Dear Parents,

Happy half term! I am sorry that this post did not make it to you sooner…for some reason it was left unpublished last Friday.

What a fantastic end to a very busy first term. We end this term feeling very proud of how the children have settled into their new classroom, making new friends and learning new routines. There are many highlights of this term: our fantastic fundraising efforts, our singing performance during harvest assembly, our amazing scarecrow creation(which you can find outside the library), and our exploration of Diwali – we have learnt so much!

I hope you now have access to Evidence Me, the app where we share the children’s ‘wow’ moments during their week in Kites. We hope that you enjoy looking at this, and maybe sharing some of the photos and discussing with your children their learning at school. We know that sometimes your children are not able to share much with you about what they have done in the day, so hopefully Evidence Me will help increase the discussion about learning.

This week in phonics, we have learnt the sounds

y sound

w sound

v sound

j sound

It has been fantastic to see how the children have remembered all the sounds we have learnt this term. Next term, we will start by focusing on the sound digraphs: sh, th, c,h and qu. These are called ‘special friends’ as they are 2 letters together which make one sound. The children will have come home last Friday with part of the set 1 sounds. We hope that you will be able to have a look at these over half term with them and they can show you what they know!

In maths, we have been focusing on shape and pattern. The children started by identifying a range of 2d shapes, sorting them into what we know and what we need to find out. We then moved on to looking at pattern, creating patterns with cubes, and Rangoli patterns (linking to our theme of Diwali) using numicon.

We had some special celebrations during the week linked with Diwali. On Monday, during bucket time, we turned all the lights off and lit a candle, and reflected on what we were grateful for and what we were looking forward to in the week. On Tuesday, we created Rangoli patterns using rice, on Wednesday, we started to make our diva pots, another tradition for Diwali, on Thursday we did some scarf dancing in PE and on Friday we ended with a musical stick workshop. It has been amazing!

After half term we will be looking at bonfire night and fire safety. We will continue to look at light and dark, making dark dens with torches, and hopefully, the sun might shine a little so we are able to draw our shadows! For show and tell, we would love the children to bring in a picture of a family celebration that is important to them. This could be a birthday, Christmas, Diwali, a firework display, or any other celebration they have enjoyed as a family.

Your questions answered

How do we join clubs at school?

There are some clubs that run after school weekly, which are available for Kites to join. You are able to join clubs by booking onto them on part of MCAS. This is also how you might pay for clubs if there is a cost. If you have any queries about this, Miss Honor, in the school office, is always more than happy to help.

This half term’s top tips!

Rest! -half term can be a fantastic opportunity to do lots of activities with your children. Whether at home or out and about, it is really important that they have some time to rest and recharge. After the first term at school, your children may need an opportunity for some downtime so that they are able to fuel their batteries as we head into next term. This could look like: visiting the library and taking some books home, getting creative – spending an afternoon doing a craft together or maybe a jigsaw puzzle, or going for a bike ride or a walk outdoors.

We are looking for….

Next term, we are going to be creating a dressing-up area! We have some wonderful resources already, but we are looking to embellish what we have. If you happen to have any spare/unwanted; ties, belts, hats (not wooly hats), scarves, sunglasses, jewelry at home, we can make use of it next term and beyond! Thank you.

Reminders

Monday 3rd November – Back to school

Monday 25th November – Christingle

Friday 28th November – Non-uniform day – bring a donation for the Christmas Fair.

Next term we will also have a Nativity performance, which will be on the afternoon of Tuesday, 16th December. We really hope that you will be able to make it! I will share more detailed information about our Nativity with you at the start of next term.

We hope you have a fantastic half term, and we look forward to welcoming your children back into the classroom on Monday, 3rd November.

The Kites team