We have had another busy week.  We have been learning all about London.  The children have been making a city that we have added to our role play area, we have made some roads and even added our "mini me' figures into the environment.  

In Maths, the Reception children have been making numbers to 5 and zero, they have been adding two amounts of objects to find a total.   The Year 1's have continued to practicing Partitioning and also about ordering numbers and groups of numbers in different ways.   

In Science, we have started to learn about Materials.  Today we have talked about different types of materials, their uses.   The Reception children have been making a prediction about what will happen when ice melts, they enjoyed watching Mrs Freeze melt throughout the day.  

In History, we have started to learn and understand what a significant person is, we talked about current significant individuals such as the Queen and also an historical individuals such as Sir Isaac Newton and Mary Seacole. 

Today in PE we have started on topic on dance.  The children made up a wonderful dance about being a cat.  They did a fantastic job and seemed to really enjoy the lesson. 

Dates for your diary:

Please read with your child everyday and remember to send their reading books in everyday so that they can be changed. 

Monday -  please wear old clothes for Forest School.
Friday - please remember you PE kit. 

Merry Christmas!

This half term has flown by and we cannot believe that we are about to enter the last week of the autumn term.
We have been really thinking about Christmas this week, with rehearsals for the nativity play taking place in the church.
We are so proud of the children; they have worked hard to learn songs and lines together; we are looking forward to sharing our nativity story with the families of Class 1.
We performed our dress rehearsal for our first audience on Wednesday; Class 2 came to watch and they were very appreciative. We loved singing Away in a Manger with them afterwards so thank you to them for coming and for their feedback.


Our LTP activities have all been based around Christmas and we have even had little elves wrapping presents for Santa in the role play grotto! The children have used loose parts to decorate Christmas trees in different ways, using different mediums and have also made paper chains and snowflakes to decorate our room.

In literacy/English, our focus story has been Stick Man this week. We have all recognised the characters and settings of Stick Man's journey and the older children have been writing 'perfect' sentences to describe a setting using their sentence prompts.

Both groups have worked hard in phonics and this coming week we shall practice everything we have been learning by playing Christmas phonics games. We shall also be applying our maths learning by exploring Christmas maths. This week the children completed their shape work by describing and creating repeated patterns using 2D and 3D shapes.

During forest school this week, the children were fascinated to learn some facts about robins and then everyone collected fir cones and followed instructions to create their own robins, which we hung on our winter display.
While the children were outside collecting their cones,  we celebrated the German tradition of Nikolaus and  we had a very special visitor to Class 1 - when the children returned inside, Nikolaus had left a gold coin and piece of fruit in each child's shoes; there was great excitement as everyone discovered this had happened! 

In Science this week the Year 1 have used their knowledge of animals to invent a new animal.  The children have come up with some super ideas and there has been some really interesting animals invented, we had Hoppie Ho who is a mammal and a herbivore that eats grass, Gold who is a fish that lives in the sea and eats seaweed and Rainbow Bird who is a carnivore and is 3 meters tall!  We have now finished our Science unit for this term, next week we will be doing some learning around Internet Safety. 

In PSHE we have been talking about bullying and how it can make a person feel.  We talked about strategies and phrases that the children can use to help support them if someone is doing something they don't like or being unkind.  We also talked about who they can talk to if they are feeling worried or upset.  The children have been working hard making a gingerbread man to support this unit of work, they are nearly finished and they are looking wonderful!

Class 1 would like to thank our wonderful FOPS, who despite the tricky times we are living in, have continued to raise money for our school. Here is a message from them:
"For a chance to win the school Christmas Hamper pop into reception and guess the name of the donkey! £1 a go."
There is a photograph of the hamper and rather cute donkey attached below. Good luck!
 
THINGS TO REMEMBER:
*THERE WILL BE NO FOREST SCHOOL OR SHOW AND TELL THIS WEEK, DUE TO THE NATIVITY. PLEASE WEAR UNIFORM AS NORMAL ON MONDAY*
*If your child would like to send Christmas cards to friends, our school post box is open by the school gate.
*Monday - Nativity Play performance at 2pm for parents/families of Class 1 children. Please RSVP to Mrs Trevaskis if you havent done so already.
*Tuesday & Wednesday - parent consultations. Mrs Wakeham is looking forward to talking to you all.
*Wednesday - School Christmas lunch and Christmas mufti day - please bring £1 to wear your sparkly Christmas clothes/jumpers.
*Wednesday - Class party - please send a small snack for your child to enjoy on that afternoon. Due to Covid, we are not sharing food this year.
*Thursday - Could the children bring their PE kits on Thursday as we have swapped our PE day for the week.  
*Tuesday 4th January - Spring term begins,  back to school.

Wishing you all a safe, healthy and very Merry Christmas,

Mrs Wakeham, Miss Gendall & Mrs G

It's December!

Everyone in Class 1 has been excited to welcome in the month of  December this week.
Our Christmas tree is up and the children are keen to make their own decorations to decorate it. The advent calendar is being shared each day and our nativity play rehearsals are in full swing. The children have particularly embraced the singing of new songs for our performance.
Our photograph this week is to whet your appetites; this was taken at one of our rehearsals!
Costumes have been allocated - thank you in advance for sending in the clothes requests which we have sent out today. If your child has not brought a costume request slip home, do not worry, it just means that we have everything we need for their costume.
Thank you also to families for helping children to learn their lines, it is such a great help.

With the arrival of December, comes winter; our forest school story this week was Penguin and Pinecone and this coming week it will be Robin's Winter Song.

In phonics this week, the Phase 3 group learnt the new digraphs and trigraphs, ai, ee, igh and oa as well as learning to read the tricky words was and my.
In Phase 5, the children have been recognising alternative spelling patterns for the 'ai' sound and reading words which contain the different spellings. Well done everyone.

Our maths work has been all about 2D and 3D shape, which everyone has enjoyed; we have been learning to recognise, name and describe the properties of different shapes through investigation and practical activities.

In PSHE this week the Reception children have been learning about differences between people, we talked about how we are all different to each other in many different ways.  The Year 1's have talked about what bullying is and how that can make a person feel.  Next week Year 1's will be learning about who they can talk to if they are feeling like they are being bullied. 

PSHE is an important area of learning that is progressively taught across the school. The children enjoy learning about relationships as well as physical health and mental well being. It has been something we have really focused on in light of the impact of the pandemic. Where there have been any gaps in learning, due to the school closures, we have tried to build in additional sessions. Each term we focus in a new topic which is consistent across the school. This is then built upon year by year. This term's learning is based on 'celebrating difference' and is not restricted to the PSHE sessions but incorporated into other areas of learning too. In addition to this learning, at Pelynt Primary Academy we activity promote kindness and build this into everyday life. For your reference our PSHE policy can be found on our website and a RSE guide parents has been attached.

In Science, Reception children have been looking at glowing stars and talking about how the stars glow in the dark.  Year 1's have been classifying animals into different groups, they were all very surprised to find out they were mammals!!  We have also have learning about Carnivores, Herbivores and Omnivores; the children did really well at this and we had some great discussions around the learning.  

THINGS TO REMEMBER:
*PLEASE REMEMBER TO PRACTICE YOUR LINES FOR THE NATIVITY PLAY*
*If your child would like to send Christmas cards to friends, our school post box will be open from Monday.
*Monday - wear old comfortable clothes for forest school.
*Monday - show and tell; this week we are asking for each child to bring in or email a photo of a special Christmas decoration ; Please email to jwakeham@pelyntprimary.co.uk
*By Tuesday - send in costume clothes please.
*Friday - make sure PE kit is in school by today please.

Dates for the last week of term:
*Monday 13th December:  Pelynt Church, 2pm - Class 1 Nativity Play
*Wednesday 15th December: School Christmas lunch, class party and Christmas jumper day.

Enjoy your weekend,

Mrs Wakeham, Miss Gendall & Mrs G

Wonderful Woodlice!

As you can see from our pictures, we have had a wonderful week with woodlice this week!

We continued our science/understanding the world work from last week in forest school, when we went on a hunt to find woodlouse habitats. We also worked hard to create wood piles which will provide habitats for woodlice. We made sure we included the things they need to live happily - rotting wood, damp conditions and dead plants and leaves.  Some children also created paper plate woodlice to highlight that they have seven body sections with seven legs on each side and two antennae. 

We have completed a science experiment this week. We released our pet woodlice into a tough spot where we had put some translucent plastic, opaque plastic, dry felt and some wet card board.  We watched where the woodlice went and counted how many were under each material after 1 minute then after 5 minutes.  We noticed that most went under the dry felt, we then had a discussion about what would be the best material to have in a woodlice habitat and released our pets back into their natural habitat.  Year 1's have also been looking at features of different animals and sorting them into groups.  Next week, Year 1's will be learning about carnivores, herbivores and omnivores. 

In literacy/English, the Year 1 children wrote a chronological report about woodlice, while those in reception drew two diagrams, one of a woodlouse and one of their habitat which they then used words to label. Some children even remembered to add a uropod (tail) to their diagram which labelled the body parts; well done everyone!

During maths the Reception children also sang 'Five Little Woodlice' in their work to understand more and less and have enjoyed exploring how to make 4 and 5 using fives frames, Numicon and interlocking cubes. Year 1 children have been finding the difference and comparing statements in their subtraction work; we have seen some great independent investigation and problem solving - great to see.  They will be moving on to 2-D and 3-D shapes next week. 

In phonics this week the Phase 3 group have learnt the new digraphs sh, ch, th and ng, as well as learning to read the tricky words we, me and be. The older group has explored alternative pronunciation of a, y, ch and ou, alongside reading their tricky words many, laughed, because, different, any, eyes, friends, once and please. To aid the reading of such words , both groups have played bingo and thoroughly enjoyed it!

Parts have been allocated for the nativity play and rehearsals began in earnest this week. We shall continue to do the same this coming week and on Monday, those with speaking parts will bring home a script. We will just be asking you to send in a certain coloured t-shirt/tights/leggings/trousers to co-ordinate with the costume.

THINGS TO REMEMBER:
*Monday - wear old comfortable clothes for forest school.
*Monday - show and tell; this week we are asking for each child to email a photo of something you associate with Winter ; Please email to jwakeham@pelyntprimary.co.uk
*Friday - make sure PE kit is in school by today please.

PLEASE PRACTICE YOUR LINES FOR THE NATIVITY PLAY

Have fun and stay safe everyone,

Mrs Wakeham, Miss Gendall & Mrs G

Another busy week of learning

Our week started with our odd sock day, based on 'One Kind Word' . Throughout the week, the children have created some 'odd sock, one kind word' bunting which we are currently putting together and will string up in class to remind us all of the kind words we can use when talking to others.

We continued to learn about the celebration of Hanukkah this week and in English, the older children wrote an acrostic poem and have written a non chronological report about Hanukkah, while in their literacy learning, the younger pupils used paint and collage to create a beautiful menorah each and then used spoken sentences to describe what they have learnt about the menorah when it is used during the festival of lights.

During phonics this week, the Phase 3 group have been  learning the sounds y, z, zz and qu as well as reading the words he and she and spelling the and to
Phase 5 learners have focussed on alternative pronunciations for u, ie, ow and ea and practiced reading the tricky words water, where, who, again, thought, through, work and mouse. Great work everyone.

In maths the Reception group have been using rhymes, objects, counters and 5 frames to explore the number 5, while the Year 1 children have been exploring subtraction using tens frames, counters and the part-whole model.

During art/DT, everyone chose a pre-cut wooden Hanukkah decoration and then used a design sheet to plan how they would decorate their decoration. We were most impressed at how well everyone followed their design when applying paint. Everyone then hung their decorations on our Hanukkah tree.

In RE this week we listened to the nativity story and used special knitted characters given to us by Rev Marilyn, to re-tell the story. The older children used cutting and sticking to create their own story maps to re-tell the story of Christmas; we are now prepared to begin allocating parts and learning our nativity play next week.

In Science, we have been observing and drawing woodlice.  Today we have made a habitat for some woodlice as we are going to keep them in the classroom for the next week so that we can care for them and observe them closely over time.  When we were outside today we discovered that woodlice prefer to live on earthy, stony ground, they don't like living on wet grass! We also observed that they prefer to live under damp wood and pine needles so we have added some of them to our habitat. The children are excited about our new class pets and they are looking forward to making them on Monday! Next week we will release them back to where we found them. 










THINGS TO REMEMBER:'
*Monday - wear old comfortable clothes for forest school.
*Monday - show and tell; this week we are asking for each child to email a photo relating to a Christmas celebration which they may have been to;  Please email to jwakeham@pelyntprimary.co.uk 
*Friday - make sure PE kit is in school by today please.

Have a good rest over the weekend everyone,

Stay safe,

Mrs Wakeham, Miss Gendall & Mrs G

A week of Remembrance and Hanukkah

This week in Class 1 we have learnt about Remembrance and thought about what we are thankful for.

After watching a film clip about the poppy fields, everyone contributed to a group poem about poppies and what they stand for. We have also worked hard to develop our art skills to make our own poppies and  two poppy wreaths; one for the Church and one for our class.

On Thursday we took part in a 2 minute silence with the rest of the school, outside at 11 o'clock.  We heard The Last Post being played outside the church and listened as the church bells struck 11. All the children observed the silence and were very respectful during it.  On Friday, we went for a walk over to the church to see the war memorial,  all of the poppy wreaths that were laid on Remembrance Day and to lay our own poppy wreath.  We made our own wreath out of plastic water bottles on a willow frame.  We have left it in the church so we can share it with other members of the community.  We also went to a Commonwealth war grave and placed a Remembrance Cross on it.  We feel proud to have children that are so very respectful, they are a credit to the school. 

In our Re work , linked to our celebrations topic, we have started to learn about the Jewish festival of Hanukkah. We learnt the story of Hanukkah and ordered it to re-tell the story and we also began to build a word bank in order to write Hanukkah poems.
It was wonderful to see how keen the children were to embrace this festival and our home corner was turned into a party room to celebrate Hanukkah! The children made lots of food for their celebration (Mrs G was presented with many feasts!) and also constructed their own synagogue from the story they had learnt.
We also lit a menorah and the children made their own menorahs from hand prints; this has helped us to understand why there are nine candles and how light is important in this Jewish festival of lights as we take a step closer to answering our learning question of 'Why is light important in celebrations?' During the coming week we shall be learning more about how Hanukkah is celebrated.

THINGS TO REMEMBER: 
*Monday - wear odd socks for 'One Kind Word'
*Monday - wear old comfortable clothes for forest school.
*Monday - show and tell; this week we are asking for each child to bring an item or email a photo relating to the Christmas story; we shall be introducing it this week in order to begin our nativity play. Please email to jwakeham@pelyntprimary.co.uk Many thanks for everything you send for show and tell, it really supports our learning each week and we had some great celebration pictures last week.
*Friday - Children in Need Mufti Day. Bring £1
PLEASE REMEMBER TO SEND PE KITS INTO SCHOOL


Have a good weekend everyone,

Mrs Wakeham, Miss Gendall & Mrs G

Welcome to a new half term

We have had a lovely first week back to school in Class 1.

Our learning this half term will be all about celebrations (bonfire night, Hanukkah and Christmas) and we introduced our new learning question for this half term, 'Why is light important in celebrations?' by talking about bonfire night and the children were also keen to learn all about Guy Fawkes and the story behind why we celebrate with fireworks. There has been lots of firework art this week!
We also learnt about primary and secondary colours and used what we had learnt from exploring colour mixing to create our firework pictures. 
Everyone also painted their 3D fruit models and I was impressed by their attention to detail after learning how to blend colours to add texture.

In literacy/English we thought about onomatopoeia fire works words and everyone created their own poem entitled 'Fireworks Go'. The Year 1 children have also written firework shape poems - great work everyone, we have seen some great writing and sounding out to spell words.

In maths, the youngest children have focused on all things relating to 1, 2, 3 and the Year 1s have been investigating different numbers in order to spot patterns within number bonds and write corresponding addition sentences.

It has been great to see some wonderful teamwork this week; the children decided to use the loose parts in order to build a fort and then enhanced it by adding small parts which then developed into shop role play when they sold anything from ice creams to fruit and vegetables! It is so good to see the children working so well together and being so imaginative.
Some children also used their adult-led learning to order numbers together, using our outdoor resources; again they worked very well together in order to do so, giving each other encouragement and talking the task through. Super! 

In History, we have had a focus on Remembrance this week. We have been learning some more about Walter Tull and also about animals that helped in World War One.  Next Friday, we have planned to go to the church to have a look at all the wreaths on the war memorial and also to place some crosses of remembrance.  Could you make sure your child has a coat that day, please.  

We have also been looking at the Firework Code, maybe you could ask your child if they can remember any of them? 

During the coming week, we shall be continuing to learn about Remembrance and the children will have the opportunity to make a donation for a poppy and a variety of trinkets (wristbands, zip ribbons, slap-band rulers). If you would like your child to do this, please send in a donation at your convenience. These will be available until Wednesday.

 
THINGS TO REMEMBER:
Our days for forest school, show and tell and PE are the same as last half term.
*Monday - wear old comfortable clothes for forest school.
*Monday - show and tell; this week we are asking for each child to bring an item or email a photo relating to a celebration which they may have been to.  Please email to jwakeham@pelyntprimary.co.uk Many thanks for everything you send for show and tell, it really supports our learning each week.
*Friday - Trip to the church and please remember to send in PE kits if they are not already at school.

We are looking forward to an exciting second half of term, 

Mrs Wakeham, Miss Gendall & Mrs G

A busy last week of half term

Despite the awful weather, we have had a lovely week of learning for our last week of half term. 
It is hard to believe that we are already about to enter the second half of the autumn term. The children have all been fantastic and we are so proud of how well the Reception children have all settled into their school routine and are developing enthusiasm and a love for learning. The Year 1 children are also settled into their learning tasks and are keen to develop their skills each day - it is fantastic to see such a grown up attitude, well done.

In forest school this week, the children listened to the story of Spookley the Square Pumpkin in order to recognise how we are all different and all have different strengths, then went on a pumpkin hunt before decorating their pumpkins for autumn.

Our literacy/English work has been based around following, giving and writing instructions for how to make a fruit smoothie; first we watched a film clip of someone not listening to instructions and getting covered in smoothie ingredients because they did not follow the instructions correctly! The children then worked in pairs to give/follow instructions to make their own smoothies. Everyone did really well and delicious smoothies were enjoyed by all. The Reception children then sequenced pictures of how to make a smoothie and practiced giving verbal instructions to each other in our role play area, while the Year 1 children wrote their own set of instructions to tell someone else how to make a fruit smoothie. Great work everyone - perhaps you could practice giving someone instructions over the half term break.

In art, everyone used clay to create their fruit for our collaborative basket; due to the humidity this week, the clay has not dried enough for us to paint it, so we shall do that straight after half term. It was great to see how the children's observational skills have developed and how they applied the skills they have learnt over the last few weeks to mould, join and add texture to their work. Watch this space for pictures of our completed fruit basket.

Today in Science, we have been have tasting different foods.  We had to smell, feel and then taste sour, bitter, spicy, salty and sweet foods.  The children all enjoyed being scientists and guessing what the different types of food were.  

In History, we have been learning about Walter Tull he was an Officer in World War One and also a famous footballer.  We will be continuing to learn about him after half term and also about some famous animals from the World Wars.  This will help us to start to understand about Remembrance and why we commemorate it on 11th November.  If you see people selling poppies over the half term it would be lovely of you could talk to your child about why we buy them and what they represent.  

I am thrilled with how hard everyone has been working in phonics over the last half term and after the holiday, the Reception group will be moving on to Phase 3 letter sounds, while Year 1 while continue into Phase 5b.

The Reception children have focused on the numbers 1, 2 and 3 this week in maths, while in Year 1 we have been investigating the part/whole method and addition symbol alongside addition families.

Thank you to the FOPs for running the decorated witch's hat competition - you can see the winner for our class below.

Don't forget we have an INSET day on Monday 1st November, so we look forward to seeing you all again on Tuesday 2nd November. There will be no show and tell or forest school that week (we shall still be learning outdoors as normal, but no need to wear forest school clothes).

Have a great half term break everyone,

Mrs Wakeham, Miss Gendall and Mrs G