A Trip to the Building Site

You may have noticed they are building some houses near to our school. We got the opportunity to go and have a closer look and to meet some of the builders.

First there was a Workshop session with parents and carers in the Hall. Jordan from Engie came to talk to us and share some information about house building. There was then a special building activity to do with real mini bricks. We had to work together to make a tiny house.

Then we split up into 4 groups with Garnet class and went to see the Building Site. The builders came to meet us at school and brought special hard hats and high vis vests for us to wear just like the real builders. We walked around the edge of the site looking at the houses that were being built. There was lots of discussion about keeping safe near building sites and also why we had the special clothing on to help keep us safe when we visited.

We saw detached houses and semi- detached houses. We loved looking at the big diggers. We saw builders whose job was to put the bricks on the house and other builders who dug the big holes. We found out about the different colour hats that the builders were wearing and lots more.

Can you remember what you found out from the builders? Use these photos to help prompt your memory. 

We followed the visit with some learning about the story of the Three Little Pigs. It was a story the children were familiar with that they mentioned when we were talking about building in our Floor Book session. We even got a letter from the Three Pigs asking for our help to build a strong house after the disaster they had. We tried to build houses in lots of different ways.  We even tested them with the hairdryer pretending to be the Big Bad Wolf!

We have loved learning about houses and how they are built. A huge thank you to everyone at Engie who made it possible and also the parents and carers who came with us so we could take the children on the walks. We couldn’t have done it without you 🙂

What have we been learning? 

• About how to build houses. 
• About what is happening in our school community. 
• About the jobs that builders have to do everyday. 
• About keeping safe on and around building sites. 
• About the houses that we can build linked to a story that we know. 

How can you continue the learning at home? 

• Comment on the building site when you are bringing your child or taking them home from school- what has changed? What are they building now? What do you think will happen next? 
• Talk about the job that builders do and other jobs which the children are interested in. 
• Reinforce comments about the children staying safe and why it is important. 

A Gingerbread Man Hunt

There was a strange message when we came into school the other Friday morning. We weren’t sure who it was from so we decided to follow the clue and see if we could find out more. First stop was the school library. When we got there we found another clue. We all had to do good listening and see if we could finish the rhymes to help Miss Parker work out where to go next.

After a few clues we’d worked out that it was the Gingerbread Man that had left us the clue and we had to be really quiet so we didn’t let him know we were coming. By the time we had finished we’d been all round the school, including the MUGA outside and past all of our older brother and sisters classrooms upstairs, and met lots of important people, like Mr Sieczkarek and Miss French. Following the clues meant we’d been upstairs and downstairs, inside and out. When we got back to “the room that is best”, we found the Gingerbread Man had left us a special treat to say well done.

The following week we did lots of learning about the Gingerbread Man. We checked that everyone knew the story and what happened at the beginning, the middle and the end of.  Some children enjoyed retelling the story in their own words. Some children enjoyed trying to write it on a BIG story map like they’d seen Miss Parker do.

What have we been learning? 

• Where places and people are in our new school. This is particularly important for the children who came to us from different settings. 
• The purpose of reading to find out more and help us solve problems. 
• To remember a familiar story and retell it in a variety of ways. 

How can you continue the learning at home? 

• Retell the story of the Gingerbread Man and other stories your child is familiar with. 
• Ask your child to retell stories in pictures and using words. 
• Point out to your child when you are finding something out by reading or reading for pleasure to help them understand why reading it so important. 

Starting School

September was our settling in month in Onyx Class. It was lovely to see all the children again after the Summer and start to get to know them better as school started. We started off sharing all the children between the two classes and seeing who became friends with who and where children were best suited. This was a really good way of making sure that Onyx and, our FS2 neighbours, Garnet were both the best classes in school and all the children were happy. Some of our Nursery teachers came to say hi and see how we were getting on too.

These photos were taken on our very first days at school. Look at who we have in Onyx Class:

 

We also took first day photos of some of the teachers in Onyx and Garnet classrooms.

We had lots of fun getting to know new friends and remembering old ones. We also all loved exploring both our new classrooms and trying out all the great activities. Those children who had been in Nursery enjoyed getting back outside and seeing what was the same. Everyone made a really great start to school and all the teachers commented on how well and how quickly the children settled in.

 

The children also enjoyed it when we started going for lunch in the big hall. It was exciting but a little bit scary as we’d not done it before. Everyone did great though and all the lunchtime supervisors commented on how impressed they were with the children’s use of cutlery and sitting at the tables. Even Mr Sciezkarek came to see how everyone was getting on. He left very impressed.

Well done everyone on such a great start to school. Don’t forget to keep checking back to see what we’ve been up to.

And don’t forget to let us know what you’ve been doing at home on the class email address. Please ask in class if you’re not sure what it is.

 

 

Welcome to Onyx Class 2017-8

Its hard to believe we’ve been in school since September. Look at our happy faces on our first day

 

We’ve been so busy settling in and learning so much already. You can see what we’ve been learning about in our Floor Book in the classroom. Just ask to see it in the mornings in school.

 

 

 

Themes we’ve already learnt about include the Gingerbread Man, Conkers, Acorns and Leaves and Pumpkins. Ask your child which was their favourite.

Miss Parker, Miss Deakin and all the other teachers already know what a special year we’re going to have and can’t wait to share it with you on our blog. Keep checking back to see what we’ve been up to.

 

Names, names, names…

We have been doing lots of work to practise recognising and writing our names. It is important we can recognise our names because we need to find our name when we’ve had snack and also if we want to play outside.

It is important that we can write our name in Reception because it means we can make sure that our work and learning gets returned to us.

We made an Hello Book with all the children in it to help us recognise our name and our friends’ names. We had to cut our name into letters and then stick them back in the correct order.

While we were making our book Mateo looked and said, “Who has the longest name?” We decided to find out. This chart helped us to count the letters. Can you see who name is the longest? 

We sorted our names into the number of letters to see which one there was the most of.

We’ve also started to write our names on the dinner registration board in a morning. Please help your child to do this without doing it for them. Your child may find it hard at first to copy their name card but practising everyday will help and it will get easier. They may find it easier to trace over where you have written their name to begin with. Concentrate on your child’s first name first before moving onto surnames.

Dinner registration is a great way of making sure that your child gets to practice their name every day. Look at what a fabulous job everybody did on the first day we had to do this!

 

What have we been learning? 

• To recognise our name. 
• To copy and then write our name. 
• To find out how many letters we have in our name. 
• To say which sound our name starts with.

How can you continue the learning at home? 

• Help your child to recognise their name if they can’t already.
• Help your children to write their name by first tracing, then copying then writing it from memory.
• Count the number of letters in your child’s name and the names of other people in your family. Can they tell the difference between a letter and word?  
• Listen for the initial (first) sound in words together. 

 

 

Shake Rattle and Roll with the Music Man

We’ve been very lucky over the last couple of weeks because Martin the Music Man has been to visit us.

He brings his guitar and other instruments to play with us and we sing lots of songs. Can you remember any of the songs we have been learning? Maybe you can sing them at home as well. 

Martin will be coming for 10 weeks in total so we’ve got lots more to learn. We’re going to be doing some different music activities as well as the singing.

Don’t forget there is also the Shake Rattle and Roll Music club after school on Mondays with Martin. It is open to any child in Foundation Stage and their brothers and sisters (it doesn’t matter if they are older or younger), the only condition is that parents have to stay with the children. It is held in Nursery 3-3.45pm every Monday. Just let us know if you’d like to join in as well.

Macmillan Coffee Morning

On Friday 30th September the whole school took part in the Macmillan Coffee Morning. We had a busy week baking Gingerbread Men and we decided that we would send these to the Coffee Morning for the mums and dads to eat instead of us.

We talked about why we were doing the baking and why we had to sell the Gingerbread Men instead of eating them ourselves.

“Its for the nurses”, said Jayden.

“Its for charity so the poorly people can feel better”, said Corey.

We all paid for a cake so got to eat these at snack time.

Everyone agreed they were delicious. We hope our families had a fantastic time at the Coffee Morning. Look out in school to see how much was raised overall. Last count was £200 and there was more to come!!!

Click here to find out more about Macmillan Cancer and the work they do.

 

You Can’t Catch Me…

We had a visitor in Onyx class the other week. The Gingerbread Man left us some clues in our classroom. We had to go on Gingerbread Man hunt around the whole school. He left us some clues to work out. Can you remember where the clues told us to go? 

I didn’t want to be a snack, I bet you’ll never get me back. Now got to the place where there’s lot of books. 

Mr Sieczkarek told me to stop running away or I wouldn’t be able to go out and play. I walked away before we could meet and went to the place where we eat. 

You’ve not caught me yet but you will soon I bet. I’ll tell you for free I’ve gone where their three. 

We found out where lots of new places were in our school. Some of us had never been there before. We also got to meet lots of people who work in our school. Can you remember all the places we went? Can you remember all the people we meet along the way? 

When we got back to the classroom we found some gingerbread men. Everyone enjoyed their special treat. It started us talking about the Gingerbread Man and what we knew about him.

We decided that’s what we want to learn about the week after. We retold the story, we acted out the story, we counted gingerbread men, we made some of our own in the creative workshop and then we baked some of our own as well. It was a busy week!

We had an interesting question to find out in Maths as well- Which part of the Gingerbread Man do you eat first? Although Miss Parker didn’t tell us this at first, she just told us that we were only allowed to take one bite. It was hard not to gobble him all up! When we took our bite we looked to see who had eaten which part first. Most of us had eaten the head first!

And we still never caught the Gingerbread Man. We only got to eat the little ones he left for us. Don’t forget to keep an eye out for him at home!

What have we been learning? 

• To learn where the different spaces are in our school, insides and out. 
• To learn some of the other people who are in our school and where our big brothers and sisters classrooms are. 
• The story of the Gingerbread Man. 

How can you continue the learning at home? 

• See if your child can tell you about the photographs above- Who can you see? Where did we go? 
• Try and make some Gingerbread Men at home. You can find a recipe here.
• Find out which part of the Gingerbread Man people eat first at your house. Which is the most popular?

Mathematician of the Week- Week 4

Here is our Mathematician of the Week for Week 4. He has been so interested in our counting to Day 100 reminding Miss Parker most days that we needed to do it. He not only knows how many days we have been in school but also how many days there are left until our party on Day 100.

Have your seen our classroom display to show how many days we have been in school? Everyday we add one more straw and work out how many days since we started school full time. See if you can find it in the classroom.

All the teachers will be looking for amazing maths next week as well. Keep trying your best!

Also a big thanks to Jakoby for helping Miss Parker with the design of the picture above. 

Wonderful Wow Moments

Have you seen our wonderful wow moments? It has been great to see the learning that has been happening at home and all the fun things that you have been doing together.

Look at these ones that have been done…

We love to see what you have been doing. It can help us in school to give your child higher levels as there are some things you see at home we don’t see at home. We need to you tell us though and then we can ask the children in school to show us. Be sure to make a note of anything that surprises you or makes you especially proud and let us know on a wow moment. Remember if you want to send pictures to show us you can use our class email address. It will save you having to print them out at home. Please ask if you need to know the email address again.

We ask for at least one wow moment each half term but you can do as many as you want. A big thank you to all the parents and carers who have already shared a wow moment and put it in their child’s space. Most children now have a wow moment in their space. If haven’t done one yet please do it as soon as possible. I am sure there are lots of special achievements your child has done which have made you proud.

As always, please ask us if you have any questions.