Welcome back!
Happy New Year! We hope you all had a fantastic break. It was lovely to see lots of happy smiling faces on Tuesday morning. This week, we’ve enjoyed sharing our wonderful Christmas memories and being back with our friends.
Literacy
Our focus story was Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers. Throughout the week, we’ve learnt lots of interesting facts about Antarctica. We located it on a map, talked about the equator and found out what animals live there.
Our word of the week was iceberg. Ask your child if they can remember what an iceberg is.
For our writing challenges, we created missing posters and drew pictures of some of the things we would pack if we went on a journey to the South Pole. We used our phonics skills when labelling our pictures.
Yesterday, we worked together to sequence the story and talked about some of the key events.
Maths
This week, we’ve been using our ‘fast eyes’ to subitise (seeing the quantity without counting) more complex arrangements of dots. We took a picture of the arrangements with our eyes, closed our eyes and then explained what we saw. We used spatial language to describe the arrangements. For example, There are 3 dots on the top and 2 dots on the bottom.
Poetry picnic
This week’s poem was called Let’s put on our mittens. We hope you enjoy watching it.
Take a look at some of this week’s winter challenges…
Reminders
- PE is every Monday and Friday. Please make sure your child comes to school wearing the correct clothes. If you are unsure and need a reminder, please see our uniform policy.
- Funky Phonics Stay & Learn – Monday 16 & Tuesday 17 January
A letter will be sent out next week. Due to limited space, only one adult per child can attend this session.
Home-Link Challenge
We are geographers!
This half term, our topic will focus on Geography. Our topic is called ‘The streets around our school’. We will be focusing on the environment we live in, any local issues and finding solutions to issues in our locality.
We are becoming geographers – a type of scientist who studies the Earth. Geographers study the land (the physical features of the Earth) and the people who live within it (the human features).
To kick start the topic, we have been reading the book ‘Here we are’ by Oliver Jeffers. Talk to your child about the important messages in this book.
We looked on Google earth to see where we lived in comparison to the whole Earth. We know that we live in the continent Europe. The country England and the city Leeds. We looked at Moortown Primary School and Moortown park on Google Earth.
Try going on Google Earth at home. Can you find your house and places you like to visit?
Happy and healthy Christmas!
Everyone in the Year One team would like to wish all families and children a very happy and healthy Christmas. Whatever you are getting up to over the break we hope you take time to relax and enjoy the holiday with family and friends.
The children have worked so hard over the past term, which is always a really important one for Year One children, and we are very proud of all their efforts.
We hoped you enjoyed the Wriggly Nativity as much as the adults and children did performing it! We were all superstars!
Thanks again for your support and we will see you all in the new year!
Living and Learning: Mental Health
In a recent Living and Learning session, we learnt all about mental health and we recognised why it is important.
Firstly, we talked about what mental health means. It’s our thoughts and feelings, emotions and how we feel inside.
Next, we chatted about big feelings – ones that could stop us from doing things and small feelings – ones that feel big at the time but go away after time.
After that, we discussed and recorded different self care techniques. We can refer to these when we need to!
Here are some pictures of us during our learning!
The ‘Big Brain’ Art Gallery!
This morning, Year 3 and 4 hosted their first art gallery where they were able to showcase all the amazing art they have produced this half term.
We displayed all the pieces across the two classrooms and gave the children the opportunity to look around and comment on their classmates artwork.
A fantastic end to a fantastic half term!
All of the Year 3/4 team wish you a Merry Christmas and happy and healthy holiday.
See you in the New Year!
Christmas week
What a busy week we’ve had in Reception! We’re so proud of all the Reception children for their FANTASTIC singing and dancing. Thank you to everyone who came to watch Wriggly Nativity. We hope you enjoyed watching it as much as we enjoyed learning the songs.
Literacy
This week, we’ve been learning about The Christmas Story. We used actions to help us remember the story. Click here to us in action.
On Wednesday, we played a true or false game. Read the statements to your child. Can they remember which ones are true?
We also wrote a sentence about a picture from The Christmas Story.
Poetry Picnic
We love learning new poems in Reception! This week, has got to be one of our favourites. Before watching this week’s poem, put the kettle on and make a cup of tea – cheers!
Christmas party
This morning, it was PARTY time! We had lots of fun playing party games and showing off our best dance moves. After all that dancing, we sat down and enjoyed eating some party food with our friends.
PE
Next half-term, PE will be on Monday and Friday. Please make sure your child comes to school wearing their PE kit. If you child has their ears pierced, earrings must be removed before school.
Finally, thank you for your generosity. We hope you have a happy and healthy break. Enjoy spending some quality time with friends and family. Merry Christmas and a happy new year from all of the Reception Team!
We are artists!
This half term, Year 3 have been taking inspiration from our school’s architecture to create some fantastic digital art.
Our final piece of work this half term was to create a collage inspired by our school grounds.
The children really enjoyed being able to creatively position the pictures to create some abstract artwork.
Help at home by creating a similar collage of another building over the holidays!
Have a happy and healthy Christmas break
Well done to the cast of Wriggly Nativity! It was great to welcome you into school to watch our first in person Christmas production for a few years.
We hope you agree that the children did a fantastic job and we are very proud of them all.
Mrs Taylor, Mrs Lake and Mrs Roth would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and we look forward to seeing all the children in 2023!
Living and Learning: mental health
Over the past three weeks, we have been discussing mental health: why it is important and how to look after it. We spoke about mental health being “about our feelings, our thinking, our emotions and our moods – things you can’t see, but affect our lives in lots of ways”.
We talked about how sometimes big emotions (strong emotions that stay for a long time and can stop us from doing what we want to do in our lives) can become very overwhelming but there are strategies to help us. The children talked about taking deep breaths; thinking of happy memories; taking part in something they love or completing a self-care activity.
Help at home: discuss which self-care activities your child might use to help deal with their emotions.
Wriggly Nativity and party dates
As we begin the final week of the autumn term, here are some reminders of events happening this week.
Reception, Y1 & Y2 will present their Christmas production, ‘A Wriggly Nativity’.
There will be two performances:
Tuesday 13 December – 2.15pm – 3.00pm
Wednesday 14 December – 2.15pm – 3.00pm
Please specify which day you would like to attend via school gateway under the payments section.
16 December
Non-uniform day
Reception, Y1 & Y2 Christmas party
