prior knowledge of counting on to discover how many more were needed.

Reception children have been exploring the composition of numbers 2, 3, and 4. They have collected the correct amount of objects using prior knowledge of the rules for careful counting. They have then understood that 1 + 1 + 1 = 3 and recorded this in their books.

In Geography, we have been learning about extreme weather. We thought about the resources we might need in the event of a hurricane.

In Science, we explored three different types of cloud; cirrus, cumulus and stratus and their properties.

See you next week for another great week. Have a great weekend!

Mrs Jones