Dear Parents,

The children have had a great week exploring Autumn and celebrating ‘Just One Tree Day‘. Thank you to all who assisted your child/children in participating in last week’s challenge to go on an Autumnal walk and for all the lovely pictures and nature “treasure” you found. We have been outside gathering MORE items for painting, printing and crafting- we love Autumn! We have been exploring printing with different textures (eg. bubble wrap and cotton wool) and mixing autumnal colours to create different effects.

In Literacy, our focus book has been ‘The Oak Tree’ by Julia Donaldson and the children have been great at remembering other books by the same author. The book has been a great discussion point for exploring history and understanding the life cycle of a tree. We have explored this more with the book ‘Little Acorn’ and discussed words like ‘sapling’ and ‘deciduous’. Other words we have learnt from The Oak Tree have been ‘stealthy’ to describe the squirrels gathering acorns; ‘ancient’ and ‘history’ looking at periods from the past; ‘considerate’- being respectful to nature. The children really enjoyed their Autumnal walk and we used our senses to explore our surroundings in preparation for a writing task next week, the best bit was going to the playpark (on a school day? So fun!).

In Maths , we have continued looking at teen numbers, counting to 20, making numbers using links and starting to subitise by recognising the pattern of number and matching to the correct numeral.

In Phonics our key sounds have been – r, j, v and y- please do take a look at this handy video for letter formation rhymes.

We will be continuing with Autumn next week and revising a tree’s life cycle; comparing it to other trees as well as looking at seasons and how our clothing changes as the weather gets colder and nights get longer.

Challenge: This week we have enjoyed finding leaves and trying to identify them. We have done leaf rubbing and looked up various trees. In order to enhance this further, this week’s challenge is to identify as many leaves as possible on your weekend stroll using this chart or create a chart or your own to bring into school and use with your friends.

Reminders:

OPEN CLASSROOM AFTERNOON – 23^rd October at 3:15pm. Please do come in and have a look around the classroom. This will be a chance to look at the displays of children’s work, try out some of our resources and chat to your child. Please note, this is an informal chance to see classes, if you require a meeting with the teacher please arrange a separate appointment or there will be a chance to discuss progress in the upcoming Parent-Teacher consultations.

24th October– School Disco. £3 including a snack and a drink. This is always a fun event, but can be quite overwhelming for our little ones. If your child dislikes loud noises, crowds or can be quite anxious- please could you chaperone your child to the event or only bring them for a short time. We would like to make the event as positive as possible for all involved.

Open Morning for September intake: 24th October @9:30 am Please let anyone know who may be thinking about schools for next year.

7th November (morning) – walk around the village.  If you are available to help with this, please talk to the Kites staff on pick-up or email the office.

We hope you have a great weekend and we look forward to enjoying our last week of term with your lovely lot.

The Kites Team.