Noticeboard

• On Friday 26th November, you should have received an email with information about Christmas events (including the Reception Nativity). 
• Please provide your child with a named bag on Monday 29th December. They will bring their nativity costume home for you to wash. Please return it to school by Friday 3rd December in a named bag. 
• 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. 
• 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.

Celebrations

The children have loved learning about the ELLI Bee and working as a team with their classmates. The children have started to retell the Bee and Me story using the pictures from the story book. They made a collaborative ‘swarm of bees’ piece of artwork to show how they can work together in a team. 

Star of the week

Class 1 – Oliver

Class 2 – Thomas

Class 3  – Tom

Learning diary contribution – Evidence Me

Mathematics – This week, please take a photo of your child identifying shapes in the environment and submit it as an observation on Evidence Me. Ask them to describe the shape (e.g. “It is a rectangle with 4 corners and 4 sides. 2 of the sides are short and 2 of them are long”) and include their ‘voice’ in the comments part of the observation. Click here to see the Parents Guide from Evidence Me.

Learning in Week 5

This week, we will continue to learn about the ELLI Bee, who works in a team. Alongside this, we will also be rehearsing our Nativity performance. 

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

This week, we will be talking about different houses and homes. We will  be looking at pictures of different homes from around the world. 

Communication and Language

This week, the children will be continuing to read the book ‘Bee and Me’. This book has no words, just pictures. Children will be verbally retelling the story using the pictures. 

Word of the week: Subitising. 

Please use the word of the week with your child and talk to them about the meaning. Subitising is instantly recognising the number of objects in a small group, without counting.

Example: When you know there are 5 dots here without counting.

Physical Development

In PE we will be practising jumping and safe landing skills. We will also be exploring static and dynamic balances. In Write Dance, we will be making straight lines and straight sided shapes on the paper as we listen to the music ‘Robot’.

Literacy

This week we are learning the new digraphs ch, sh, th, ng. A digraph is when two letters are combined to make a single sound. We will also be learning the new Common Exception Words ‘he’ and ‘she’. 

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,y ,z, q. Click here to see the correct formation of the letters.

This week we will continue to read with your child either 1:1 or in a small guided reading session. Please continue to read with your child every day to improve their fluency with a text and don’t forget our new ‘Read for the Stars’ reading incentive. Every child should now have a bookmark that is kept in their book bag. Click here to find out more.

Writing – This week we will be writing a shared letter to Santa in class  e.g. To Santa, please can I have… 

Mathematics

This week, we will be learning about time. We will be talking about day and night and put key events from our daily routines in the correct order. Children will be encouraged to use language to describe when events happen using the vocabulary day, night, morning, afternoon, before, after, today and tomorrow. The children will also begin to measure time in simple ways e.g. counting the number of sleeps until the weekend and using sand timers to measure duration of time. Alongside this, we will continue to learn about one more and one less to 5.

Observation request – This week, please take a photo of your child identifying shapes in the environment and submit it as an observation on Evidence Me. Ask them to describe the shape (e.g. “It is a rectangle with 4 corners and 4 sides. 2 of the sides are short and 2 of them are long”) and include their ‘voice’ in the comments part of the observation. Click here to see the Parents Guide from Evidence Me.

Understanding the World

We will be exploring quality texts representing multicultural Christmases. We will be thinking about light and dark and sharing what we know about sources of light.

Religion and Worldviews

This week we will be acting out the Nativity story and using small world figures to re-tell it. We will also be thinking about family celebrations we have and how they make us feel.

Expressive Arts and Design

This week we will be starting our Christmas arts and crafts, starting with designing our Christmas cards. We will also be continuing practice for our Christmas Nativity.