This week’s bible story
The Unforgiving Servant: Matthew 18: 21-35
Have you ever broken anything? It could be a toy or a plate from the kitchen or even a bone in your body. Some things that are broken cannot be mended, but it is often possible to mend things that we have broken. If we care for our environment, it is a very good idea to try to mend things rather than always throwing them away and then buying new things. For example, what might use to mend the following things if they were broken: a hole in the toe of my socks? a ripped page in a book? a handle that has come off a mug? a puncture in my bike tyre? a cut finger?
What could you do about mending a broken friendship?
When you fall out with one of your friends, you can’t mend that friendship with a needle and thread, or some sellotape, or superglue or a puncture kit or a sticking plaster. Read the story about the Unforgiving Servant.
Jesus explained to his friend Peter that God is like the king in the story: Christians believe God forgives us every time we tell him we are sorry for the wrong things we have done, and he wants us to treat our friends in a similar way – forgiving them each time they say ‘sorry’ to us.
Reflection:
What would you say was the key word in that story? The key word could be ‘forgiveness’.
Have a think about these questions:
‘What does it mean to forgive someone?’ (KS2) or ‘What kind of things do you need to say sorry for? (KS1).
At the end of the Bible story Jesus tells us that, if we have done something wrong, we need to say sorry to God and then he will forgive us. In a similar way, if you have fallen out with a friend, two things often need to happen: if you know you have done something wrong or upset someone, you need to be brave enough to say sorry to that person. The person to whom you have said sorry then needs to forgive you.
So, going back to the questions at the beginning of the assembly:
What might I use to mend a broken friendship? A good answer to this question would be ‘forgiveness’.
Prayer
Dear Lord,
Thank you for today’s Bible story about forgiveness.
Thank you that if we say sorry to you, you give us a fresh start.
Please help us to be forgiving people here in this school.
Amen.
Spring is coming!
This half-term’s topic is called ‘Let’s go!’ They will notice and observe the signs and changes of Spring. This week, our focus story is The Hundred Decker Bus by Mike Smith. The children drew their favourite deck and labelled the different parts. Next week, the children will design their own deck. We will also compare life in a city to life in the countryside.
FH – A city is very busy with lots of big buildings like skyscrapers.
BI – Lots of animals live in the countryside.
Over the next few weeks, we will be planting a variety of fruit and vegetable seeds. We will watch them grow and will learn what conditions are needed for them to grow.
Phonics
The children have learnt all of the phase 3 sounds. Over the next couple of weeks, they will learn to blend (read) and segment (spell) longer words for example, lemon, sunset, bedroom and farmyard. To help them read words with more than one syllable, they will be taught how to use the chunking method. For example, sunset = s-u-n /s-e-t. This method also helps when they are writing longer words.
Maths
This week, we continued to engage with activities that focussed on the purpose of counting – to find out ‘how many’ objects there are. We revisited the concept of cardinality – the idea that the last number in the count tells us how many things there are altogether. We also looked at the 1 more staircase pattern. This pattern has helped them develop a clear understanding that each number has a value of 1 more than the previous number, and 1 less than the following number.
Have a look at what else we have been up to this week.
Outdoor fun!
World Book Day
Home-Link Challenge
This week’s bible story
‘We should learn to forgive.’ (Ephesians 4.32)
Read this story about Omar and his friend Freddy.
Reflection:
Forgiving helps friends to be friendly again.
Forgiving others makes us happier.
In the bible, it says ‘We should learn to forgive.’ (Ephesians 4.32). It doesn’t always mean it will be easy to forgive. It is something that we need to learn and something we will get better at.
Prayer:
Let us say together the prayer that Jesus taught us: The Lord’s Prayer.
In this prayer, we are reminded about forgiveness: ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.’
This means that when we do something wrong we should ask for forgiveness and we should learn to forgive others when they do things that upset us.
Superhero fun!
We’ve come to the end of a long and windy half-term. Over the past 7 weeks, we’ve laughed, had fun and seen lots of amazing learning!
To give you a flavour of our fantastic last week, I’ve made a video for you to watch at home with your child. I hope you enjoy!
Thank you to all of the parents who attended the parent-teacher meetings. It was lovely to share the children’s wonderful achievements.
Reminders
Training day – Monday 28 February
World Book Day – Thursday 03 March
I hope you all have a happy and healthy half-term.
Sponsored number challenge
Tomorrow, all children will be taking part in our first sponsored number challenge for our school charity- RSPCA. Be sure to practise your child’s number facts so they’re ready to take on the challenge! Please can we have all sponsorship money handed in by Friday 18 February. Thank you for your support.
This week’s bible story
The son who left home continued: Luke 15: 11-32
This half term, our bible story that Jesus told was about the son who sold his share of his father’s farm he was to inherit and went off to the city intending to enjoy himself. You will also remember that, in the end, he decided it was a big mistake and went back home to beg his father’s forgiveness. Much to his surprise, his father forgave him completely and even threw a party for him. That’s where we left the story last time, but Jesus did not end it there – he also talked about the eldest son, who had stayed at home.
Read the story of the Lost son continued.
Reflection:
Consider the feelings of the father, the eldest brother and the younger brother at each stage of the story.
How many things related to our homes and families do we often take for granted?
Prayer:
Father God,
Help us to share gladly in the success of others.
When someone does well, may we be happy to congratulate them.
When someone falls, help us to comfort them.
Forgive us when we take things for granted and help us to appreciate all the good things we have.
Amen
Safety week
This week, we’ve been learning about stay safe. We’ve had lots of visitors in Reception.
On Monday, we had a police officer come to talk about how they help us keep safe. They listened carefully and asked lots of super questions. Of course, some of us had to try on the uniform!
We also had some fire officers from Wetherby fire station come to visit us. The children were so excited when they saw the engine! Again, they listened carefully and asked lots of interesting questions.
AM – Is there a toilet on the fire engine?
JD – What do you use that for?
FL – What do you wear?
On Tuesday, Dogs Trust came to teach us how to be safe around dogs. Ask your child if they can remember the six important rules.
On Wednesday, Hand to Mouth, who are a Christian organisation came to visit us. We joined KS1 in the hall for a collective worship. After, we did a cutting and sticking activity called, Our Daily Bread.
On Thursday, we had a road and pedestrian safety visit.
In literacy, our new focus story is Supertato. On Monday morning, the classroom door was covered in evil peas, vegetables were taped to the writing table and we found letter from the Evil Pea. On Thursday, the writing area was covered in evil peas! We found another letter from the Evil Pea and the vegetables were frozen!
They made wanted posters to try and help capture the Evil pea. Some children had a go at drawing story maps.
Reminders!
Parent-teacher meetings – Tuesday 15 & Thursday 17 February
Superhero day – Friday 18 February
Your child can come to school dressed as their favourite superhero.
Training day – Monday 28 February
Home-Link Challenge
Sponsored Number Challenge 2022!
This year, we’re taking on a sponsored number challenge to raise money for our school charity, the RSPCA.
On Tuesday 15th January, everyone in school will be tasked with completing a number challenge. Children can be sponsored per correct answer or a full amount just for taking part!
Check out the video to find out more info!
Get sponsoring! Let’s raise as much money as we can for the RSPCA!
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. Zaccheus 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.
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.
Amen
Chinese New Year and superheroes
This week, we’ve been learning all about Chinese New Year. We looked at where China is on a globe and world map. We’ve learnt about traditions, read the Zodiac story, watched parades and created our own Chinese dragons – they found this tricky challenge!
We finished the week by having our own parade.
In PE, the children enjoyed moving like dragons. Click on the links below to watch two of the groups in action!
Dragon dance 1
Dragon dance 2
The new superhero office has been a big hit this week. The children have been using their super powers to save the world!
Next week, it’s safety week. We’ll be learning about how to keep safe in different situations. We even have some real superheroes coming to visit us!
Home-Link Challenge
