Tropical World
Today, Reception enjoyed a day out to Tropical World.
They were super excited when they saw the coach!
Their behaviour was impeccable. It was a pleasure taking them all on their first school trip.
In the morning, we enjoyed looking at all of the different animals/creatures in Tropical World. At lunchtime, we sat and had a picnic in the Tropical World gardens. After lunch, on the way to our workshop, we ran off some energy in Roundhay Park.
Click here to watch some of the highlights from our trip.
Sports Day
Well done to all the children for showing resilience and determination in their races! Thank you to everybody who came and supported the children at our Sports Day.
This week’s bible story
Read the story of the two brothers.
Have a think about these questions as you read:
Why did the brothers decide to have a bet?
– Why was the farm labourer unhappy and how had the lady become wealthy?
– What did the priest think about the world?
– Who won the bet?
– When the poor brother was sheltering in the forest, what did he overhear?
– How did the poor brother help the farmer, the villagers and the queen?
– How was the poor brother rewarded?
– What happened when the dishonest brother met the elves?
What lesson do you think the writer of the story is trying to teach us?
Reflection:
Read the following poem and have a think about how this relates to our Christian value of honesty.
Sometimes, we think that it is easier to tell a little lie.
We find it hard to tell the truth, however, we may try.
We’re just afraid to take the blame,
We feel remorse, we’re full of shame.
We should not cheat when things go wrong,
Just face the facts, own up, be strong.
Prayer
Dear God,
Please help us to be honest and true
In all the things we say and do.
Amen.
Next week
Sports day
Tuesday 05 June at 9.15am
Your child needs to come to school in their PE kit and wearing suitable footwear.
Please could you ensure your child has a named water bottle and a cap/hat at school; it would also be useful if you could apply sun cream before your child comes to school.
Tropical World
Wednesday 06 June
Your child needs to come to school in their school uniform.
They’ll need a packed lunch and named water bottle.
PE
Thursday 07 June
Your child needs to come to school in their PE kit.
This week’s bible story
Daniel and the Lions Den: Daniel 6 (Omit verse 24 for younger or sensitive children)
Read the story of Daniel (omit verse 24 for younger or sensitive children)
Daniel was captured, along with many more of God’s people, and taken to live in a foreign country. In this country, they had different traditions and customs and it was not acceptable to worship God. But Daniel chose to continue serving God. Even though it meant that he was risking death, Daniel knelt down and honoured God by praying three times a day.
When the king discovered that Daniel was breaking the law by praying to God, he had Daniel thrown into a den of hungry lions. God stood by Daniel and rewarded his unwavering commitment to righteousness by protecting him from being eaten by the lions.
Reflection:
We’re going to have a little think about this story now and what we could learn from it about telling the truth.
Have a think about these questions:
Why did the other servants not like Daniel?
Why didn’t Daniel bow down and worship the king instead of worshipping God?
What do you think you would have done if you had been Daniel?
Can you think of a time when you have stood up for the truth in a difficult situation?
Is it ever OK to tell a lie?
Daniel believed in something so strongly that he was willing to risk everything – even his life – to stand up for that truth. In the story, God honoured him for his truthfulness and saved him from the lions. This sets us a good example to try to stand up for the truth on all occasions and (if appropriate) to know that God will be with us in that decision to tell the truth. It might be easier to tell a little lie on occasions, but one lie often leads to another and this can often mean that lots of people get hurt in the process. It would be good to aim to be like Daniel and to tell the truth on all occasions!
Prayer
Dear Lord,
Thank you for the example of Daniel.
Please help us to be brave enough to tell the truth on all occasions and help us to know that you will be with us when we find that hard to do.
Amen.
Ahoy there!
Our focus book has been ‘The Night Pirates’ by Peter Harris. On Monday, we found a note at the back of the book. The note said:
Look carefully outside and you will find…
We looked outside and found a bottle buried in our sandpit with a letter inside. 
We talked about the skills/qualities we would need to join Tom on an adventure. Here are some of the skills/qualities that the children came up with:
- brave
- good listener
- strong
- clever
- perseverance
- quick
- sneaky
We then had a go at writing our letters to Tom. We talked about using ‘Dear’ or ‘To’ at the beginning of our letters.
We’ve also been super busy completing this week’s chilli challenges.
We created our own treasure maps.
We cleaned the ocean of plastic to help look after our sea creatures.
We investigated magnetic and non-magnetic materials.
In maths, we have deepened our understanding of the counting system and recapped some key skills:
- tagging each object when counting groups of objects
- knowing number names and their order
- knowing that the last number counted gives us the total in the set
- counting body movements
- using different strategies to keep track of we’ve counted and not counted
- counting beyond 20
Every morning, we write a sentence about a picture. We’re super proud of our writing skills!
Thank you!
Finally, thank you to all the parents/carers that came to one of our learning journey drop ins. It was lovely to welcome you all into the classroom. We hope you enjoyed looking through your child’s books and talking to your child about everything they have enjoyed/achieved during their first year at school.
Home-Link Challenge
This week’s bible story
Adam and Eve: Genesis 2.15—3.14
Do you know the names of the very first people in the Bible: Adam and Eve. In Hebrew (the language the story was written in) names tell you about who the person is, what they’re like. The names Adam and Eve mean ‘the first people ever’.
In the story God made a special garden for Adam and Eve to live in, and we know from the Bible that it was set in modern day Iran, next to Iraq in the Middle East.
Adam and Eve had been told that they could eat anything they wanted, except the tree that grew in the middle of the garden, which was called ‘the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’. What do you think that name means?
Read the story of Adam and Eve
What do you do when you know you’ve done something wrong? What is the best thing to do when you’ve done something wrong?
In the story, God sent Adam and Eve away, out of the lovely garden, and they learned to be farmers, to grow their own food, and to work on the land.
But what might have happened if they’d been honest and owned up (’fessed up!); if they’d taken responsibility for their actions instead of blaming someone else? We don’t know. Perhaps we’d still all live in that garden, not having to work …
But this story is still told as an example of how, when we aren’t honest, it affects many more people than just us. We don’t know what might have happened in the story if Adam and Eve had been honest. But we can be honest about ourselves, and then we know that whatever we’ve done, it’s easier to make it right again if we take the blame, apologize and acknowledge our part.
Reflection
Think for a few moments about the story of Adam and Eve:
how they did what they knew was wrong;
how they blamed someone else for what they’d done;
and how often we do that too.
Prayer
Dear God,
Help us to be honest when we do something wrong.
Help us not to blame other people, but acknowledge our mistakes,
and apologize and so learn and move on.
Amen.
Fun in the sun!
Last Friday, ZS’s Dad came to help us spruce up our outdoor planters.
In RE, we talked people who are special to us and why some people are particularly special to us.
In Literacy, we used a map to locate seaside towns. We looked at some photographs of Scarborough and talked about the things we might see at the seaside that we don’t see in Leeds.
FH – The seaside town has a lighthouse but Leeds doesn’t.
OR – We don’t have boats but the seaside does. We have boats to travel on the sea.
DA – The seaside has little beach huts.
LS – The beach might have jellyfish.
LW- The beach has water but Wetherby and Leeds don’t have water.
The glorious weather has enabled us to spend lots of time learning outside. Please continue to make sure you apply sun lotion to your child before school. This stops us from missing any learning time. Thank you to everyone that has done that this week.
Click here to watch us learning outside.
Home-Link Challenge
Welcome back!
I can’t believe it’s the last half-term. Where has this school year gone?
We’ve dived straight into our new topic, Let’s make a splash!
This half-term, we’ll be thinking about days at the beach – we even have our own beach! We’ll investigate floating and sinking, locate seaside towns on a map, talk about what we see at the seaside that we don’t see in Leeds and talk about seaside holidays of the past.
This week, we’ve been reading Sharing a Shell by Julia Donaldson. The children were great at sequencing the key events from the story.
We used adjectives to describe what our favourite character looks like.
In Maths, we’ve been using the rekenreks to help us with our perceptual and conceptual subitising skills. We know to make sure all the beads are at the right-hand side of the rack. This is called the ‘ready position’. We then get ready, set and push using the ‘one finger push’ method.
With sports day just around the corner, we thought we should start practising.
This week’s chilli challenges have been very successful. Lots of children worked really hard to complete all of the challenges.
We drew sea creatures with wax crayons and watched what happened when we painted over it with a blue wash.
Exploring in our new role-play area.
We made signs to put up in our beach.
We used our observational skills to draw shelfs.
Diary dates
20, 21 & 24 June – Learning journey drop ins
23 June – Moving from Reception to Year 1 parent meeting
5 July – Sports Morning
6 July – Trip to Tropical World – look out for the letter!
7 July – Reserve Sports Morning
8 July – PTA Summer Fair
This half-term is very busy!
Please make sure you’ve noted down the events.
Reminder!
Please don’t forget to sign up to one of our learning journey drop ins. A letter went out on Wednesday.
Home-Link Challenge
This week’s bible story
Jesus is friends with Zacchaeus: Luke 19: 1-10
Have you ever heard the story of Burglar Bill – Bill goes out every night. Getting into houses through open windows and taking things. Until one night, Bill found a baby, and that changed his whole life …
There is a Bible story about a man who stole from other people. He took extra money when he gave them their tax bills and became very rich on all the money that he stole. Zacchaeus was a little man and that small people can’t see in crowds. Read the story of Zacchaeus to find out what happened to him.
Reflection:
Jesus loved everyone when he lived on the earth. It didn’t matter how bad people were, Jesus was always there for those who needed him. This is true for us too – no one is so bad that God doesn’t love them. And the more time we spend with God – praying, thinking about him, finding out about him, the more we want to be like Jesus; kind, helpful and good. Just like Zacchaeus, Burglar Bill changed his ways and tried to be more like Jesus by loving those around him. Even though Burglar Bill and Zacchaeus made the wrong choice, God forgave them and continued loving them.
Prayer:
Dear God,
Thank you that Jesus loved Zacchaeus even when he wasn’t making the right choices. Help us to love all of those around us and be honest about our actions.
Amen