Friendship Week: All this week. Wear Odd Socks on Monday 15th November

Children in Need Day: Friday 19th November .Wear spots/Dots/Own clothes  and bring in a donation of at least £1

Noticeboard

• Thank you for all attending our parent evenings last week.
• As it shows above, Monday this week kicks off our Friendship Week with an odd socks day. More information has already been sent out.
• On Friday of this week it is Children in Need Day. You can dress up with stripes and/or spots or just wear some of your favourite clothes. We ask that you bring in at least £1 as a donation for this very important cause.
• As long as it isn’t raining, we will do a ‘Monday Mile’ around the Junior playing field. Please send your child in with a pair of named wellies on Mondays as the grass is usually wet at this time of year.
• This term, we are inviting parents to contribute to their child’s learning diary. Each week, we will request an observation. Please read the weekly learning (scroll down) to find out which area of learning we would like you to contribute to this week. Click here to see the Parents Guide from Evidence Me. 
• Please click here to see the ‘Follow up from the Reception Curriculum evening’ blog post.
• Art competition – This year the RWA (Royal West of England Academy) are inviting pupils to submit a Christmas card design. The winning design will be chosen by a panel of RWA staff and Academicians, then printed and sent out as the RWA Christmas card. The winner will also get a pack of the cards they designed. To enter children should send an image of their artwork to learning@rwa.org.uk and include their name and age. The deadline for submissions is midnight 28th November 2021.
• When using the Bug Club books, please remember to click the ‘X’ to close the book when your child has read it, otherwise teachers cannot see that it has been read.
• Please remember to read the phonetically decodable reading book with your child everyday. Reading the same book daily for several days helps to develop fluency and embed phonic knowledge and skills. Please write a positive comment about your child’s reading in their log book everyday. You can click here to access the blog post about reading at Henleaze Infant School and click here to view some of the FAQ’s. Please remember to return your child’s books every Monday as they will swap them for new ones on Mondays. 

Celebrations

The children loved meeting Rachel McCoubrie who is the author of the children’s book ‘The Great Alien Cake Off’. Rachel read the story to the children and answered the questions they had. Following on from this, the children acted out the story and explored using ‘alien’ slime on the patio. Please contact Rachel McCoubrie for any further orders via Instagram: @rachelmccoubrieauthor (click here).

A huge thanks to FHIS for purchasing one copy of The Great Alien Cake Off for each year group enabling all the children to access the story after the visit.

Each class has created a collaborative piece of artwork inspired by fireworks. First, they printed fireworks onto black paper. Then, using shapes, the children each created a rocket. As they made the rockets, the children talked about the shapes they were using. We encouraged the children to talk about the properties of the shapes using the vocabulary ‘curved side’ and ‘straight side’.

Alongside all of this fun, the children continued to learn about the ELLI tortoise and they used the ‘Word of the Week’ to describe the associated learning behaviour; perseverance. The children also ran their first ‘Monday Mile’ and enjoyed engaging with ‘Disco Dough’ to support their fine motor skills. What a busy week!

Star of the week

Class 1 – Jack

Class 2 – Ayaan

Class 3  – Anna

Learning diary contribution – Physical Development

Please take a photo of your child doing something where they are using their gross motor skills and submit it as an observation on Evidence Me.

This could include:

• Playing an active game, such as jumping rope, hopscotch, tag, and hide-and-seek
• Riding a bike
• Playing in the park (e.g. going down slides, climbing ladders, or playing on a swing)
• Jumping, hopping, running
• Playing with a ball to toss, catch and kick
• Swimming
• Making up and taking part in an obstacle course
• Dancing

Click here to see the Parents Guide from Evidence Me.

Learning in Week 3

If you are self isolating, please click here to view this weeks plans.

This week, we will be learning about another ELLI animal, the cat. The cat is curious and asks lots of questions. We will use the story ‘Nothing’ by Mick Inkpen to introduce the cat to the children.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

This week is a whole school Friendship week, and we will be doing activities to learn about what makes a good friend.

Communication and Language

We will be encouraging the children to act out the story ‘Nothing’ and use vocabulary learnt in the book. Each week, we will have a word of the week to learn about. This week’s word is ‘friendship’.

Word of the week: friendship

Physical Development

This week, the children will continue to focus on their dynamic balance and agility. They will be perfecting their jumping and landing skills during their PE lesson, as well as taking part in Write Dance, Monday Mile and Friday Fitness.

Please take a photo of your child doing something where they are using their gross motor skills and submit it as an observation on Evidence Me (see Learning Diary Contribution section above for some ideas).  Click here to see the Parents Guide from Evidence Me. 

Literacy

This week we will be starting Phase 3, we will be teaching another 25 graphemes in this phase, most of them comprising of two letters (e.g. oa). This week we are learning the new phonemes j, v, w, x. We will also be learning the new Common Exception Word ‘me’. 

Please support your child at home to practise the letter formation of s, a, t, p, i, n, m, d, g, o, c, k, e, u, r, h, b, f, l  j, v, w, x. Click here to see the correct formation of the letters.

This week we will continue to read with your child 1:1 and in small group read sessions. Please continue to read with your child every day to improve their fluency with a text and don’t forget to record this in your child’s yellow reading record. 

Please note: We will be continuing to change books once a week but please bring your child’s book and bag everyday for 1:1 reading sessions.

You can click here to access the blog post about reading at Henleaze Infant School and click here to view some of the FAQ’s. 

Writing:

This week we will be asking children to write the sentence ‘The cat sat on the mat’. We will be encouraging them to think about what is a word, how we separate each word (finger spaces) and sounding out each word in the sentence and recording. 

Mathematics

In Maths this week, we will be learning about spatial awareness and positional language. The children will hear and begin to use positional language to describe how items are positioned in relation to other items.  Alongside this, we will be continuing to compare numbers 1, 2 and 3 using the language ‘more’, ‘less’ and ‘fewer’. The children will use their Mathematical Graphics books for the first time. They will choose a number (1, 2 or 3) and represent in their own ways.

Understanding the World

As we are learning about the ELLI cat this week, the children will be learning facts about cats. They will be looking closely at photographs of cats and doing observational drawings too, as well as continuing to learn about each other through the All About Me box.

Religion and Worldviews

This week, we will be learning about the Jewish festival of Hanukkah which takes place later in November.

Expressive Arts and Design

This week our key text is ‘Nothing’. We will be looking at pictures of different cats and making observational paintings. We will also begin to learn our Christmas songs for our Nativity.