A very important week…
This week has covered many important topics:
Remembrance Monday
The children were shown an animation explaining why we wear poppies and took part in a discussion. We have been painting poppy fields which are now displayed in the window by our water tray. Thank you to the families that worked together to create poppy pictures and models at home, for our home-link challenge.
Anti-Bullying Week- Odd Socks Tuesday
On Tuesday, we wore odd socks to celebrate our differences and to show we respect each other. We spoke about this during our Living and Learning circle time, about what bullying looks like and what we should do to STOP it.
STOP
Bullying is: S Several T times O on P purpose
We should: S Start T telling O other P people
Well done to Lily who received the Living and Learning certificate for sharing some important facts, such as “You should tell a teacher”
Children in Need Friday
Wow!- what generous children and parents we have! Thank you so much for all of your donations, taking part in non-uniform day and bringing in or making cakes for our bun sale.
We started the day by sitting down and talking through the important work Children in Need do, through the website’s Early Years- friendly presentation. We also had some Pudsey fun painting and dot-to-dots to choose.
What else have we been up to?
PE Thursdays- In our first half term, the children have shown they can find a safe space in the hall, hop, skip, gallop and side step to travel. This half term we are working on small-base balancing and jumping in direction including jump-turns.
Physical Development at lunch time- In Early Years, we think of developmental aspects that support children both in and outside of the classroom. A really tricky self-care and fine motor skill is the ability to cut up our food. We are encouraging all of the children to ‘have a go’ at cutting their food before helping and we are already seeing huge development in their confidence and ability to do so.
Please continue encouraging your child to ‘have a go’ at cutting their food at home.
Here is some great food-cutting in action!
Phonics Superhero- Each day we have started to choose a ‘Phonics Superhero’ who has wowed us with their skills. They get to dress up in a special cape and mask for the rest of the day!
A very muddy Friday- Our class really love the mud! The more rain and muddy puddles the better. This week’s muddy collaboration was to build “a swimming pool for the ants and caterpillars” This sparked some good conversation about how deep the water could be for it to be safe for a small insect. We will carry this interest into next week and do some fact finding to answer our questions.
Home-Link Challenge
F2- This week the children were introduced to 3d shapes. Can you find an object or package around the home that is a 3d shape we can put on our display?
F1- Please bring in or email a photo of your weekend, whether you are at home or out and about. We will use the pictures for our ‘talk-time’ key-worker session.
Thank you.
Well Done!
Well done to Freddie, Chloe and Leo for their amazing home-link challenges this week!
We were very impressed with your creations.
Keep sharing your lovely home learning moments with us.
stjameseyfs@spherefederation.org
Living and Learning: I know how to stop bullying
This week Living and Learning statement has been linked to anti-bullying week. This year’s theme is ‘Change starts with us’. As a class we discussed what this meant. We had some good suggestions
‘We can all do something to stop bullying’ – Daisy-Mae
‘Even if you aren’t being bullied you can help somebody who is’ – Nicholas
We all then reminded ourselves what the definition of Bullying was :
Several Times On Purpose
If we are going to make a change and it starts with us then we have to remember the points that Daisy-Mae and Nicholas made. We have to
Start Telling Other People
‘If ever I see bullying I will tell an adult’ – Isobel
Fiddly Fingers Stay and Play
What a wonderful Stay and Play we had after school. So lovely to see families playing and learning together. Thank you to our parent partners who came today.
Check out all of the fine motor skills we have used this evening…
PE
This half term, year 1 and 2 are keeping healthy by learning a routine alongside a Leeds Rhinos dance coach. The children are working hard to remember the sequence of movements.
Living and Learning: Body Image
At the end of last year, the pupils in Year 5 and 6 completed a My School My Health survey and one of the findings from the survey was how many of us have negative feelings around our own body image. This week, we had a Dove workshop all about self-esteem and body image. With many unrealistic images in the media and on social media, it’s important to explore our feelings and thoughts around this issue.
This is what some of the children had to say after the workshop:
“I will remind my friends not to say “I want to be like them,” but I will tell them to be themselves.”
“I will look at pictures and see how much editing/work they have done to this image. I need to say to myself that they are fake and don’t change yourself.”
“I pledge to think about myself in a better way and not compare myself to others.”
“I will remind people that we need to respect ourselves and others. I will disagree to negative comments on social media. “
This week in Foundation…
Our first week back in Foundation has been packed full of learning! It’s great to see that the children have come back ready to learn with fantastic attitudes. The children have loved exploring the new role play baskets in the home corner. We’ve seen hairdressers, doctors, vets and firemen!
This week our focus story has been Dear Zoo.
All the children in Foundation are able to retell the story using our amazing ‘Talk for Writing’ actions! F2 children changed some of the animals to create their own versions. Some children even changed the title to ‘Dear Farm.’ Take a look in their writing books to see their fabulous story maps!
F2 children have now learnt all Phase 2 phonics sounds and are moving on to Phase 3. It’s really important that children pronounce ‘pure sounds’ when practising and using their phonics in reading and writing.
PE
This week the children did so well at getting changed for PE -independently!
All children in Foundation need a PE kit in school for PE on Mondays.
Don’t forget!
Fiddly Fingers stay and play at 3:15pm on Wednesday 13 November.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Home-Link Challenge
Remembrance Sunday
On Monday, during carpet time we will be talking about the importance of this day.
Talk to your child about Remembrance Sunday.
You could even draw a picture or make a poppy for us to display in the classroom.
Living and Learning
In pairs, we created posters to show our 8Rs for learning. We will remember and use these 8Rs to help us learn throughout the year.
Living and Learning: democracy
On the last day of half term, the school councillors for this year were elected. The children read aloud and listened to speeches in their own class. Then the children went into the hall to vote for their class representatives; this was a very fair and democratic process. Congratulations to all the children who will be school council representatives for 2019-2020.
Congratulations…
Congratulations to all of the children in Foundation for a great first half-term. We have worked hard, explored, made friends and shown some fabulous learning.
Thank you to the parents who joined us for parent’s evenings and drop-in sessions. It was great to catch up and share all of the wonderful things we have been doing.
Have a lovely break over the next week and we look forward to welcoming you back in on Monday 4th November.
Half-term Home Link Challenge
The children have told us they would like to learn about animals when we return to school. If you have a pet, we would love to have a picture for the wall. We would also like you to talk to your child about their favourite animal and to research one fact that they can share about the animal in class. Perhaps your child would like to draw or paint their favourite animal too. If your child is in F2, encourage them to record the sounds that they know in any words and labels.
