The importance of attendance

What did you do today? ‘We just played’…is the answer many parents of Reception children get. But here’s just a few of the things your child would miss if they’re absent for five consecutive days.
Phonics: Children learn four new graphemes and three tricky words each week.
Reading: Children practise reading books that closely match their phonics, plus loads of stories are read aloud and celebrated. We visit the school library once a week to choose a book to take home.
Poetry picnic: There’s a poetry session every day –another valuable activity which helps children learn to read.
Writing: We write every day using the graphemes that we’ve learned.
Handwriting: Children learn how to form letters correctly, otherwise joining letters will be difficult in Key Stage 1.
Maths: We’ve four maths sessions a week, setting the foundations for children to be successful in using and applying numbers in the future.
Alongside all of this, children learn Science, Music and other subjects. Even more importantly, children learn to concentrate in a large group, to share resources, take turns when speaking, answer in full sentences, regulate our feelings and prepare ourselves for future learning.
There’s a lot happening when ‘we just play’!

KS1 Dictation for writing

All the children have made a great start to their writing journeys this year. We have been really pleased with their enthusiasm.

In Key Stage One, we use dictation as a tool to help children with their writing. During dictation, the teachers will either have sentences already in mind or they will discuss and decide on a sentence with the children. Dictation allows children to watch as an adult models using different writing skills effectively. Together we practise letter formation, spacing between words, spelling, where and when to use punctuation such as capital letters and full stops. Teachers also model how to listen to sounds in words and write the corresponding letters.

Here are some examples of our writing:

Help at home: You could think of some simple sentences to write with your child at home. These could be about anything at all from writing about what you did at the weekend or a sentence about a film or a program you have watched on the telly.

Ask them about the process and how they do it school. I’m sure they’d be happy to share with you how skilful they are at counting the words in the sentence and using their Phoneme Fingers to listen for sounds in words.  You could also include some tricky words or some of your child’s spelling words. 

KS1 Maths-Numbots time!

All children in Year 1 have been given an account and login for Numbots (on the back of their reading records). This is an interactive tool that school heavily invests in for your child. It is an engaging platform to help your child learn the foundations of maths.

Numbots is all about every child achieving the ‘triple win’ of understanding, recall and fluency in mental addition and subtraction, so that they move from counting to calculating.-Numbots Innovators.

We have seen the amazing impact that Numbots can have on a child’s knowledge and confidence in Maths. Numbots is part of the weekly homework for Year 1 children. Please can we ask that you make this tool a part of your weekly family routine. Once children have logged on a few times, they’re hooked and really enjoy ‘playing’!

We have class leader boards that tell us the amount of time, amount of correct answers etc for each child.

(For Your Information: Once children have completed the Numbots levels they can then move on to TTRockstars which is based on multiplication and division.)

If you are experiencing an difficulties with logging on, please chat to your child’s teacher.

Help at home: Help your child log on to their Numbots account. Guide them to navigate the devise being used and let them impress you!

Using our debating skills in our history lesson

In history this half-term, we are learning about Ancient Greece with a focus on the concepts of power and innovation.

We started the unit reviewing the timeline in our classroom to work out when the golden-era of Ancient Greece was relative to other historical events and periods that we have already studied.  We then looked at the physical geography of Greece and discussed how having many islands made it difficult to be under one centralised ruler.  I was really impressed when a child explained that this would also make  it difficult for other people to invade Greece and another child thought about whether it would be easier to invade a country that is by the sea rather than landlocked. What great reflections for children to have thinking deeply about their learning!

This week we have been comparing the city states of Sparta and Athens. The children were very persuasive in their debates about which would be the better city state to live in.  The biggest source of outrage for many children was that it was unfair that girls weren’t allowed to go to school in Athens.

This week we will be researching the most significant innovations made during the golden-era of the Ancient Greeks and thinking about the impact these have had on our modern day lives. I am sure you can’t wait to hear all about it!

Help at home

Consolidate our key vocabulary by asking us what a democracy and an oligarchy is.Help us to remember more by asking us the difference between Athens and Sparta (you may wat to use the prompts: education, women, government, trade.)Prepare us for our next step in learning by researching the innovations made during the golden-era of Ancient Greece.  You may have books you can use, you may want to do your own research on the internet or you could use the BBC bitesize page: https://shorturl.at/EtTHq

‘Welcome to Reception’ meeting

Thank you to those parents/carers who were able to attend our ‘Welcome to Reception’ presentation on Wednesday evening. I hope you found it informative.

If you were unable to attend or would like to re-visit the subjects we discussed, please click here to be taken to a PDF version of the slides used in the presentation

The Great Big Book of Families

We’ve had a busy week using our focus book The Great Big Book of Families by Mary Hoffman and Ros Asquith.

We’ve talked about how all families are different and special and made pictures of our families using pebbles.

Our word of the week was  family the children have really enjoyed using this during their learning.

“My family live is a flat, it is just me and my dad.”

“My family has lots of people and I even have a dog!”

Poetry Picnic

This week our poem was Chop Chop.

Chop, Chop, Choppity Chop.
Cut off the bottom and cut off the top.
What there is left, we put in the pot.
Chop, Chop, Choppity Chop.

This week we have introduce the classroom Challenges, these are activities the children need to complete during their time in our areas of provision over the course of the week. This week they have been

• to write a message to someone in your family.
• to thread the beads onto the lace.
• to use the pebbles to make a pebble picture of your family.
• to draw around a friend and fill it with nature.

Phonics

This week, we have learnt the phonemes (the sounds a letter makes) s,a,t and p.

During our phonics learning, we listened carefully to the initial sound in a word and sorted objects by the sounds they begin with.

Help at home: Look out for a ‘learn at home’ sheet which recaps the phonics learning from the week.  Please look at this with your child and complete the activities.

Next week our focus book is The Everywhere Bear by Julia Donaldson and Rebecca Cobb.

Reminders and Notices

PE– Is on Monday please send your child to school wearing their PE kit and trainers they can fasten themselves.

Sharing Books– Sharing books were sent home last week. Please can these be returned on Thursday for the children to pick a new one.

Family Photo-please can I remind you to send in a photo of your child with their family so we can add them to our class display. You can in a copy  of your photo or email it to:

stjameseyfs@spherefederation.org

Have a happy and healthy weekend and please don’t forget to email any pictures from home to stjames@spherefederation.org thank you as always for your support.

Mrs. Kendrew, Mrs. Rippon and Miss. Feldman and Mr. Smith.

Our learning journey this week

Topic

This week, Year 3 recapped our knowledge of historical periods using a timeline. The children had to use the clues of dates and pictures and  organise periods of history in chronological order. Pupils remembered lots of facts about some history they’ve already learnt, and posed many new questions about history not yet covered. Here is a timeline showing our work:

Reading records

We have had a fantastic return on reading records so far this term – thanks again for working with your child at home and supporting their reading. The tasks set have been completed to a really high standard!

The vocabulary ninja task has really helped the children discover a new bank of vocabulary – this will really help them in writing our first narrative in the next couple of weeks. Here is an example of a word found at home, that is now on our word wall:

Help at home:

Please keep supporting your child with reading fluency/tasks at home. These tasks are designed to support your child with a range of subjects and upcoming learning. We can’t wait to use some of the vocabulary the children found!

RE – Who made the world?

Who made the world?

In RE this half term, we’ll be exploring the question, ‘Who made the world?’.

In our first RE lesson, we learned about the creation story in the Bible.

Christians believe God created the world in seven days.
Each day, he made another part of the world.
He created light to make night and day, and all the land, sky, and oceans. He made humans, animals and all living things.
On the seventh day, God rested.

We then discussed Christianity – What is Christianity?

The children really impressed me with their prior knowledge of Christianity.

We explored the school looking for Christian influence. We were surprised by how many things we found and the ways in which they affect our daily life at school.

• the altar
• a painting of St James
• the cross
• Christian values
• shells
• Bible story
• reflection areas
• candles
• Bible
• cloth
• prayer book
• liturgy

Help at home by discussing the Christian influence we found around school. Here are some questions to spark discussion.

Who is St James?

What do the shells represent?

What are our Christian values? Which (if any) is the most important?

Which of our Christian values have you demonstrated this week?

Recaps

Each week, we’ll start our RE sessions with a recap in which children will recall key facts about 6 religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism):

• symbols
• places of worship
• festivals and celebrations

Help at home by learning some key religious facts. Can your child draw any of the symbols for the 6 religions we’ll learn about?

We’d love to celebrate all the fantastic learning that happens at home – perhaps you could share some drawings of religious symbols with us?

Maths Fun with One More and One Less!

RE

Our RE topic this term is Creation or Science: Conflicting or Complimentary. We began our learning by listening to The Beginning from Genesis 1. The children drew how they interpreted the reading and wrote down 7 words to summarise their thoughts. Words included prosper, separate, love, light, rest, creation, green up.

Help at home – Ask your child what they remember about The Beginning story. What happened on the third day? What did God do on Day 7? What music do you think would complement the story? Where in the Bible can you find Genesis 1?