Reception

Friday 16th September

Another successful week in Reception. We have now started phonics and maths which the children have enjoyed but there has also been plenty of time for playing, exploring, getting to know each other and having fun! Roald Dahl day was a big success and the children were very excited to bring home their crocodiles today. Lots of photos and a couple of videos have been uploaded to Tapestry so please do have a look at these and feel free to like or comment. If possible do look at the photos with your children so they can talk through what they have been doing in school with you.

Next week we are all in! We have talked about this with the class but do remind them that there will be lots more children so it might be a little bit busier and noisier! An email has been sent by the office with a slight change of timings from Tuesday; 8.30-8.50, as the school gates will be locked at 8.50. If you think your child is ready for drop and go then go for it! If you are late dropping off and the gate is shut (it happens to the best of us!!) then please go to the office and they will bring your to child to us.

There are still several unnamed snack and water bottles, please do have all things clearly labelled as it makes handing out the snacks very tricky for our helpers. This also applies to loose items not in a box. Next week as the children will be having lunch please just bring in a morning snack and water bottle.  Hopefully the children will enjoy school lunches but we do keep an eye on them and if children are not eating or are unhappy we will talk with you about it

Have a wonderful weekend.

Mrs Edwards and Mrs Cheshire

Friday 9th September

Well done everyone for getting through a very successful first week of school! We have really enjoyed getting to know the class and think we now know all their names! They all came in and settled quickly, making new friends and trying new things. Today with the morning group we did a tour of the school, something we will do with next week's morning group. 

Tapestry

Hopefully you have all been able to activate your Tapestry account. Please email the office if you require an additional email address to be added. We have tried it out with a photo from your child's first week at school which we hope you have been able to access. Please let us know if you have had any problems. Tapestry is where you will find out what your child has been up to in school, please do check it regularly. Feel free to comment on posts. It is an important part of our communication with parents and is a two way forum so if there are things you would like to share with us that have happened at home you can add posts which only we will see. These allow us to talk with your child about things they might have done at home or places they have been etc. 

Labelling items

Please make sure all clothing is clearly labelled along with snacks and water bottles. At snack time the 2 helpers of the day give out the snacks and drinks and it makes everything run more smoothly if they are all labelled. Permanent marker often rubs out so please do use the name stickers if possible. If you send in loose food items please label them too.

Fruit is provided by school for afternoon snacks. Those who have signed up for milk please do ask your children if they would like it and do encourage them to drink it as it is free! 

Phonics

Next week we will start teaching phonics. From Monday we will let you know what we have covered in class so you can continue to support your child at home. 

Before the holidays an All About Me sheet came home to be completed with your child. We will be going through these next week so if you could fill one in that would be great, please return on Monday. We will email it out again incase it has been mislaid.

Thanks again for your support this week.

Have a super weekend. Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

The end of the year.......

Well, we started the year sending the children home for PCR tests and we've finished the year sending them home because it's too hot! In between all of this we've had a fabulous year with your children and have thoroughly enjoyed having them in our class. They've really applied themselves to school life, have given their very best and have been a lot of fun on the way. We look forward to seeing them all grown up in Year 1 and listening to them comment on how small and cute the new reception class are!

Thank very much for your support as parents and carers over the year. We really do appreciate the time you've given us either helping in the classroom, on our school trip, at PTA events, keeping on top of Tapestry (!) and all the other things you do to support your children through their first year at school. Thank you very much for the generous and cards and gifts. We especially love reading the messages in the cards - some of the nicest we've ever had! 

So, we wish you and your families a relaxing and slightly cooler summer and we look forward to seeing you around school in September.

Our very best wishes,

from Mrs Edwards, Mrs Cheshire, Mrs Scott, Mrs McCoy and Mrs Vicary.

Friday 15th July

What is written below is obviously subject to change depending on the weather situation so please keep an eye on school communications, however this is what the plan is for now!!!

There will be no PE on Monday as it's the dress rehearsal for Mary Poppins. The children should come to school in school uniform (with a hat and plenty of suncream already applied).

On Monday please send in black PE shorts so the children can wear these rather than tracksuits for Monday / Wednesday's performances.

Please also send in a named carrier bag on Monday so we can send home their school work.

We will be using a small amount of face paint for the performance. It is "hypoallergenic, non-toxic and fragrance-free, making it kind to even the most sensitive of skin". However, if your child cannot have this please let us know. 

Tuesday - the children can bring in a toy/game from home to play with in school - but please nothing that is easily broken, or with lots of small parts or something they can't sleep without!

This Friday (15^th July) will be the last time we put anything on Tapestry as we will be downloading your child's file to send to you. 

Tuesday will be our last day teaching our lovely class. On Wednesday Mrs Cheshire will be having an emotional day, fulfilling her duties as a Y6 parent and Mrs Edwards will be at the very end of the education journey at her daughter's graduation. Mrs Scott and Mrs McCoy will be in school with the children. 

Therefore, today is my (Mrs Cheshire) last day teaching your fabulous children. It has been such a happy year with them all and I have loved getting to know them all. The year seems to have flown by. They are a super bunch and I can't wait to see how they continue to thrive as they move up the school. Thankyou for all of your support and help over the year. I will pop in to say goodbye to them before the holidays.

Have a wonderful summer.

No more class library books will be sent home today, if you still have a book at home please return it on Monday.

Have a super weekend,

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 8th July

It was lovely to see so many of you at our open evening last night. We hope you enjoyed seeing the classroom and your children's super hard work. It's amazing to see how much they have achieved and got through since they started with us. 

We have been enjoying our new mini-topic (Moving on), reminiscing about the things we have done since September - hopefully you saw our time line above the white board last night. The children are also excited about their move to Year 1, having spent time with Mrs Clare earlier in the week (see Tapestry).

As it is going to be very hot and sunny next week please do apply sun cream to children before they come to school and make sure they have hats in. Today several children didn't have hats and there is not a huge amount of shade in our playground. We do encourage lots of water drinking on hot days and they refill their bottles when they need to, so if they return with a full bottle it's probably because they re-filled rather than didn't drink it!

Please ensure all costumes are in on Monday. We don't have that many in yet. Bring them in a named plastic bag with handles so it can go on their pegs.

Homework:

The class should have all come home with 2x plain paper bunting flags in their bags. Please can these be decorated in anything  Mary Poppins style (anything-toys, umbrellas, merry-go-rounds, penguins, kites etc). The children need to return them on Monday so that each class can add them to string, ready to be put up for the performance.  Please cut out the triangles before returning them. Thank you 

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 1st July

I'm not sure how it is now July but there we are! Not much to report on here although lots on Tapestry so please do take a look.

A reminder: Please continue to get costumes ready to be brought in Friday 8^th July, please could you send in the following items in a named plastic bag (with handles so it can put on their pegs). 

Teddies: children to wear black tracksuit bottoms (School PE bottoms/leggings are fine for this) and a plain brown t-shirt (any shade). 

Dolls/Ballet dancer dolls: children to wear a pretty dress or tutu or smartish trousers, shirt / blouse and, if you have one, a waistcoat (please don't buy one, this is optional).  

Soldiers: Please provide black tracksuit bottoms, school ones are fine (School will provide the red t-shirt).  

In school we will make / provide teddies ears and soldiers hats. We will be adding buttons to red t-shirts.   

Thankyou for so efficiently allocating different costumes, they will look so sweet! We are going to start practising the songs more from now on!

We have come to the end of our lovely topic Big Wide World. Thank you for the postcards which keep arriving, even though the topic is ending we will still enjoy reading them and displaying them on our world map poster. Thank you all to parents to have come in to talk to us about their cultural heritage. 

Our new topic is Moving On, project celebrates the children’s successes throughout their Reception year. It explores how they have grown and changed and supports them with the changes to come as they move into Year 1.

We look forward to seeing many of you at open evening on Thursday. It is a great event where the children can show off their work and school and classroom. 

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 24th June

Firstly, weren't the children fabulous at the Maypole afternoon! We were so proud of them all, shaking their sillies out with great gusto! Well done! We hope you all enjoyed the lovely mid-summer event.

We have had another very busy but fun week. Children have made Italian Pizza, done Aboriginal art, learnt an African dance as well as learning about Sikhism in RE today. There has also been the usual phonics, writing and maths with lots of revision of concepts taught this year.

Not much to add to this update.

Hopefully many of you will be able to attend Sports Day on Monday, which I imagine will be a first for many of you. It is a lovely event and the children are looking forward to it. If you are not sure which house your child is in and still need a coloured T-Shirt please contact the office.

Some of you have offered to come in and talk about cultural heritage, please do arrange a time that suits if you haven't already. We are quite flexible.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 17th June 

What a hot end to the week! The children all had fun with lots of water based activities in children's choice including water squirters, water shoots for cars, water tray! We put up two gazebos in the outside area to give us a little more protection.

Next Thursday is our Maypole dancing afternoon, Year R will be singing a song. I attach the video of the song called "Shake your sillies out" which is a fun action song. If the children could have a practice of this at home, making sure that even when doing the fun actions they are still singing, that would be fab! We are singing it slightly slower than this video shows but you can still sing along to it. It was pretty hot practising this today! The maypole afternoon is a lovely, very Chiddingstone, afternoon and definitely worth coming to if you are able to.

Shake Your Sillies Out ♫ Brain Breaks Songs for Kids ♫ Kids Action Songs by The Learning Station - Bing video 

This week in maths we have continued with subtraction using our knowledge of number bonds to 10. Please could you practise numbers bonds to 10 (ie pairs of numbers that together make 10) over the weekend with your child. We also practised recognising numbers 11-20 today, so if you see these around the place (books, clocks etc) perhaps point them out, does your child know what that number is.

At this year's summer production of Mary Poppins YR and Y1 will be toys. All children can choose between soldiers, teddies and dolls.  

By Friday 8^th July please could you send in the following items in a named plastic bag (with handles so it can put on their pegs). 

Teddies: children to wear black tracksuit bottoms (School PE bottoms/leggings are fine for this) and a plain brown t-shirt (any shade). 

Dolls/Ballet dancer dolls: children to wear a pretty dress or tutu or smartish trousers, shirt / blouse and, if you have one, a waistcoat (please don't buy one, this is optional).  

Soldiers: Please provide black tracksuit bottoms, school ones are fine (School will provide the red t-shirt).  

In school we will make / provide teddies ears and soldiers hats. We will be adding buttons to red t-shirts.   

Please could you communicate with each other to be sure there is an even amount of each of the toys.  

A reminder if anyone would like to come in to talk about their cultural heritage we would love to have some more volunteers! It would be great for the children to hear about other countries people might have been born as part of our Big Wide World topic. Please email the office if you think you might want to do this....or have a relative who might want to come in.

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 10th June

A very busy start to what will no doubt be a busy term. The children have had jubilee celebrations, Pentecost prayer stations, a rock and roll assembly and started our lovely new Topic Big Wide World.

Thank you to those of you who have sent in postcards, if you have any to send we will be looking at them all term and placing them on our world map. Perhaps you have relatives or friends on holidays who might be able to send a card to us at school!

We have also very much enjoyed reading through the holiday journals about your journeys to some lovely holiday places. We also looked at all the Tapestry entries to share with the class. 

As part of this term's "Big Wide World" topic we would like to invite family members into our class to talk about their heritage. We want to support the children in understanding that the United Kingdom is a multi-ethnic society, and the people who live in the UK have many different cultural/religious/ethnic backgrounds. We want to celebrate the diverse cultures that make up our class, school and community. Please send an email to the office if you or another family member would like to come in and when you are available (most days would be ok apart from Monday and Tuesday afternoons). Thank you.

In Maths today we were practising doubles: double 1 - double 6. We learnt a little rhyme using our fingers and watched this fun video on youtube. Perhaps you could watch it at home and practise. It would be great if the children could know their doubles by heart from 1+1=2 up to 6+6=12.

Doubles Doubles (I Can Add Doubles!) (song for kids about adding doubles 1-5) - YouTube

Now we are outside more and the sun is finally shining please do apply sun-cream to your child before school and please ensure hats are in bags. 

Have a good weekend,

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 20th May

What a wonderful end to this half term with that super assembly this morning. The pictures are on Tapestry for anyone unable to come. We were so proud of the children and hope you all enjoyed it. 

This term seem to have flown by, next term  our topic next term is Big Wide World. This topic teaches children about our global community and explores how living things, communities and climates differ around the world. Over the holidays please could your child tell us about a journey they have made (it could be going on holiday, a day trip to Hever Castle, a visit Grandparents or the supermarket).

Friday 13th May

We're very much looking forward to seeing you at our Class Act of Worship on Friday 20^th May 9.00-9.30 in the village hall. We have started practising and today the children will have brought home an orange card with words we would like them to learn over the weekend. If your child's words get mislaid between school and home please let us know via Tapestry and we will resend their words over the weekend. 

In maths this week we have been continuing with number bonds to 10 (pairs of numbers that make 10) and have learnt that if we know that 6 + 4 = 10 and 4 + 6 = 10 then we also know that 10 - 6 = 4 etc. Number bonds to 10 are really important facts so any help you can give your child with remembering them will be useful throughout their time at school.

We've had a lot of fun this week learning about different animals. On Monday our Y6 buddies helped us research information about unusual animals including the green basilisk and the sea dragon. Yesterday we've been finding out about chameleons and discovered that they change colour depending on how they feel as well as the temperature. We made our own colourful pictures of chameleons and thought about how the colours we chose could show the chameleon was feeling. If you have an unusual pet at home and would like to bring it in then you are more than welcome (as long as you stay with it!). Today we looked at animals that live in the Serengeti and compared them with wild animals from the UK. 

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Edwards and Mrs Cheshire

Friday 6th May

Another 4 day week - how will we cope with a full week next week! We have still managed to fit in plenty and the children are making great progress in their writing journals. If your child is keen to write at home please support them with sounding out words using the sound mat, finger spaces, capital letters and full stops. 

In maths this week we have been practising quick recall of number bonds (or pairs) to make 10. Please practise this at home with your child. You could play a version of snap with a "snap" being 2 numbers that make 10; you could make a tower of 10 bricks using different amounts of 2 colours of bricks; you could lay out 10 smarties using only 2 colours. How many do you have of each colour? If you come up with any lovely ways to practise this at home please do share on Tapestry. 

Thank you for your all the help and support whether at home or in school. We are very grateful to Joseph's mum for coming in to tell us about her job as a veterinary nurse, to Emilia's mum for bringing in pet rabbits and to Esme and Heidi's mums for help in the classroom and at Forest School. 

Date for your diary

On Friday 20^th May we warmly invite you to our class Act of Worship to celebrate our learning during our Animal Safari topic. This will take place in the school hall from approximately 9.00-9.30. 

We hope you have a lovely weekend and don't forget  - no single use plastics in our snacks all next week (teachers included!).

Mrs Edwards and Mrs Cheshire

Friday 29th April

Thank you for all coming in this afternoon to view our art work from the afternoon. The children worked very hard to produce it all in a short space of time but I think you'll agree that it looked great!  Huge thanks to the wonderful Mrs French and Mrs Appathurai who were an enormous help!! I'll put pics on Tapestry and they should also be on the intagram page. The sunflower pictures will come home at the end of term if not before. Hopefully the school raised some good money for the cause.

It was lovely to talk with you at parents' evening. It is an exciting time in the year when the progress the children have made is so evident and we are very proud of them. It is a fairly short time to talk so, as ever, if you have any concerns do please get in touch.

Homework:

This week in maths we have been using number lines to count on and add 2 numbers together. A great way you could practise this over the weekend is to play a board game with dice such as snakes and ladders. The Orchard Toys board games are also very good. We have also been practising counting out loud (the children like to think this means counting very loudly!) to 20 and beyond. 

Enjoy the long weekend and we will see you next week.

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 22nd April

Welcome back! It has been so lovely to have the children in this week and hearing all about their Easter Holidays. There has been some super homework too so thank you for supporting the children with this.

We started our new Topic Animal Safari and the children have been very engaged. The class created their own class book based on the wonderful lift the flap book 'Dear Zoo' and we thought about which animals would not be suitable pets! We had penguins that would be too slippery, kangaroos would be too bouncy, cheetah's would be too fast and many other great ideas.

See Tapestry to see what else we have been up to...(I/Mrs C tend to upload photos from my end of the week at the weekend so Sunday nights/Mondays are probably good times to check Tapestry for my recent updates.)

It was so nice to be able to see many of you in person for our first round of parents evenings and we look forward to seeing the rest of you next week either in person or on zoom. Just walk to our classroom through the main entrance and wait outside until your time slot. If we are running late we will write it on the door.

Please do bring in any recycled materials throughout the term for our junk modelling area. We are running a bit low on small boxes, tubes etc. 

Now the weather is getting sunnier and warmer please send the children in with their red hats - named.

Please come in PE kits as usual on monday.

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 1st April

Well done everyone for getting through another super term! It has been busy and we have really enjoyed our topic. We were so proud of the children in the Easter Service, they sang confidently and did the actions perfectly. They looked terrific in their Easter Bonnets and Boots, there were some super designs and it was clear that a lot of time had gone into them.

Our topic for Term 5 is Animal Safari and we will be learning about the animals that live around the world, how to look after animals and the importance of caring for our local and global environments.

For homework we would like the children to choose any animal, draw a picture and research and write a fact about it. Please use the Home Journals for this. 

Our focus next term will be on using phonic knowledge to write independently. We would prefer it if you did not write a sentence for your child to copy. We would like the children to have a go using their phonic knowledge supported with the phonics mats we sent home a few weeks ago. This has all the sounds and tricky words we have taught. Support your child to simplify the sentence they want to write and then to sound out the words.  The sort of thing we would expect could be any of the following depending on their confidence:

A dog has for legs. (Children would probably sound out "four" as "for" as they know the "or" sound). 

I luv tighgers. They hav sharp teeth. (Your child will probably use the "igh" sound for the "i" in tiger and this is very acceptable. "They" is a tricky word they have been taught. The children know the sounds er, sh ar ee and th so you could help them to find them on the sound mat)

I lighc munkees. They liv in chrees and eet nuts. (Children often use the "chr" rather than "tr" in words and this is fine. You could help them with the correct spelling of "like" as we will teach this word next term)

The focus is very much on building confidence so the children are happy to have a go at writing. We wouldn't correct any of the above spelling as the children have used what they have been taught in phonics to have a go.

IF YOU HAVE NOT HAD A CHANCE TO RECENTLY CATCH UP ON TAPESTRY PLEASE DO SO OVER THE HOLIDAYS. IF YOU WANT TO UPLOAD ANY PARTICULARLY FUN/INTERSTING THINGS YOU SEE OR DO FOR US TO SHARE IN CLASS NEXT TERM PLEASE DO. 

Have a wonderful Easter Holidays and we look forward to seeing you next term...let's hope the snow has gone and Spring has sprung!

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 25th March

A week of glorious sunshine has meant lots of opportunities for playing and learning outside. We had fun learning about Capacity with water and sand play and have enjoyed snack and story times in the sunshine.

We sent home the bean plants today as they are getting quite big. We hope that they continue to flourish, if you plant them out and they grow please take some photos for Tapestry so we can see how they are getting on. The Nice Smile photo sheet should have also come home today.

Favourite Books for sharing next week:

Edie and Daniil - Monday

Coco - Tuesday

Ben - Wednesday

Barnaby - Thursday

Arthur - Friday

In phonics this week we have been practising reading and writing words with -ing on the end and compound words such as farm/yard, roof/top. We 'chunk' long words into two parts to help to read them. 

In maths we have also been working out which numbers are odd and which are even. You could practise this at home using pieces of pasta or toys. Take a pile of objects, count them and then put them into pairs. Do you have one left over? If you do, then you started off with an odd number. If you can put them into pairs (or share them out between 2) you have an even number. Can you see a pattern in which numbers are odd and which are even?

Next week is the Easter Bonnet/boot parade and Easter Service. This is always a lovely end of term event and hopefully we will see many of you there.

Please empty your child's bag of hats and gloves and anything they don't need in school. It's much easier for them to fit them in thier trays if they are not too full!

Please check Tapestry for much more detail about what the whole class and your child has been up to. 

p.s. apologies for the muddy uniforms today!! There was some enthusiastic playing in the mud kitchen which lived up to its name. We reiterated to the children that they do need to wear the red aprons/wellies if it is wet and muddy! 

Have a lovely sunny weekend.

Mrs Cheshire 

Friday 18th March

We have had a lovely week, the highlight of which was our trip to Bore Place. As you saw on Tapestry it was a great success and we had so much to talk about afterwards. The children also did some super writing about the trip. Mrs Edwards and I are so impressed with how their writing is coming along, we can see finger spaces, use of phonics is spelling, most children can read their writing back to us and we can read what they have written. We are seeing simple sentences and are encouraging children to put full stops to mark the end of the sentence.

Today the children all looked so fantastic! I felt very safe with superheroes, doctors, firemen and police! Our three teachers took some of the phonics lesson for me, I might be out of a job soon! The princesses added some glamour and everyone had fun and could talk about who they were. Pics as always will be put on Tapestry....only Easter Bonnet parade now!!! 

Children to bring in a favourite book to share next week:

Flora - Monday

Evie - Tuesday

Evelyn - Wednesday

Esme - Thursday

Emilia - Friday

In phonics this week we have been practising reading words with 2 or more digraphs (eg sh-ar-p, qu-ee-n, t-or-ch). See if your child can spot any digraphs or trigraphs when you are sharing any story books over the weekend (all digraphs and trigraphs we have covered are on the sound mats sent home a while ago). 

In maths we have measuring the length of objects using cubes. At home you could practise this with your child using all sorts of items eg How many bricks long is my knife? How many lego pieces long is my book? Remind your child to line up the lego or whatever they are using with the start of the object they are measuring and to count carefully, and the type of brick (if lego) needs to be the same length for uniformity. Can they compare 2 different objects eg the knife is longer than the book. Please share any examples of this on Tapestry. This is optional but we do love to see how the class are practising their learning at home. 

Have a lovely sunny weekend.

Mrs Edwards and Mrs Cheshire

Friday 11th March

Today started on an energetic note with our first ever Funky Fit Friday with Mrs Golds. The children were amazing considering there were so many big children and loud music and dancing. Over the weeks the children will become familiar with the dances. I have uploaded some lovely videos onto Tapestry so you can see what it is like. Please do take a look. 

We were very lucky to have Rev Bill come and speak to us this afternoon. The children had prepared some questions to ask him on some big themes. Pics and further information will be uploaded onto Tapestry.

Our beans are growing well and the children have done some great writing around instructions, a bean journal and exploring different seeds. With the warm sunny spring weather this week it has been the perfect topic to explore.

Children to bring in favourite book to share next week:

James - Monday

Ines - Tuesday

Heidi - Wednesday

Haydn - Thursday

Harry - Friday

Bore Place Wednesday 16^th March

We are very much looking forward to our trip on Wednesday. Drop off and pick up will be as a normal school day.

Please could the children bring their water bottle and a snack in their school bags as usual. School bags will be left in the classroom.  

We will have our snack at school before we leave and take water bottles with us. A packed lunch will be provided by school. 

All children MUST bring a named carrier bag with a pair of named wellies in it. Please dress your child appropriately for a day out on a farm - warm clothes that can get a bit muddy and a waterproof coat. At the moment the weather forecast is looking great for next week but please check the night before. If rain is forecast waterproof trousers might also be needed. 

Junk Modelling Resources

If you have any resources at home we could use for junk modelling please do send them into school. We welcome tubes, small boxes (not large cereal boxes), plastic pots, bottle lids, jar lids, egg boxes, fabric scraps, foil trays, etc etc. Any other more unusual items that can be turned into something new are also welcome. 

Thank your for making packed lunches today, there was great excitement in the dining room and some yummy looking lunches!

Reading Journals:

Please record in the yellow reading record books the title of the online Collins book and how your child has got on with it. We do read these comments. The sharing book can just be ticked and returned each week, the children seem to really be enjoying these stories and we have recently added to our class library so there are some nice new titles.

Thank you!

Have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 4th March

The children had a wonderful World Book Day on Thursday, please see Tapestry for lots of pictures of the day and I'm sure the school instagram page will also have some lovely photos. The class all looked wonderful and seemed to really enjoy their first world book day. The book fair is open next week so please do have a look, I saw some gorgeous picture books when I looked earlier.

Children to bring in favourite book to share next week:

Leo - Monday

Leah - Tuesday

Joshua - Wednesday

Jospeh - Thursday

Johnnie - Friday

Trip to Bore Place

Thank you very much to the four parents who have offered to accompany us on the day. We would be very grateful for one more parent to help if possible. 

Homework - this week in maths we have been thinking of different ways of making 10. Can you find a way of making 10 using something from your home or garden? Maybe 6 cars and 4 trains. Or 3 carrots and 7 beans on your plate? Take a photo if you like and put on Tapestry.

We will be trying out Funky Fit (weather dependent) next Friday so please try to have your children in school on time so we can walk over the playground together and start our morning with some fun dance moves!

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 25th February

We have had a great start to the new term. Work has begun on our lovely new topic, Ready Steady Grow. The children are very engaged and are super excited about the upcoming farm trip. 

Our class shop is popular and has been a good way to practise using money to buy and sell things.

We hope that you found the Little Wandle talk helpful and we thank you for your support with this. Please do note down in the yellow reading diaries how your child has got on with the online book set, you only need to do this once a week. We do read these comments. For the shared reader you can just tick to show it has been read.

It has been lovely to share some children's favourite books so far, this coming week is:

Ollie - Monday

Monty - Tuesday

Marina - Wednesday

Maggie - Thursday

Lilly - Friday

Could we ask that you go through school bags and take out anything not needed as some children are finding it hard to fit their bags in trays. 

Homework - As an optional activity you could set up a shop at home and sell things for up to 5p, using 1p coins to count up and add together. For example, a teddy costs 3p and a car costs 2p, how much is the total? Can they write the number sentence and the numbers?

As always please look at Tapestry for much more information and detail about what we have done this week and please do add any observations from home if you would like us to see them. Feel free to also comment on the pictures we post as this is all part of the dialogue we have with you all.

Have a good weekend.

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 11th January

Well done everyone for making it to half term. It has been a busy term with lots of highs but for many families it has been disrupted by Covid. Thank you for all of your support with home learning and homework and reading with our new scheme. The children seem to be responding well and hopefully any concerns and questions will be answered at the information zoom next term. Please use the Collins e-library to practise reading with your child over the holiday. If you are having any problems accessing the books please email the office to let us know.

The children really enjoyed the VR workshop yesterday. Hopefully you have had a look at the photos on Tapestry and I'm sure the children were full of it when they came home. Today we talked about time and different ways to tell the time. We started to think about O'clock and what we do at different times of the day.

Today each child has come home with a Little Wandle sound mat so if you want to you can support the phonics teaching we are doing at school, at home. This has all the sounds that the children have learnt in Reception and the tricky words. Please do go through this with your child (it makes quite a nice place mat!) First look at Phase 2, and if there are any sounds that the children are not secure with perhaps practise at home or write on paper and stick up on the wall/fridge to practise. Several children are still unsure of ch/sh and th. Then if you feel your child has mastered these sounds (many have) look at the other side which are all the digraphs and trigraphs. These just need revising and repeating, as we will do in school throughout the year. Do not worry if your child does not know all of these yet, we will revisit them all but maybe choose one or two each week to secure their knowledge. We have found that all the children are struggling to remember the tricky words so please focus on the ones in the pink box first and if they are secure with these then move on to the blue. They need to be able to read these without sounding out.

Friday January 4th

What a joy it was to have (almost) all of the children back in class this week. The school felt 'back to normal' after a strange couple of weeks. We have started a new mini-topic called 'Winter Wonderland' about cold climates and weather, winter, snow....and of course the weather turned Spring like as we did! So far we have had great fun making fake snow , designing 2D snowmen, writing about the cold and learning about freezing places (I was very tempted to sing a 'Frozen' medley for this but resisted!!)

Please revise the sounds we learnt this week: ur (fur), ow (cow), oi (coin) and ear(fear) and tricky words; was, you, they, my, by, all.

Home Journals

Over the weekend please could you and your child find out 2 facts about an animal or bird that lives in a cold climate. Please could this be recorded in the home journal and returned to school on Monday for use in class (there were a few children who did not have a home journal in class so we assume they are still at home, if not just do on paper and send in.) We are encouraging more writing from the children now so please do support them with putting pencil to paper and using sounds they can hear to 'spell' words. You can scribe what they want to say below their attempts to write.

Reading Diaries

Please could you add the e-library book title to your child's yellow reading diary and let us know how they get on. We are reading the book in school 3 times a week in a small group and have a separate reading record for this. You don't need to make a comment regarding the reading for pleasure book brought home from our class library, unless of course you would like to! 

A reminder to please make sure your child has a change of clothes in school incase of accidents.

We are looking forward to our Virtual Reality Space workshop on Thursday! 

1 week to go! 

have a lovely weekend

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 28th January

Well done everyone at school and at home who have worked so hard this week and stayed positive even with changing Covid situation. We have been so impressed with the commitment to home learning and have enjoyed seeing what the children have been up to via Tapestry.  The class loved waving to our friends during the whole school Acts of Worship on zoom and those returning from isolating have been treated to a very warm welcome from the children. The children in school have coped well without their friends and have put up with me for a whole week!! 

As you have seen on Tapestry we have done some lovely craft work based around our topic. The children have been learning the days of the week, singing the very catchy Adams Family Theme tune 'Days of the week' song (have a listen on youtube!) Please practise these at home, talk about what day it is, what is tomorrow/yesterday, how many days in a week, which days are the weekend, what is the first day of the school week etc. If it's part of the language at home they will soon learn them. We read the Hungry Caterpillar when we did this which is brilliant for learning days of the week so if you have that perhaps read with your child.

We hope the online reading is going well. We are really enjoying our 3x weekly reading sessions in school and are noticing a real difference in the way the children are approaching the texts. See Tapestry for the phonics taught.

Homework

Talk about why it is dark at night time (the absence of light, from the Sun, causes darkness at night time). Have some fun exploring this concept using large cardboard boxes or making a den and see what happens when you crawl inside and close the flaps. Find ways to make it as dark as possible inside the box and see if you can find ways to let in light. Use blankets, foil, paper for blacking out, and pencils and other tools for punching holes. You could also provide torches for play or reading activities inside the boxes.

Questions:

• Why is it dark inside the box?
• I wonder if we can make the box darker.
• Can you see inside the box?
• How can you completely block out the light?
• How can you let light in?
• What provides light during the daytime?
• Why do you think it is dark at night?
• How do we make things light at night time?

Reading

Please read the book allocated to your child on the Collins e-library system.

We really hope to see many of you back at school next week and for those unable to return we will keep in touch and will miss you.

Have a great weekend.

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 21st January

P ick up and go seemed to go smoothly so thank you for your cooperation with that. The children were very excited by it. As you are aware, Covid cases in school have increased rapidly this week. Several of the children in class were very coldy and there were quite a few coughs. Please do keep your child at home if they are unwell and LFT if they are displaying any symptoms. We do keep the windows and doors open all day so it is on the chilly side. Please dress your child warmly (vests, jumpers, tights etc) during these colder months. We do insist the wear coats outside when it is cold like today.

Reading book

By now you should be able to log into the Collins e-library and find the book your child has been allocated for this week. We have been reading this book in school in small groups over the week. The first time we read the book we focus on decoding the words (sound out and blend if necessary, develop fluency and recognise any tricky words by sight). The second time we read with prosody - a new word for us all! This means reading with intonation, how do we read if there is an exclamation mark, a question mark etc, maybe think about how the character might be feeling. The third time we read the book we focus on comprehension, asking questions about the story, how do we know the answer from the words and pictures.

Please use the yellow reading diary to add the book title and date and write down how your child gets on. 

Homework

In maths this week we have been learning about doubling numbers and trying to remember doubling facts (1+1=2, 2+2=4 etc). You could try out some activities at home to practise this or make up your own. We would love to see how you get on and can upload a note or photo to Tapestry. 

• Throw 2 dice and see who is the first to get 3 doubles.
• Play dominoes - see if you can recognise all the doubles. Can you add them up?
• Decorate some biscuits or cakes with icing and sweets and ask your child to double the number of decorations.
• Fold a piece of paper in half and open it out. Draw some spots / splodges on one side and count them. Fold in half to print on the other side. Count how many spots splodges and talk about how the number has doubled.
• Find a few pieces of pasta or peas on your plate. Double the number. How many do you have now?
• Throw a dice, pick the same number of bricks. Double the number of bricks and build a tower. How many bricks are there altogether?

Remember to check tapestry regularly, especially if your child is isolating at home as we set work and show what we are covering on there.

We hope you all have a great weekend and those of you not in this week we hope you and your families are staying well. We miss you and can't wait to have the whole class back together again soon.

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 14th January

It's been another chilly week here in Reception but the children are now so good at putting on their coats and hats and gloves, zips are still tricky but we help with these. If you want to practise doing up zips then please do! 

We would love to see a photo on Tapestry of the beds your children make for their teddy. Please include some words to describe how they came to their decisions. 

Thank you for all of the colourful socks, they were perfect and the children have started to make their cuddle pets, these will be finished next week.

As always please keep looking at Tapestry as it has lots of updates including the phonics and maths we have been doing. Please do zoom in to the phonics information evening on Wednesday as it will give a full picture of how we will be teaching reading to your children with our new scheme. 

The children will have brought home a class library book today, please do share this with your child and just tick in the yellow books. no need for a comment. Please return the books by Tuesday when they will be changed again .

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 7th January

Welcome back! We hope that you all had a happy, healthy and restful Christmas and Happy New year! It has been lovely to welcome the children back and they have settled well into school. Many of them were very tired by today so hopefully they are able to have a good rest over the weekend.

We have started our new Topic 'Starry Night' by learning about nocturnal animals, night-time and bedtime routines. We sang some lullabies and listened to songs from around the world and talked about how they help us to relax and go to sleep. We have changed the dressing up to People Who Help Us (in the night) such as firefighters, doctors, nurses, army and police. It has been lovely to see the different games the children have created using these.

We have started our new phonics programme which is going well. There will be more information about this at the zoom in a couple of weeks. We are not sending home reading scheme books now so for the time being the children will be choosing a library book from our classroom to share at home with you. Please continue to record in the yellow reading journals.

Homework

As you know, our topic for this term is "Starry Night". For homework please could you and your child take a few photos or a video of your house, garden or other location during the day and then again when it is dark. Talk about what you can see and hear during the day and at night. When it is dark you could spend time looking into the sky at the Moon and stars or take out torches and encourage your child to shine them at objects they saw during the day. You could also:

• Make shadows using torches
• Play a game of musical statues using the torches – if the spotlight hits them as they are moving, they are out
• Count the stars
• Talk about the shape of the Moon
• Look for a shooting star
• Hunt for hidden reflective items with torches
• Shine the torch through their hands. What can they see?
• Wear glow sticks
• Drink hot chocolate

You can upload photos or videos to Tapestry over the weekend or during next week and we can look at these in school and share with the class as they come in. If they could have been done by Friday morning a the latest that would be great!

PE kits

For this term, please could the children come to school wearing PE kits on a Monday. School uniform will not be needed in school on Mondays. 

Please continue to look at Tapestry regularly to see what we have been up to. As we are not doing show and tell this term, please remember if anything special happens that you would like to share with us e.g. a wedding, special birthday, interesting place you have visited, please do feel free to upload to Tapestry so we can talk about it with your child. It does not have to be shared with the whole class, but if your child wanted to then they could tell us all about it.

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 17th December

We have finally reached the end of a very busy but very lovely term. The children have worked really hard this term and made fantastic progress in so many different ways. They are no doubt ready for a well deserved break and some lovely family time. 

It was lovely to see all the Christmas jumpers today and the children were all very excited. We will upload pictures onto Tapestry.

Next term our topic is "Starry Night" and we will be exploring the differences in the world at night compared to during the day. We will learn about the importance of a good night’s sleep, and discover what is happening in the world while we are sleeping, including finding out about nocturnal animals. Alongside this we will be finding out about the changes that happen during winter, including the types of weather associated with winter.  We will explore places that have snow all year round and the types of animals that live there. Hopefully, we may have some snow of our own!

We have sent home the Home Journals and a whiteboard and pen just in case we need them for remote learning next term. Please keep these safe and only use if needed in the New Year. 

So, from all the YR team, we wish you a very merry Christmas and a happy and healthy new year.  We are very grateful for all the cards, gifts and kind messages we have received and looking forward to seeing the children in 2022.

From Mrs Cheshire, Mrs Edwards, Mrs Scott, Mrs Vicary and Mrs McCoy

Friday 10th December

Firstly we want to say a huge congratulations to the children for their wonderful performance in the KS1 Nativity. They all sang beautifully and behaved brilliantly in the church, not only for the parents on Wednesday but in the dress rehearsal to siblings on the Tuesday as well. We hope that you were all able to enjoy this festive treat. We were very proud and had lots of comments about how great they all were.

Nearly the end of term! It has been very busy and we have managed to fit so much in. This week the focus has been on Christmas for us and for those around the world. We have made a class Christmas tree out of boxes (see Tapestry) which the children loved and as part of maths we wrapped lots of 3D shape parcels to go under the tree. We have made lists for Father Christmas using catalogues and have been writing Christmas cards to friends and family as well as lots of other festive crafts.

Thank you for all the lovely Journal/tapestry work on your own family Christmas traditions. It has been lovely to hear about them and think about traditions that many of us have (such as a tree and mince pies for Father Christmas) but some more unique and individual ones. Next week show and tell will continue with this:

Monday Johnny, Joseph, Joshua

Tuesday  Leah, Leo, Lilly

Wednesday Maggie, Marina, Monty

Thursday Ollie, Poppy, Shiloh

Friday Sidney, Tobin, William

On Thursday afternoon we will be having our class Christmas party. The reps are kindly going to arrange for some party food. Please can the children bring in party clothes to change into after lunch.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 3rd December

Another busy week in Reception. The weather has been mixed but we have still managed to be outside during children's choice. We have come to the end of our topic 'Once upon a time' and this ended with the children making wonderful fairy tale puppets. They stuck to their original designs faithfully and hopefully will enjoy playing with them and creating their own fairy tales. Our work on 3D shape continued and today we made 3D shape kebabs, playdoh and building. Do have a look around your home for 3D shapes. Cereal boxes are obvious cuboids, dice, traffic cones, footballs etc. The children have learnt the terms face, edge, straight and curved and know that a 3D shape is solid and can be picked up. As always, this is on Tapestry.

Blending practice

As mentioned before, blending is a key skill in early reading. For the children bringing home books without words we have been spending a lot of time practising blending in school. If you have  time, use or make six flashcards (s a t p i n) and choose three that make up a word (sat, tap, pan, pit, sit etc). Lay the cards out in front of your child. See if they can point to the sounds and then blend the sounds together to read the word. If they struggle to blend, you say the sounds and then blend the word and ask your child to copy you. This only needs to take 5 or 10 minutes or so but a little bit of practise every day is very helpful. Please continue to use Oxford Owl to support your child's reading.

Home Journals

Please can you discuss with your child about any special customs/traditions you have as a family at Christmas (just one or two). For example, reading a special story, mince pies for Father Christmas, special lights on the house, making ginger bread house, going to Church? Talk with your child, see what they can remember and then scribe a couple of sentences in the books. We will use this as the basis of our show and tells for the next two weeks. If your children want to draw a picture or put in a photo that is fine too.

Show and tell:

Monday Arthur, Barnaby, Ben

Tuesday Coco, Daniil, Edie

Wednesday Emilia, Esme, Evelyn

Thursday Evie, Flora, Harry

Friday Haydn, Ines, James

Nativity Costumes

Please make sure a plain brightly coloured long sleeved top is in school on Monday at the very latest in a named carrier bag. Please return black PE trousers / leggings to school on Tuesday as we have a dress rehearsal.  

Toys in School

Please could you encourage your child to leave toys from home at home.  

There were a lot of children with coughs, sneezes, runny noses this week. Please remind your children to cover their mouths when they cough/sneeze and to wash their hands. Many thanks.

Hope to see lots of you at the Christmas fair tomorrow

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 26th November

The children have had a busy week learning all about Cinderella. Today we thought about alternative endings for fairy stories which didn't involve a Prince coming to the rescue. We had some wonderful ideas including the princess becoming a dog walker, vet, living on a desert island, doctor and escaping the tower on a water slide! The children have wonderful imaginations. This afternoon our classroom was a hive of activity with castle building, photos will be on Tapestry. Thank you for providing lots of recycled materials at such short notice! It was great to see the children working together so well.

Homework

We have been practising number formation in maths. If you have time, continue to do this over the weekend.  We have been using the rhymes on the sheet attached and have got as far as 8. If your child doesn't want to do it with a pen and paper, they could practise in foam, with a stick in the mud or sand, with a paint brush or make them out of playdough. Remind them to start at the top of the number.  

Puppet making next week

As a finale to our "Once Upon A Time" topic we will be designing and making puppets in class and making up our own plays. The children will be able to choose any fairy tale character they wish. It might be helpful if you could have a chat your child over the weekend to see what they would like to make. They may of course change their mind by the time the get into class!

Oxford Owl online books

We would strongly encourage you to use this resource to support your child's reading. The books are directly matched to the sounds we have learnt in our phonics lessons and can be used to help with blending. Blending is probably the most important skill to develop in early reading and any additional support you can give your child at home is welcome. 

Nativity Costumes

For the nativity this year YR will need their black PE trousers or leggings and a plain brightly coloured long sleeved top. Please could the top be sent into school in a named carrier bag that can be hung on a peg by the end of next week (we can add black PE trousers to the bag after our PE lesson the Monday before the nativity). 

Panto / PE Monday

On Monday afternoon we have a visiting theatre company coming to perform Sleeping Beauty for KS1 so PE kits do not need to be brought into school on Monday. 

Show and tell:

Monday   Johnny, Joseph, Joshua

Tuesday Leah, Leo, Lilly

Wednesday Maggie, Marina, Monty

Thursday Ollie, Poppy, Shiloh

Friday Sidney, Tobin, William

Wrap up warm, it's going to be a chilly weekend!

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 19th November

It was lovely to see so many of you on zoom for our parents' evening. We hope that you felt informed and that it was a useful time.

Today we had fun today thinking about Children in Need and looking all the colourful socks! I will upload photos to Tapestry of this.

Maths

In maths we have been continuing practising careful counting. We have also been exploring adding two numbers together by playing a game using number cards (1 to 6) and bricks to build a tower and add more on depending on the number we turned over. You could try this at home with number cards or a dice and a pile of lego bricks".  Today we had great fun using positional language in the story of the Three Little Pigs. We had puppets and pictures and moved them around using words such as: next to, under, beside, over, through, in, between, for example; the wolf is coming down the chimney, the pigs are outside the door. To record this the children took photos on ipads.

We have continued with our Once Upon a Time topic and this week have been looking at the Three Billy Goat's Gruff and Three Little Pigs. This can all be seen on Tapestry. 

Home Journals

This week we have been thinking about where different fairy stories are set and the types of buildings that different characters live in. For homework your child might to like to draw a picture in their Home Journal of somewhere their favourite character might live, perhaps a cottage, castle, beach or tree house or under a bridge. If they prefer they could make something out of duplo, lego or playdough and upload a photo onto Tapestry.

Please check that everything is named and if your children has secondhand uniform to make sure their name is on the clothing. It is set to get colder next weeks so please name hats and gloves. It might be an idea to put gloves on elastic which can then go through the arms?  Please could you also go through your child's rucksack and take out anything not needed in school as it is hard to fit in trays if there's too much in them. Please do not bring in toys from home unless for show and tell.

Next week FS is on Wednesday afternoon. 

Show and tell this week:

Monday: Arthur, Barnaby, Ben

Tuesday: Coco, Daniil, Eden

Wednesday: Emilia, Esme, Evelyn

Thursday: Evie, Flora, Harry

Friday: Haydn, Ines, James

Thank you!

Have a super weekend.

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 12th November

We have had a lovely week in Reception as you will have seen on Tapestry. The story focus has been Little Red Riding Hood, with talk of settings, characters and repeated refrains (what big eyes you have, what big teeth etc). Remembrance Day was a special occasion when the whole school came together to remember. The class made beautiful poppies and behaved so well during the church service and 2 minutes silence.

In maths we have been continuing to practise counting following these three rules:

1. Count everything once (line objects up to help).
2. Say the numbers in the right order.
3. The last number you say tells you how many there are.

Home Journals

Could the children find between 5 and 10 objects around the house or out on a walk and practise careful counting following the 3 rules above. If they want to record this in some way in their Home Journals then they can do or photograph and put onto Tapestry. Please bring these in by Friday next week.

Show and Tell 

Next week and the week after, please could children bring in something from home that starts with one of the sounds we have learnt so far this term, so that could be anything starting with, s, a, t, p, i, n, m, d, g, o, c, k, e, u, r, h. Eg: an apple, clock, dog (toy!), hat. Something that fits in their bag!

Monday: Johnny, Joseph, Joshua

Tuesday: Leah, Leo, Lilly

Wednesday: Maggie, Marina, Monty

Thursday: Ollie, Poppy, Shiloh

Friday: Sidney, Tobin, William

 Please remember to use Oxford Owl to practise sounds and blending.

Thank you for all the help you are giving your children with daily reading and recording in their yellow books. It is great to see them engaging so well with this.

I have not had to put on one coat this week!!! Thank you for helping your children to do this independently. 

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday November 5th

The children settled very well after their two week half term and have had a very busy week. We started our new topic called Once Upon a Time which is all about traditional tales. This week we have been thinking about Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We wrote sorry cards from Goldilocks to the bears as we all agreed that she was a bit naughty to have gone into their home uninvited and then caused all those problems! We also made porridge and tried different toppings including banana, raisins, honey and blueberries. Maybe you could ask your child which their favourite was. In maths we compared the sizes of the bears using the words largest, middle, smallest and did measuring with the porridge and continued with numbers to 10. As we have shown on Tapestry, the sounds we have looked at this week have been c, k and ck. The children are making great progress with their sounds. Well done! Please continue to use the Oxford Owl online books to recap the sounds and more importantly to practise blending.

A few things:

Thank you for your engagement with Tapestry. It is great to see comments and some of you posting activities you have done at home so we can talk about these with your child at school. Please can you ensure that you do not take any screen shots of Tapestry and share on any form of social media. 

Show and Tell next week

We will continue with our favourite books in Show and Tell and the children can use their Home Journals brought in last week.   

Monday – Arthur, Barnaby, Ben

Tuesday – Coco, Daniil, Edie

Wednesday - Emilia, Esme, Evelyn

Thursday – Evie, Flora, Harry

Friday – Haydn, Ines, James

Speech Link Assessment

Next week as part of our support for the development of Speech and Language, Mrs Durrant will be completing some routine screening of the children's speech sounds. She will feedback to parents where appropriate. Further screening of children's understanding of language will be undertaken in January. 

Now it is coat weather, please could you practise with your child putting their school coat on as many of the class are still unable to do this independently. Zips are hard and we will help with these but please practise these too. Thanks!

There have been several toileting accidents at school this week. Please ensure that your child has a change of underwear, trousers (for boys) and socks/tights in the front of their school bags at all times. If they could be in a small plastic bag that would help too. Even if your child has never had an accident before, they can get carried away with all the fun at school and get caught short!

Congratulations to Reception for being joint winners of the Raisin challenge! We are very proud of you. Great effort. As a reward they had extra play time today!

Have a super weekend

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Friday 15th October

Well we've made it to the end of term, more or less in one piece! It's hard to believe that the children have only been in school for one term. They have settled in so well, taken many different experiences in their stride, have become increasingly independent and have been an absolute pleasure to get to know them. They are no doubt very tired so we hope you all have a very relaxing half term and some quality time together!

Week ending 8th October

Dear parents,

We have had a busy week with the wonderful Harvest service on Wednesday, PE, Forest school and starting our phonics teaching. The children have done brilliantly with the start of the phonics. As you have seen on Tapestry we have done S, A, T, P and I this week. These letters allow for some early blending of words such as s - a - t (sat) and t - i - p (tip). Please do practise these sounds at home and look out for them in books. It is important that they can hear the initial sound, so if you say pat - can they hear the 'p.' The sounds are spoken like this:

s as in snake

a as in apple

t as in top

p as in pig

i as in insect

We have been working on composition of numbers to 5 in maths and continued with 2D shapes, doing some fun, colourful Potato Printing (which worked nicely on the day we did the P sound!)

Mrs Cheshire has introduced the Dough Disco which will happen on her days. It is a fun way to develop the gross and fine motor skills which are so important in early writing. More information will follow on Tapestry. Please do keep an eye on Tapestry so you can see what we have been up to. 

Today we went over the the Church for the whole school Act of Worship. The children sat so well. We awarded our first Stars of the Week and Headteacher awards. These are given out every week to children who have done something really super at school. This week well done to Esme, Haydn and Harry! 

Show and Tell next week

Week beginning Monday 11th October

Monday – Arthur, Barnaby, Ben

Tuesday – Coco, Daniil, Edie

Wednesday - Emilia, Esme, Evelyn

Thursday – Evie, Flora, Harry

Friday – Haydn, Ines, James

Have a great weekend. 1 more week to go! Well done everyone.

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Week ending 1st October

Firstly well done to the children for getting to the end of their first full week of full days! They were certainly very tired by the end of today but all did so well. We are very proud of them. This week we have been learning about Emergency Vehicles and the Emergency services which the children have enjoyed. We also started to look at 2D shapes including circle, square, triangle and rectangle. We talked about corners and sides. Please do practise this with the children at home, maybe have a look around the house for these shapes. They are also continuing with numbers to 10. 

The children coped really well with their first PE lesson and Forest School and school lunches continue to be a success. If you are able to, please practise cutting up food with a knife and fork at home which will help them with the hot meals. We do help them when needed but it's great if they can have a go.

Thank you to those who have activated their Tapestry accounts and who have logged in to see the pictures and observations that have been uploaded. If you have not done so please do as it is a great way to find out what we have been up to in class and if you look at it with your child they should be able to tell you about what they have done.

Please do feel free to add comments and your own uploads which we can then talk about with the children in class if they want.

Please ensure that any wellies, clothes, coats brought in for Forest School are named.

Well done to those who did Show and Tell. They all spoke confidently in front of the class and the children enjoyed listening. For this week show and tell is:

Week beginning Monday 4th October

Monday – Jonnie, Joseph, Joshua

Tuesday – Leo, Leah, Lilly

Wednesday - Maggie, Marina, Monty

Thursday – Ollie, Poppy, Shiloh

Friday – Sidney, Tobin, William

Have a lovely weekend

Mrs Cheshire and Mrs Edwards

Week ending 24th September 2021

Dear Parents,

This week we have continued settling into school and have enjoyed seeing old friends and making new ones. In maths we have been working on counting to 10, ordering numbers and counting objects carefully. If you get the opportunity over the weekend perhaps you could count conkers, lego bricks, teddies. We talked about lining up the objects and touching each one as you say the number name and not rushing. We have also been comparing the difference in sizes of our hands and feet and have been thinking about what makes a good friend. In addition, we have been practising our harvest song and have had our first French lesson with Mrs Glover. A busy week!

School lunches have been going well and the children have settled into the new routine happily.  By now, you should have received a notification email from Tapestry - online learning journal. If you have any problems with this please let us know. We are new to it too but hopefully all will go well and it will a valuable resource in recording your child's learning at school and home.  

Next week we start PE and Forest School.

PE with Mrs Major (and Mrs Edwards) is timetabled for Monday afternoons so all PE kits need to be in on Monday. The children will come home in their PE kits and these need to be returned by the following Monday. Please make sure absolutely everything is labelled and your child always has PE socks in their PE bag. We will of course help them to get changed but look forward to the day when they all become more independent!

Forest School with Mrs Woodhouse (and Mrs McCoy) is on a Tuesday afternoon and information relating to what is required can be found on the school website. 

Next week we will also introduce Show and Tell. As it can be quite time consuming to let all children have a turn every week we have set up a timetable with allocated days. For the next fortnight these are as follows:

Week beginning Monday 27th September

Monday – Arthur, Barnaby, Ben

Tuesday – Coco, Daniil, Edie

Wednesday - Emilia, Esme, Evelyn

Thursday – Evie, Flora, Harry

Friday – Haydn, Ines, James

Week beginning Monday 4th October

Monday – Jonnie, Joseph, Joshua

Tuesday – Leo, Leah, Lilly

Wednesday - Maggie, Marina, Monty

Thursday – Ollie, Poppy, Shiloh

Friday – Sidney, Tobin, William

The children might want to tell us about something interesting they have done at home, or something they are proud of, or perhaps show something they have found on a walk. Sometimes we will ask them to find out something related to our current topic or learning and this would be noted on our class website on Friday afternoons.

Please make sure all snacks and water bottles are always labelled and snacks are healthy (no biscuits or crisps). Please return reading book and yellow diaries by Monday. 

Thank you and have a lovely weekend

Mrs Edwards & Mrs Cheshire

17th September 2021

Well, we've come to the end of having half the children in for morning and afternoon sessions and are looking forward to seeing the whole class in together on Monday morning and staying for lunch. Please check the menu on the school website if you wish to talk  with your child about what is available each day. 

We've had another lovely week in class. We've continued getting to know each other and the YR area and resources and this week went on a tour of the school and ended up playing on the adventure playground. We also went to look at the village hall where we will be having lunch and met some of the lunchtime staff. We have also been talking about our families and who lives with us at home. 

On Thursday the school celebrated Roald Dahl Day and in YR we had a really fun day based on his book “The Enormous Crocodile.” Mrs Cheshire dressed up as the nasty crocodile much to the amusement of the class! The children made crocodiles, had jungle themed puzzles, colouring, stories and wild animals in the tuff tray. Some children even did a puppet show with the characters from the story. We also learnt a song about the crocodile’s disguises. We all agreed that he was a very mean crocodile but thought we wouldn’t have been tricked by him!

We hope you all have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing everyone in school next week (please refer to yesterday's email for drop off and pick up arrangements). 

Kind Regards,

Mrs Edwards and Mrs Cheshire

10th September 2021

Dear All,

It has been lovely to welcome you and your children to our school this week. The children have settled in really well and it's been great to see so many smiling faces as they come in to school and skip out again. They have shown a good deal of resilience in dealing with a slightly unexpected week. We have spent our time getting to know each other, the classroom, resources, outdoor area and some of the new routines. 

Thank you for making sure everything is named - it makes snack time a lot easier. Please put sun cream on your child if it's going to be warm and make sure they have a named school cap in their bags.

Over the weekend, if you haven't already done so, please could you and your child complete the All About Me sheet that came with your welcome pack and bring it in to school. It is attached as a pdf if you have mislaid it. 

We have also attached a letter outlining the EYFS curriculum and a link to a  document explaining the Reception Baseline Assessment which we have to complete over the next few weeks. 

PE kits need to be in by Monday 27th September at the very latest. 

Wishing you a relaxing weekend. 

Mrs Edwards and Mrs Cheshire.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1004560/2021_Information_for_parents_reception_baseline_assessment.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2N7NSOPKF3Ubtx6sm42DURpgD7fmdqIhECoxVmjlacfECcvM1jFdtSGIk

21st July 2021

Dear Parents, Carers and Children,

Well, what a year! Now we've come to the end of YR it feels like it has flown by. Your children have been an absolute pleasure to get to know and to have in our class. They have coped with an awful lot in their first year of school and have always done it with great resilience and big smiles. We wish them all the very best as they move into year 1 and we look forward to seeing them around school.

Thank you very much for all our lovely presents and cards. We love reading the messages and are all delighted with the gifts - we're all looking forward to a glass of wine this afternoon. We hope you have a lovely summer and look forward to seeing you in September. 

With our very best wishes from everyone in YR.

2.7.21

Dear Parents,

This week we have been finishing off our "Big Wide World Topic". Thank you for all the postcards that have been sent into our class over the last few weeks - it's been lovely finding out where different family and friends live or visit. 

We have also spent time recapping Phase 4 phonics and practising independent writing. The children are really doing well.  In maths we have recapped halving and have been improving our recognition of numbers to 20. We have also been keeping fit with an obstacle course (weather permitting!) as well as seeing how far we can jump. We have been thinking about how to stay safe when crossing the road. Ask your child what they need to remember when crossing a road. 

The children were so excited to read to their buddy for the first time, outside as the weather allowed us to. Both classes were very excited. 

Next week we will start a mini topic "Moving On". This topic celebrates the children’s successes throughout their Reception year. It explores how they have grown and changed and supports them with the changes to come as they move into Year 1. It's hard to believe we have nearly come to the end of our year in Reception and the children have been spending a little bit of time in  class 1, getting to know the layout of the room. 

As it is Sports Day next Tuesday please send in your child wearing their PE kit / house T shirt on Tuesday and then bring in PE bags on Wednesday. Please check that PE trainers still fit and fasten. 

Have a lovely weekend.

Regards

Mrs Clare and Mrs Edwards

Dear Parents,

This week the children have enjoyed stories about different countries and their famous buildings, linked to our topic, Big Wide World. In groups children have used construction to build their own buildings including towers and domes. 

In maths, we have recapped 2D shapes and used them to create different types of transport. 

The children have enjoyed looking at aboriginal paintings and have created their own. 

This weekend, ask you child/ren to choose their favourite building from any country and draw it in their journals. 

Have a super weekend.

Regards

Mrs Clare and Mrs Edwards.

18.6.21

This week as part of our Big Wide World topic we have been learning about how people live in different parts of the world. We have listened to stories from different countries, learnt an Italian board game called Mulinello Quadrupio, practised an African dance, tried food from other countries, spoken to relatives of one of the children who live in Australia and learnt a song that teaches us how to say hello in a number of different languages . See the following link if you would like to try this at home (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqAuoeAakbY)

Next Monday we are fortunate enough to be taking part in an African drumming workshop and are very much looking forward to this!

In phonics we have been putting our writing into practise and have also been learning the following tricky words:

All, are, they, said, have, like, so, do, some, come, were, there, little, one, when, out, what.

In maths we have been recapping number bonds to 10 (2+8, 3+7 etc) and sharing objects into equal groups. Please keep practising the number bonds to 10 as the children should have good recall of these facts. We have also been learning about volume and capacity, using the words full and half full.

In RE we have continued to learn about different faiths and this week have been learning about the Sikh faith. We listened to the story of the Milk and the Jasmine flower and thought about how we can be kind to one another in our everyday lives. 

Last week the children wrote about a place they would like to visit or have visited. This week, ask your child/ren to write a list of things they will need to take on their trip to their chosen place, eg binoculars, shorts, T-shirt, swimming costume, snorkel etc and draw a picture of the wildlife they might like to see.

Have a good weekend

Mrs Clare, Mrs Edwards and the Year R team

Welcome back to term 6.

This week as part of our Big Wide World topic we have been looking at maps and globes and thinking about where we live and where we might like to live (for some reason the Sahara Desert is quite a popular choice!).

In phonics were are continuing with Phase 4 of letters and sounds and have been practising writing and reading two syllable words such as sandwich, lunchbox, shampoo. The children's independent writing is really coming along and we are delighted with the high standard of work they are producing.

In maths we have been practising subtraction by playing games and supporting this with 10s frames, number lines and writing subtraction number sentences. We have also been enjoying investigating volume and capacity with water. 

In RE we have continued to learn about different faiths and this week have been learning about the Muslim faith and we read the Islamic story of the Prophet and the Ants and thought about how we can look after different animals and minibeasts. 

In the journals this week can the children write one or two sentences, giving a little information about a country or place they would like to visit, or have visited. It could be somewhere in the UK or abroad. Please let them sound out words themselves. Just remind them to use a capital letter at the beginning and a full stop at the end. Eg, I went to London and went on the London Eye. I could see all the buildings for miles!

Please could you ensure that your child has a Chiddingstone School sun hat in their bags every day and comes to school with sun cream already applied. 

Have a great weekend

Mrs Clare and Mrs Edwards.

21.5.21

Dear Parents,