Dear Parents,

We have started out countdown to Christmas! We have been learning all about Advent and what it means and designing our own Advent calenders. We have been reading The Story of the Kindness Elves. After reading the story, we discussed different ways we can show kindness during the Christmas period. We also had a mysterious letter from a Kindness Elf! They seemed to have got lost in the village on their way to visiting us and so we wrote a letter back to The Kindness Elf to help them find their way to Kites, we drew them a map and used our positional language skills to describe the route to Kites.

We have been practising our cutting skills to create paper snowflakes, decorating tree ornaments, sorting clothes into when you would wear them in different seasons, spotting signs of winter, creating homes for hibernating animals, telling stories using the Arctic small world animals and writing letters to Santa and our family, we wrote letters, put them inside envelopes, wrote their name and address and stuck stamps on to be sent to the person. We really enjoyed this and loved writing lists and kind messages to different people.

In cooking, we made gingerbread men and then wrote recipes, we wrote down the ingredients we needed and the method, so that we could make them again at school or so the children can take their recipe home and show their adults how to make them!

In Phonics, we have been reviewing our set 1 sounds u, b, f and e as well as special friends ‘ch, sh and ng’. We have had a go ay practising writing short sentences with our name, such as, I am …..’.

Activities to have a go at:

Word Time reading 1.2

Word Time spelling 1.2

Word Time reading 1.5

Word Time spelling 1.5

Oral blending: Fred’s Toy Box

In Maths, we have been exploring one less than. We have been using number lines again and looking at real life images with numbers in them (such as, road signs and doors) and spotting the number and finding one more and one less than. We also introduced 100 number squares, and had a go at spotting patterns and the different ways we can use them.

In Phonics next week, we will be writing stories using Tales Toolkit, thinking about the characters, the setting, what happened and how did their story end.

Next week in Maths, we will be looking at pattern. We will read Cave baby and explore the different patterns and practise creating and copying their own Christmas patterns.

We will be carrying on looking at Christmas, focusing on Christmas patterns, recognising ‘teen’ numbers, wrapping and weighing presents, writing Christmas cards and lots of other festive activities as well as practising for our Christmas play! The children have been working really hard on their play and are very excited to show you on Thursday the 14th at 2:30pm.

Challenge: Can your child create a Christmas pattern or maybe a Christmas picture with a pattern in, it might be colouring it red, white, red, white…. or they could draw some pictures in a pattern e.g. Santa hat, candy cane, Santa hat, candy cane…

Reminders: 

Books: Today we have put two reading books in their book bag along with a story book. We will then be taking out all the books at the end of next week and not sending any home for over the Christmas break, as we will be sending home Christmas packs for your child to have a go at practising different skills instead.

Kites Christmas Singing: 14th December at 2:30pm. Thank you to those who have bought in outfits!

Christmas Lunch – Wednesday 13th.

Gift Room Thursday 14th – Keep a look out for more details in the newsletter, but all the children get a chance to go to the gift room on the Thursday to buy a gift (for £1-3) for their adult for Christmas.

We hope you have a restful weekend and thank you for all the support you give to us and your children,

The Kites Team