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We have been getting VERY Christmassy in Class One over the last two weeks with lots of festive crafts and lessons! We have been making Christmas cards (these will come home at the end of term for you!), decorations for our class and of course have been very busy rehearsing for our nativity next week. We cannot wait for you to see it and have tried so hard to learn all of the words and actions. Our challenge at the moment is to use a big voice so that we can be heard so you may like to help us practice this over the weekend!

In other news, we have been learning about hot and cold places recently, including looking at the challenges which face our planet. We watched a short clip about polar ice melting and were very enthusiastic when writing our own ‘save the polar bears’ posters! We thought about ways we could help the environment and it was lovely to hear some of the children’s responses, they had lots to say on the issue!

Next week is a very busy week with Christingle making on Tuesday, a dress rehearsal to the school on Wednesday, our nativity to parents on Thursday at 2pm for parents and then a Christmas Fair on Friday; we can’t wait!

Notices.

PARTY FOOD: At the end of Christmas term, each class holds a party for the children within class after lunchtime; this year’s will be on Thursday 19^th December. At home-time today, there will be a ‘sign-up’ sheet hanging from our school gate, so that parents can decide which item of party food they would like to contribute to the party. In the older classes, the children are given the choice as to what they would like to bring, however in Class One we let the parents choose. Options include everything from providing a bottle of squash or pack of paper plates, to providing some cooked chicken nuggets! Be sure to get in quick as the sign-up sheet tends to fill up quickly! We ask that parents bring their food item in on the morning of Thurs 19^th please. Cooked food options (e.g. mini party pizzas/ chicken nuggets etc) need to be cooked at home please and we will store them in the fridge in school until party time. A big thank you in advance!

NATIVITY TICKETS: We still have a few children in class who have not yet ordered tickets for ‘Whoops-a-Daisy Angel’ next Thursday. If you would like to watch your child perform in our nativity at 2pm, please book at the school office so that we know how many seats to provide.

We have been busy in maths this week learning all about time. We have had many an exciting game of “what’s the time Mr Wolf?”

We started the week by thinking about ways in which we measure time and we tried to guess how long one minute was by shutting our eyes and counting to 60 in our heads.   We also had lots of ‘1 minute challenges’ to see what we could get done in a minute and soon realised that this is not a great deal of time at all! Later in the week, we began working on o’clock times and had lots of fun in groups playing ‘what’s the time Mr Wolf?’

In geography we have been learning all about animals and habitats creating columns and sorting animals into hot and cold habitats.

PE has challenged all of us this week, we are spending from now until Christmas learning choreography for a special dance we will perform to the older children. Rockin’ Robin is now in all of our heads and the children have created some bird inspired wonderful moves to the song!

Our Christmas nativity is now under way and we started rehearsals today. All Reception have chosen their parts for their acting and the Year Ones will be the narrators to tell the story. Most costumes are provided by school, however we will send out letters next week if your child needs tights or additional items for their role. We will also send out lines for children if they have lots to learn.

If you were not able to attend our book fair this Friday, never fear, you will have another opportunity on Monday both before and after school!

A big thank you also to all children who have been awarded badges and have brought them back!

We wish you a peaceful and joyful weekend and look forward to Monday.

Hi everyone, this week we have had lots of fun thinking about hot and cold things. In science we have been busy making predictions and conducting investigations to find out what happens when things get cold. We experimented with water, fairy washing up liquid, bubble bath, oil and vinegar, to discover which might make a good ice skating rink for our class Lego men.  The ice rink had to be strong and very solid and so we made predictions about which would be best.  We had great fun checking out our results from the freezer and then thought about the four seasons and how the temperature around our school might change.  

In RE, we have been thinking about how we can use our value of generosity to help others and have also been reading some Bible stories about how Jesus showed generosity.

In Year One, we have been very busy taking part in lots of ‘learning quizzes’ so we look forward to sharing their results with the year one parents at parents evening.  All children should be coming home today with a yellow sheet, informing you of when your parents evening is.  As teachers, we always endeavour to give all parents their preferred time slot, however this is not always possible.  Should you lose your slot, the lovely ladies in the school office also have a copy of the time slots so you can also ask them.

Have a lovely weekend everyone and thank you all very much for your generous children in need donations.  Be sure to check your school news-letter and school website soon, to see how much we managed to raise this year!

Welcome back everyone, we hope you have all had a restful and happy half term last week. This week in Class One, we have been learning all about fireworks! We began the week with a journey back in time, 400 years ago where we met a rather scary character.... Guy Fawkes! The children loved finding out some child friendly facts about the Gunpowder Plot and took great pleasure in acting out the story, complete with a Guy, King James and some soldiers. Ask us about the Gunpowder Plot at home, to see what we can remember!

As well as our history learning, we have also been using our art skills this week, using printing techniques to make some beautiful firework pictures, been writing onomatopoeias in writing to think about fireworks sounds and in number work, we have been putting 2 amounts together, to do some simple addition.

We hope you all have a safe and happy fireworks night. Next week is assessment week for Year One they will be taking part in lots of quizzes and fun tasks to see what they have learnt so far. For reception, it’s a normal fun week! We are all looking forward to Remembrance celebrations on Monday and Pudsy day on Friday too!

Reminders

• Thank you also for some of the lovely home-learning we have had in! We hope you have all had a new home-learning sheet in your child's book bag this week; if anyone is missing a home-learning grid, please let us know in class.
• You may have noticed a new face in Class One today and yesterday!  This is because we are very lucky to have our lovely student teacher joining us in Class One at the moment, called Miss Wenlock! Miss Wenlock is currently studying to become a teacher at the University of Hertfordshire and will be helping us in Class One every Thursday and Friday in the run up to Christmas. She will then be back with us in March for a block placement for a half term, working alongside the Class One staff. She has made a fantastic start and the children are very excited to have a new adult in class so feel free to say hello at the gate if you see her! Enjoy your weekend everyone and see you all on Monday!  

Well here we are at the end of our first half term of school, and what a half term it has been! This week we have been busy rehearsing the story of the 3 little pigs with actions and the Year Ones have been busy writing their own versions! We have also had a great time learning all about the festival of Diwali today. The children dressed up in beautiful Indian clothing, created their own Diwa lamps using clay, learnt the story of Rama and Sita and even created their own Rangoli patterns using coloured sand, powder and powder paint. Our favourite part was trying some Indian poppadum’s and mango chutney and many of the children were very keen to share with us what their favourite Indian food is! Watch out for some of our lovely Diwali learning in our learning journeys soon. This week we also had our ‘home learning celebration assembly’ where each child got to bring along all the fantastic things they have been doing at home. The children loved showing off their amazing models, pictures, videos and writing so thank you so much for all of your hard work with these. After half term, you will receive your new home-learning grid with some lovely wintery/ Christmas tasks!

Thank you also, to all who attended family session this week too; the children loved having you in and it was lovely to see so many of you attend.

Half term tasks

Over the half term, we ask that you can support your children in the following ways, by encouraging them to practise the following…

1. Children to practice forming each letter from the alphabet; both capital and lower case. Make sure they know the name of each letter as well as the sound it makes.
2. Children to recognise and write their numbers to 10. Want a challenge? Practise writing numbers to 20 and in Year On, practice some written addition sums!
3. Learn how to pay for items using small coin amounts.
4. Practice getting dressed and un-dressed with no adult support.
5. Have some fun!

Other:

• After half term, the children will begin to change their books on a daily basis, rather than every other day in Reception. The children in Class One are encouraged to change their own books on a daily basis and we give this responsibility to the children to do. It does usually take a while to train them up to a. make sure they choose the correct colour book-band every day and b. check they change their book on a daily basis, so please bear with us while we train them up! We will of course endeavour to check everyone is doing so correctly.
• Thank you to all parents for ensuring the school is kept up to date with who is picking you children up from school each day. If you have someone who will be picking up your child on a regular basis, you may wish to leave a letter in the office giving them permission to pick up your child on an as and when basis. If someone is picking up your child at home time, whom we have not met before, please continue to let us know in advance; for safeguarding reasons, we are unable to let your children leave the school with an unknown adult, unless we have had permission from you in advance. Some parents also choose to set up a password with ourselves, so that your family members and friends can give this to us when they come to pick up your child.
• A reminder that all children should have a pair of navy jogging bottoms, socks and a navy hoodie/ long sleeved warm top for outdoor PE please. PE kits are coming home tonight with your child.

Thank you all for your continued support this half term. Wishing you all a great half term break!

Miss Ingle

This week in Class One, we have been learning all about the role of the police and how they help us. We looked at what they wear, things that they carry and what the get up to within their jobs. The children enjoyed role-playing, working at a police station and it was great to listen to them acting in role as they took ‘999 calls’. We role played calling the emergency services and how, when we would report an incident. All the children took turns to be the operator and the reporter and this lead nicely into the year one children writing dialogue on their experience.

The lesson on the police came in very handy later on in the week as disaster struck Class One…a break in from the Big Bad Wolf! Our plastic coins which we had been using for maths had gone missing and a mysterious letter had been left behind with some flecks of grey fur on the carpet. Luckily, the children were on hand to create traps using construction, write missing posters and in Year One, the children created some fantastic police reports, recounting the events of the day.

In maths we have been looking at money, recognising the colour, shapes, size and value of each coin. We have introduced a shop, a parking meter and the children has had to work out how much money they need and what coins to use. See what your children have learnt this week, by seeing how many coins they can name at home!

In PE we have continued to work on experimenting with shapes, movements, balancing and putting together a routine in groups incorporating all of the elements to music, listening as to whether it’s fast or slow and adjusting our routine speed accordingly.

Notices

• Thank you all so very much for all of your kind donations yesterday with lovely baby items! All of your donations will help premature babies and new mothers in need, throughout Hitchin and local areas. The staff were moved by all of your wonderful generosity so thank you so much!
• Next week is family week in school and on Monday afternoon, Class One parents are welcome to come in and join us in the afternoon and take part in some activities with your child. A reminder that it is only one parent per child please. If you are unable to attend, you may wish to arrange with another parent in class, for them to also pair up with your child. If not, teachers can also help out and make sure children are not on their own. As part of the afternoon, children also go out for their afternoon play session and parents also come out too so please bring a warm coat.

This week in Class One, our topic of ‘all about me’ led us to think about keeping safe and managing risks. As part of this, we learnt all about road safety and about the role of lollipop lady, learning about road signs and even conducting our own traffic survey outside of the school! The children were extremely knowledgeable about how to cross a road safely and were able to demonstrate how to Stop, Look, Listen and Think during our demonstration which was really lovely to see. We used our traffic surveys within our maths to tally amounts on a grid and in Year One, the children tried to write their numbers as words e.g. (‘one’, ‘two’ etc).

We also learnt about how the fire-service keep us safe too this week including what to do if the fire-alarm goes off in school and what it is like to be a fire-fighter. The Year Ones created some fantastic instructions about what to do in the event of a fire alarm using bossy verbs and all the children were all very sensible as we practised a fire alarm drill. We also thought about what would happen if there were a real fire-alarm at home and so we set the children the task of asking their adults at home, what their family fire plan is! On Wednesday morning, we had a visit from some real fire fighters who conducted a whole school assembly about fire safety. The class one children had the opportunity to ask them some questions and had some fantastic queries including, ‘how many fires have you put out?’, ‘do you have a rescue boat for floods?’, ‘what are the jaws of life used for’ and even ‘do fire fighters ever have to save people from shark attacks?’ They thoroughly enjoyed their visit!

Thank you for all of the WOW forms that we have had this week and all the lovely home-learning! We have some very talented children in class and have been very impressed with the quality of what they are doing at home so thank you for your time and effort

Enjoy your weekend everyone and see you all on Monday,

Miss Ingle, Mrs Holmes and Mrs Sabri.

This week in class one we have been thinking all about healthy bodies, what it takes to stay nice and healthy and people who help us when we become poorly.

Our role play has now transformed into our very own class hospital! We’ve all thoroughly enjoyed going in and role-playing doctors, radiologists and nurses with our friends!
We’ve looked at the roles of everyone who works in the health care this week and also how we can keep healthy by eating 5 portions of fruit and veg every day. This lead nicely onto our smoothie making activity. Reception children were tasked with identifying the different fruits, chopping them and mixing them together to make a delicious healthy smoothie. Our Year Ones went a step further, creating their own fruit salad using different chopping techniques and then writing a list of instructions about how to make one.


The children have been excited to see the changes in our weather recently, especially and so in Science, we have been on a lovely autumn walk, collecting cookers, looking out for changes in the leaves and spotting all of the berries the birds can eat in our trees. We enjoyed using our 5 senses to complete autumn checklists on our walk.

We finished the week with today’s Harvest festival. Thank you so much for all of your donations and for those who stayed to watch the service in church. The teachers were extremely impressed with our behaviour this year considering that for many of us, this was our first church service in school! A big well done to all, Miss Ingle is super proud!

Enjoy your weekend everybody and see you all next week!

This week in Class One, we have been learning all about our community and local area. Whilst the Year One children went out to Class Two on Monday, the reception children were greeted a bit of a mystery ….a lost satchel in our outside area! Upon inspection, we noticed some envelopes, stamps, paper and royal mail signs inside; it was clear who the lost bag belonged to…the Jolly Postman!

Reception set to work writing letters to the postman to alert of his lost bag. They added a contact number so that he could call the school and signed the letter off with their names in a polite way; the Class One teachers were very impressed with our sounding out skills. Meanwhile, the Year One children learnt all about addresses and used our writing skills, to write real envelopes and letters to people! We have also built our own post office in class this week to sort out all the postman’s letters.

In RE, we had an ‘Experience Eucharist’ workshop on Tuesday where the children had the opportunity to visit ST Ippolyts church. The children enjoyed looking at the font and learning all about the Eucharist service, we even acted it out using some bread and ‘wine’ (which was actually blackcurrant squash!)

In other news, we have been learning about portraits and creating our own wacky faces using photos of the teachers, learnt about the Royal Family in England and have been learning all about 2D and 3D shapes at home! Test us at home to see what we have learnt…

Reminders

• Next Friday is Harvest Festival. On Friday morning, if you would like to send us in with a small food donation, we will take this to church with us for our morning Harvest Service.
• Thank you for some of the WOW forms we have had in so far. It is lovely to celebrate your children’s successes at home with the class and we look forward to seeing some more soon! If you missed out on curriculum evening and do not have any, please ask one of us in class and we will happily pop some in your child’s bookbag!

It has been a busy week in Class One as always! This week we have been learning all about our school, our teachers and our bodies. We have been having lots of fun learning the names of each teacher in the school and have even interviewed some, to find out all about their favourite things! We learnt that Miss Ingle’s favourite cake is a chocolate fudge cake, that Mrs Stewart’s favourite car is a red Ferrari and even that Mrs Sabri’s favourite food is Mexican food! The Year One’s had to remember to use a question mark and capital letter when writing their questions and in Reception, we rehearsed our question verbally, using talking postcards. Later in the week, we learnt all about our skeletons, we were introduced to our resident skeleton Mr Bones who helped us to learn all the correct names for our bones. The children had great fun meeting Mr Bones and helping us to label him. In maths this week we have been looking at ordering numbers to 20, the children had a washing line full of numbered clothes and had to take it in turns to put the numbers in the correct order then practice our counting. Well done everyone. I’d like to thank all of the parents that came to our curriculum evening on Wednesday, I hope you found it helpful and were able to have a small in site into what your children are getting up to in the day. A few quick reminders. We ask kindly that water bottles are no stored in book-bags on the way to school as they have a tendency to leak and spill onto their reading books. If any of your children would like to write a prayer, Mrs Peddie is looking for some new prayers for her basket and these will be read out in collective worship! Please bear with us in regards to the children and their uniform, I know many have misplaced items, for example jumpers. We tend to find if they are named they do find their way back to the correct classroom and we do our best to reunite the item to the children. At the end of the day, if your lost item is not in Class One, it may well have been left out on the playground during your children’s playtime. We also have a school ‘lost property’ box kept outside of our school office so they may also be in here! Lastly, a big thank you to all who attended the Class 1 Curriculum Evening last night. It was so lovely to see so many of you and we hope it was useful. Enjoy a hot an sunny weekend and hopefully see some of you at St Ipps’ Fest tomorrow!

Here we are at the end of our second week back and Class One is now complete with all 30 children now in class. We are all feeling very proud of the new cohort in the way they have conducted themselves around school and in the kind and sensible way they carry out their learning each day and it has been lovely this week to watch them begin to form friendships with new children and get stuck into the many activities we have had planned for them this week.

This week, your child has very busy taking part in…

• Circle times to discuss likes and dislikes
• Painting in the art corner
• Reading and acting out the story of Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems
• Writing their own lists, captions and speech bubbles based on the story
• Trying out some number and phonics games on the class computers
• Learning single letter phonic sounds and forming them without taking our pen off of the whiteboard/ moving the pen in the correct direction.

A special well done to all of the Year One children this week who took part in their first ‘Big Write’ independent writing session and also got their first spellings set. We can’t wait to see how many you have learnt for your spelling test on Monday!

A thank you once again for your patience at the gate during home-time and morning drop offs as we learn all of your names and faces. As you can imagine, learning parents, grandparents, child-minders, aunties and other family friends for each child is not an easy task but we hope to get a little quicker at this soon. In the meantime, please continue to inform a member of office staff or class adult if someone new is picking up your child, as we will be unable to let your child leave unless we have had consent and notification of this.

Lastly, you may notice that over the course of the year, your child may come home wearing a badge on a Friday afternoon. These are from our Friday awards assembly in which your child can win a values, effort or achievement award. Your child will be able to wear their badge for the whole week but will hand it back in the following Friday morning, so that it can be given to the next person. We ask kindly that children look after their badges each week and that parents ensure that the children bring it back in on the following Friday. Thank you for your cooperation.

Other.

• On Monday, all reception children will take home their first library book. This is chosen by the children from our school library and is loaned out for one week. We ask the children bring it into school each Monday so that we can then sign it back in to our system and swap it for a new one please. Forgotten books will mean that your child will be unable to change their book until it is returned.
• Thank you for all making your children so independent this year! We have noticed almost all children can put on a coat/ sort out inside out clothing and get changed for PE with no help. This makes things so much easier in school for both your children and the teachers! We ask kindly that you continue to encourage your children to change and un-change at home themselves, to continue to develop these skills.

Thank you and enjoy your weekend everyone,

Miss Ingle, Mrs Holmes and Mrs Sabri

What a successful week we have had in Class One this week! All children have settled extremely well into their new routine and it has been a joy to get to know some of our new intake over the course of the week. The children have been up to many different and exciting activities including rainbow sand mark-making, painting, PE lessons with Mr Jefferies, number work, phonics sessions and even creating their own mud-recipes in our brand new mud kitchen! It is also really lovely to see so many children coming in to the classroom independently now; we are very proud of them and how positively they are entering the classroom each day.

Our Year Ones have also risen to the challenge on trickier work and have been busy getting to grips with writing and working in their new exercise books. They have been busy writing about their summers, solving addition sums and missing number problems and have even been doing some colour mixing experiments in Art and some RE this week. We are all amazed at how much they have produced this week so a big well done to them all!

A big thank you to all the new parents for being so patient at the gate as we learn all of your names and faces and also for ensuring that all school uniform is clearly named. This has made things much easier for us all this week and is very much appreciated!

Reminders.

• A reminder to all parents that children’s reading books will be changed each Monday, Wednesday and Friday if your child is in Reception. Your child will be heard read by the class adults throughout the week so please ensure these come into school each day in book-bags.
• Water bottles should contain still, unflavoured water only. Your child may also bring in one fruit or vegetable item each day to eat at their snack-time. We ask that you do not send in cereal bars/ crackers/ yoghurt covered fruit/ cheeses or other similar items please.
• As part of the Early Years Curriculum, children are encouraged to work and learn outside as part of an ‘extended classroom’ in out outside area. We have a saying in Reception that there is no such thing as bad weather, only wrong clothing! We therefore ask that children bring in some wellington boots to keep in class each day, so that they are suitably dressed for all weathers. Some of our best learning and experimenting comes from playing in the rain and with puddles!
• Lastly, all children are expected to change for PE at school with a level of independence. Whilst we will always help those who need it, we encourage children to ‘have a go’ at doing up/ undoing buttons and ties, before seeking help from a grown up. We therefore ask that you practice this at home with your child over the next half term or so, so that they can get used to dressing and undressing with confidence. You may also wish to support your child to recognise their belongings by ensuring they can read their name themselves.

Thank you to all for a great first week, it has been lovely chatting to some of you at the gate and I look forward to getting to know you and the children more over the coming year!

Miss Ingle and the Class One team

What a great week it has been in Class One! Our zoo trip tomorrow was a great success and we are so impressed with how well the children behaved on the coach and throughout the day. One of the real highlights of the day was the elephant ‘meet and greet’ where we got to watch the elephants play and stroll and around and best of all….we even got to stroke one! We saw parrots in a flying show, got up close to some kangaroos and goats, watched the penguins play and lots lots more. Have a look at the photo gallery page above, to see some of the fun we had.

We have continued with our pirate learning this week by learning some pirate language and have been using compass points to play directional games. The children have also been practising their best writing this week by writing all about their favourite things to do at school and what they would like to get better at next year; we have loved reading some of their responses!

Have a lovely weekend everyone and see you next week!

Class One

Welcome back everyone and a big thank you to all who came to our Class Assembly today! It was lovely to watch back some of the video clips from throughout the year and see how much the children have grown and changed throughout Reception. All of them did so well learning their lines and song lyrics, we are so proud of them all!

This week, we have started our new topic of ‘pirates’! Whilst most of the week has been taken up with assembly rehearsals and prop making, we have still managed to create our own treasure maps this week out of tea-stained paper. We have also done a Big Write this week where we created a list of instructions about how to find the treasure on our maps. The children had some amazing ideas featuring deadly volcanoes, sea monsters, traps hidden in palm trees and swamps and some amazing ideas about what was inside their treasure chests. They have thoroughly enjoyed dressing up in pirate clothes this week and having a go in our small world area where we have lots of pirate figurines too.

Next week, we will be learning about some real life pirates from the past and we also have a special visit on Tuesday, from the company @BambuuBrush. They create eco-toothbrushes and will be coming to speak to the children about how we can use non-plastic alternatives, recycle all of our plastic packaging and how it affects our oceans. We look forward to their visit!

Reminders:

A reminder that our Class One and Two joint trip to Woburn Safari is on the 20^th June. Children will all need to bring a packed lunch on this day which is in a disposable bag rather than a ‘packed lunch box’. If it is a sunny day, we ask that you apply sunscreen before the children come to school as we are unable to do this or accept any creams into school. If your children are travel-sick and wear special wrist bands or have medication, please let the school office know in advance. Children will also need to come into school on this day in their usual school uniform and with a sun-hat. You may wish to provide a waterproof jacket with a hood if it is a rainy day as most of the day will be spent outside (fingers crossed for sun!)

If you haven’t already, please can parents return their ‘BambuuBrush’ letter to school so we can inform the workshop whether you wish your child to appear on camera or not.

Thank you and have a lovely weekend!

Class One

Happy half term everybody! When we come back, we will be starting our new topic of pirates so you may want to research them over the half term!

We have had a very busy week in school with both a Sports Day and a school talent show! Both events saw us show off all of our skills so well done to everybody who took part, have a look at some of the photos on the ‘school gallery’ page above. This week, we have also been very busy getting ready for our class assembly, learning some tricky split e sounds in phonics (also sometimes called ‘magic e’ words), such as ‘like’, ‘home’ and ‘mate’. The children are now getting very good at spotting them in their books and remembering that they make one sound! We have also been making masks, learning lines and even learning a few songs in preparation. Make sure you come check out our Class Assembly which is on Friday 7^th June at 2:30 (you may want to get here early to get a good seat!) A reminder also that all children should now have a cap or hat in school to wear at playtimes and lunchtimes. The rule after half term will be, ‘not hat….no play’ so please ensure your child comes to school with one each day

Enjoy your half term everybody!

Class One

What a busy week we have had in Class One. After having a long week end we came back on Tuesday full of energy to learn. On Tuesday we were lucky enough to have an amazing afternoon out with Sporting Futures at the Leys school in Stevenage! The children were taught how to maypole dance and we learnt all about celebrating the beginning of May and the start of the summer. 

We were able to hula- hoop, limbo dance, hook a duck, along with many other activities (if you haven’t already, check out our gallery page above!)

The children thoroughly enjoyed our trip and were all so well behaved so. A big well done to all of them!

We have been hard at work looking at how important the oceans are to us and how we can look after our planet. We looked at materials that can be recycled and those that can’t and children had a hunt around the school to look for man-made and natural items.

The children really enjoyed looking around the school and discussing how to look after our world. We have lots of boxes now in class one all for recycling.

This week we have continued our “under the sea “topic, our role play has been transformed and we’ve been looking at all the different layers of the ocean. The children were then tasked with colour mixing to create a painting of their own layers of the ocean. This will be a work in progress as next week we will add in all of the sea creatures. 

Reminders

• Now that we are into summer uniforms, socks (and tights if it is a cold day) should be white please, not navy blue.
• We are also finding that many of the children are not reading on a daily basis at home. As we move on to more formal learning, it really is vital that children read their books with a parent or big sibling every night at home. It really does make such a difference your child’s level at school and is vital to ensuring your children progress through a range of book bands. A recent study concludes that if a child reads for just 10 minutes every day, they will experience and be able to use 1,800,000 words in their vocabulary in the school year, whereas a child who only reads for one minute a day with only gain up to 8,000!
• A reminder that children should have blue shorts, a white t-shirt, a blue hoody or jacket and plimsolls or trainers in their PE kits. Spare socks are also a must as the girls who wear tights need something on their feet if we go to the field. 

Welcome back everyone! Our last term of the academic year (where has the year gone?) This week we have started our new topic of ‘Under the Sea’, by researching some underwater creatures! We first thought of something we would like to find out and then we typed our questions into the google-kids search engine called kiddle. We then wrote our answers in our own Q&A books which are on display in class; the children have clearly been writing over their holidays as their writing was amazing! In other news, we have started to get ready for this years’ sports day with lots of running races in PE. Later in the half term, a list will go out on the school gate to let you all know which colour teams we will be in.

Notices

• As you have probably spotted on our newsletters this week, Class One have some school trips coming up this term! On 7^th May, Mr Smith has kindly arranged for us to attend a ‘Sporting Futures’ event at the Leys School in Stevenage, where we will be trying out some Maypole games and dances. Letters should have come out with your children today regarding times etc. Children will need take their water bottles with them and also wear their PE kits on this day, so as long as these are in school, there is nothing else for you to prepare for this. Lunches will be as normal with the children eating before we get on the coach. Strangely, there is a little typo on the letter which says ‘27^th June 2018’ in small writing at the top of the letter- please ignore this, it should not be there!
• Later in the term, the teachers have arranged for a joint school trip for Classes One and Two to Woburn Safari Park! The children have not been told yet, so you may want to keep this a secret for now! Letters will come out to you soon to let you know all of the details but as with all our school trips, the children will come to school and leave at the normal time on this day.

Here we are at the end of another term! It is hard to believe that when we get back, it will be our final term in Reception but we have lots of fun things in store linked to our new topic of ‘Under the Sea’. Thank you to all who attended our Easter Service this week, we hope you enjoyed joining in with our Easter celebrations. Today, the children should be bringing home all of their PE kits and book bags. Our new homework grid will be set after half term as usual along with our class curriculum grid, to let you know what we will be up to in Class One.

Reminders/ Other

After half term, we will be doing some of our PE lessons up at the school field! If your child does not already have an outdoor PE kit in school, this will be vital after half term. Sadly if the children do not have their PE kit in school, we are unable to let them participate due to health and safety reasons.

If you would like to do any extra learning with your children over the holidays, feel free to research some sea creatures or learn some facts about oceans and coral reefs.

WANTED! After half term, we will be doing some art and craft involving CD/ DVD disks. If you have any that you could donate to class, we would very much appreciate it! We are also a little short of knickers and boys pants in our spare clothes draw so if you have any Class 1 underwear at home which could be returned to us, or if you would like to donate any old underwear, we would be very grateful!

Lastly, we seem to have mysterious collection of apples accumulating in Class One over the last few weeks (8 in total!) Despite our best efforts to reunite them with the correct child, no one is yet to claim them. If you could send them with a sticker on to ensure they are named, or send them in a little bag/ pot, that would be a great help to us in solving this mystery!

Enjoy your two weeks off everybody,

Miss Ingle and the Class One staff.

This week in Class One we have been visiting our ‘space shop’ which appeared overnight in our classroom! We have been using 1p and 2p coins to add up simple amounts and ‘purchase’ space suits, moon bots, a mars rover robot, telescope and lots more! It was very tricky when we were only given 2p coins and so we have had to remember to tap them twice, to understand that they are worth 2 pennies.

On the topic of Mars rovers, we have been looking at how technology can help both astronauts and people back on Earth, to do lots of jobs for us. We watched a Cbeebies video of how computers are all around us, controlling hand dryers and taps, traffic lights, automatic doors, escalators, microwaves and many more! We then began to think about robots and used our own mini robots called Ozobots. It was great fun drawing mazes on paper and watching them respond to the different colours to do tricks and move around our pieces of paper, we were all very engaged in our robot learning!

On Tuesday we also took part in our school’s ‘Experience Easter Outside’ day and got to take part in lots of different activities, based on the different parts of the Easter story. We will be doing lots more Easter work next week and look forward to singing some songs in church at the Easter Service on Thursday.

Thank you to all who attended parent’s evening this week and we look forward to seeing more of you attending on Monday evening. Enjoy your weekend everyone!

We have had a fantastic time in Class One this week, taking part in lots of science themed activities! This year’s school theme was ‘Outer Space Science’ which linked nicely with our class topic! Some of the activities we took part in included making the different moon phases out of Oreo cookies, creating our own mini-solar systems using oranges, making space shuttles, paper parachutes and lots more!

In other science we have been bug-hunting in our school nature area and had great fun naming our insects and observing how many legs, shells and wings they had. We have also been learning all about Earth as a planet including the layers of the Earth, why volcanoes happen and even making our own volcanoes using bicarbonate soda, vinegar and washing up liquid.

Next week we are starting to learn the about the Easter story and will be taking part in our school’s ‘Experience Easter’ celebration workshops on Tuesday. We will also be starting our mini topic all about nocturnal creatures!

Enjoy your weekends,

Class One