Mrs White came into school last Thursday and took some groups of children bird watching in the paddock. They were excited to see a good range of birds, including – Pigeons, Gulls, Chaffinches, Blue Tits, Robins, Red Kites and even a Green Woodpecker. Mrs White has kindly offered to continue with this so that all of the children will benefit from this opportunity.

  This week the children will be trying out their story writing skills independently, now that we have done all of the preparatory work together.

  Calculation and problem solving is the focus of this week’s maths.

 Please can you make sure that your child has their water bottle in school every day. When they don’t have easy access to drinks, children become listless and often develop headaches and it is so much better if they have their own water bottle to hand rather than asking adults to provide them with a drink.

 Having done some lovely creative work for Goldilocks and the Three Bears which the children really enjoyed, we are now going to spend the next two weeks looking at the plot and characters for the Three Little Pigs. At the end of this unit the children will be having a go at writing the story independently once they have all of the tools that they need to do this.

     The week’s Maths revisits finding pairs of numbers which have a total of ten, finding the difference between two numbers and doubling. There are lots of opportunities for you to help your child with the number pairs and doubles by asking them to tell you what these are. This can be done in the morning, at bedtime, in the bath, in the car, while you are washing up – so you don’t actually need to stop what you are doing to talk with and listen to your child.

       We have also been encouraging the children to reflect on being true to themselves and showing honesty in their appraisals of their own abilities. They are really beginning to see what they can do well and where they need to improve which is a vey important tool for learning.

   Please make sure that you send P.E. kit into school on Mondays so that the children are prepared for their lessons. We will send it home on Thursdays. It really unsettles children when they do not have the necessary equipment in school and takes up good learning time while an adult goes in search of spare equipment for them.

  Thank you for helping your children with their spelling book activities, they have all made a good job of the handwriting and had remembered the words when we checked them informally on Wednesday morning.

         We hope you all had a lovely Christmas. Thank you once more for all of the cards and gifts; they were much appreciated by all of us.

  The children have set their school targets for this term and they have their own very clear ideas of what they want to achieve.

     During the next few weeks we will be looking at familiar stories – Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Three Little Pigs – so that we can think about the structure of a story and build the elements from which they are composed through drama and art. Then we will be working towards writing our own versions.

   This week we have been improving our calculation skills and looking at place value. During the next couple of weeks we will continue with this as well as working with pattern and 3D shape.

      Mr Hirst has signed up the school for the R.S.P.B. Big Bird Watch which begins on Monday and continues until the end of January. If anyone would like to come and do a bit of bird watching with small groups of children (it need only be for a short time) then we would be pleased to see you.

We have enjoyed finding out about how Christmas was celebrated by the Victorians and had a very interesting time at Reading Museum today.

The children found out how Victorian homes were decorated and what would be placed on the tree. It was interesting to see what was to be found in a child’s Christmas stocking.

We ceremoniously stirred the pudding, played Victorian games, made Christmas cards and acted out a pantomime. Do you recognise some of the characters in the photos?

The children have also been excited by the party games which they played in the classroom this week and have decided that their favourites were – pass the smile and my uncle does not like peas. Find out more by looking at these games on the Victora and Albert Museum website – www.vam.ac.uk

We look forward to seeing you at the performances of our play on Tuesday 13th December at 1.30p.m. or Wednesday 14th December at 9.30a.m.

Kites thank you

We had a lovely Christingle celebration in the hall today. Mr Marples accompanied our singing with his lovely flute playing and Father Graham spoke about the meaning of Christingle.

Mr Hirst emphasised the importance of thinking about the needs of others and reminded the children about those random acts of kindness which mean so much. It would be lovely if your child could do a small kind act for someone during the Christmas period.

Next week Year One will be finding out about how the Victorians celebrated Christmas and this will culminate in our visit to Reading Museum on Thursday for the Victorian Christmas workshop. Please return the permission slip to your child’s teacher if you have not already done so.

For our maths we will be fine tuning our addition and subtraction skills which will include money; talking about how we can work out a problem and reflecting on what we have understood and what we still need to practice.

There will also be the small matter of cards, cakes and calendars to make.

We look forward to seeing you at our Christmas play on either Tuesday 13th December at 1.30p.m. or Wednesday 14th December at 9.30a.m.

Click here to download the Top Tips document.

Our scientists have done some brilliant investigating. We hope you will look at our big books when you come for the next open classroom session. Watch out for photos in the gallery.

This week we will be preparing to celebrate Christingle as well as finding out about other Light Festivals, including Hannukkah and Divali.

For our maths learning this week we focus on counting in twos and tens and looking at the pattern of odd and even numbers.

Rehearsals for the Christmas play are in full flow. The children are enthusiastic and so they are learning the songs very quickly.If you have not had a note about providing clothes for the play please speak to your child’s class teacher.

Click here to download the slides from the recent KS1 Literacy workshop for parents.

During the next two weeks we will be enabling the children to use their investigative skills, trying out a range of experiments and activities which will enhance their knowledge about light and the senses. The aim is to encourage them to think and speak about what they already know, what they would like to find out and what they have discovered. We will be completing a big science book to show off what we have achieved.

Maths this week is about collecting and sorting information, counting reliably in ones to and back from at least one hundred. Some children are fine until they get to the something nine part each time and then they get stuck on what we call the next ten (e.g. thirty nine …..?). Feel free to practice this at home. We will also be counting back in ones from one hundred and, additionally, solving problems by using, for example, the least amount of coins to make a given total.

As far as we know swimming should start this week with Mrs Pound’s class.

We  look forward to seeing you at the Literacy workshop on Monday afternoon.