World Book Day
Thursday 3rd March is World Book Day! To celebrate this day which acknowledges the importance of reading for pleasure, we have some exciting events for you to join in with:
- Dress up as your favourite book character!
- Bring in a printed photo of you reading a book that makes you smile (please make sure we can see the cover). If there is special meaning behind your story e.g. a family favourite or one that reminds you of a special time or event, please feel free to bring in a short explanation to share.
New topic!
In Term 4, our topic is going to be ‘Places that are different from where I live’. You can find out more information about what we will be learning on our Curriculum Maps page (click here). We are going to spend the first three weeks learning about places that are cold and the final three weeks learning about places that are hot.
Term 4 dates
- Friday 4th March – Open Morning/Afternoon. If your child is in Class 1 or 3, please come to look at their books on the patio between 2:50pm and 3:20pm. If your child is in Class 2, please come between 9:00am and 9:30am. You will also be invited to look around the classroom in small groups.
- Tuesday 8th and Wednesday 9th March – Parents evenings. You will receive information about this via email soon.
- Thursday 31st March – We will be going on a school trip to Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm. Again, you will receive information about this via email soon.
Noticeboard
- Every child needs to bring their book, book bag and reading record into school everyday.
- Please do not allow your child to play with the resources on the patio before school (including the mountain and the bikes/scooters). Please pass this on to your any adults who bring your child to school.
- Phonics and letter formation – We are really pleased to be able to share this document with you (click here). The document shows you the Phase 2 phonemes with a description of the corresponding action, the correct letter formation and the image children will associate with the phoneme. The children have been learning these phonemes in their Phonics lessons, so should already be familiar with them. Please use this document to support your child’s letter formation and use the ‘script’ that we use in school to ensure consistency.
- 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
We have had a wonderful final week of Term 3. The children have loved exploring the composition to 10 and writing sentences to describe Zog.
In DT this week, the children designed and built a part of the school. They worked in teams like the ELLI Bee to make a collaborative model.
We were also very lucky to have a dentist come in to talk to us about how to keep our teeth healthy. She showed us how to brush our teeth and talked about foods and drinks that are good and bad for our teeth. The dentist very kindly also gave every child a toothbrush, toothpaste and 2 minute timer to use at home.
Evidence Me – Observation Request
Over half term, we would like the children to design and build a boat to sail to a cold palace for our new topic (e.g. Antarctica). Please encourage your child to design the boat and support them to choose what materials they are going to use (junk modeling, Lego, wooden bricks etc.). Please submit this as an observation on Evidence Me.
Please click here to view the Evidence Me parents guide.
Week 1
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Our new Jigsaw theme this term is “Healthy Me”. This week, we will be thinking about how we keep healthy by being active and doing exercise.
Communication and Language
This week, we will be reading and talking about our new non-fiction key text; Emperor’s Egg. There is lots of new and interesting vocabulary in the book (e.g. waddle, emperor, hatch, huddle, trundles, horizon). We will be learning the meaning of words and using them in our sentences when we are playing. Each class will have a new role play areas for the children to explore too.
Word of the week: Emperor
Physical Development
This week in PE we are going to be starting our ‘Real Gym’ units of work. We will be learning the straddle, pike, tuck and star shapes that we can make with our bodies. We will be looking at some of the Winter Olympics.
Literacy
This term please continue to use the phonics grid with your child to practice all the phonemes we have learnt so far. We suggest doing this alongside their daily reading. If your child has misplaced the grid, click here to access it.
This week we will be mastering previously learnt phonemes from phase 3. This week we will be focusing on ai, ee, igh , oa.
Please support your child at home to practise their letter formation. Click here to see the correct letter formation and ‘script’ we use in school to support children to form their letters. This will ensure consistency between home and school.
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. Ask your child questions about the characters, what they think might happen next and discuss/ explain what they think is happening in the pictures.
Writing –This week is World Book Day on Thursday 3rd of March. We will be learning about what this means and sharing a photo of ourselves with our favourite book. Please could you send a picture of your child with their favourite book to school or through the class email address. We will then be writing about our favourite book and why we like it e.g.In the Gruffalo, I like it when..
Maths
This week, we will continue to learn about and compare numbers to 10. The children will be making comparisons by lining up items with 1-1 correspondence to compare them directly or by counting each set carefully and comparing their position in the counting order. As the children’s sense of number develops, so will their knowledge of where each number sits in relation to other numbers. They will start to understand that when making comparisons, a set can have more items, fewer items or the same number of items as another set.
Understanding the World
We are going to be exploring melting ice over the next few weeks. This week we will be linking Polar Bear lives with ice. We are also going to have two police officers in school to talk to us about their jobs on Tuesday morning. We will even get a chance to look around a police car in our classes.
Religion and Worldviews
We continue our Big Question “Why are some times special?” by learning about Pancake Day and Mardi Gras celebrations.
Expressive Arts and Design
This week we will be learning to play rhythms accurately as a group and rehearse in a group, based on the book ‘Handa’s Surprise’. Our Dance this week will be from BBC let’s move ‘Is there room on the broom’.