After a tumultuous year, there is comfort to be found when we pause to read, pray, and reflect over the course of the Advent season in which believers eagerly anticipate the celebration of Christ’s birth.
The first Sunday of Advent gives us the opportunity to center our thoughts on hope. It's a beautiful chance to remember the hope God offers to our lost and dying world, and that He's given us through Jesus.
As we prepare our hearts to celebrate Jesus’ arrival as a gift to all humanity; let’s stir up in our hearts and homes a sense of anticipation. Over this Advent, we pray that hope would rise up in our spirits in a tangible and life-giving way.
This week we have been learning…..
English - we have continued working in our RWI groups on our Set 1, 2 and 3 sounds. We have also continued our work in phonics, handwriting, spelling and punctuation in our own sentence construction. At the moment we are working on the elements we need in a sentence, how to sort out mixed up sentences and how to write our own ensuring that it makes sense, is correctly punctuated and contains one or two pieces of information. We have now finished the ‘teaching element’ of all out pre-cursive letters - the children have now been shown how to write each of the letters correctly, now the children are expected to use those letters AT ALL TIMES.
Maths - this week we have been working on number bonds and how to use our number lines to help us with addition questions. We have contained to talk about parts and wholes, along with the various ways that the same number can be made up. We have also started to use the greater than, less than and equal to signs to compare two calculations and show which has the greatest total. We hace contained to work on doubling, halving, addition, subtraction and making up two digit numbers in our daily Fluent in Five sessions.
RE - this week we have continued to learn about Mary and how special she is, this week focuisng on her trip to visit Elizabeth to tell her the news that she was to have a baby. Mary’s news was matched with Elizabeth’s news and we have talked about how excited the two women would have been and how special their babies were to be.
We have also made our class Advent Calendar filled with promises as to how we are planning on making ourselves better people throughout Advent.
Science - this week we focused on what animals eat and how to group then using the terms omnivore, carnivore and herbivore.
Topic - this week we spent out topic lesson making our Advent Calendars ready for 1st December next week! Each star has a different promise on it. Each day we will turn over a different star and then try really hard to do what it ass us to do. This is all part of our Advent preparation.
Art - this week two more groups started sewing their Sea Creatures with Mrs Veasey and Mrs Hodgkiss, whilst the rest of the class painted their hands for the Christmas tree and also painted their winter tree in preparation for our Winter Display. A great, if messy, time was had by all!
These are the children we are celebrating this week….
Golden Award - George for being super role model in Year 1, having beautiful manners and always showing excellent behaviour for learning.
Writing Award - Finlay for lovely pre-cursive letters and excellent phonics work in RWI.
Maths Award - Macie for wonderful work using the part part whole model and using a number line for addition work.
Unfortunately, Covid 19 is still very much with this and the spread without our society shows no sign of going away. Please help us to do all we can to keep each other safe by keeping your child at home if they are unwell or showing ANY of the symptoms of Covid 19. If anyone in your household tests positive for Covid 19 you must all go for a PCR test. If a child from a household where there is Covid 19 tests NEGATIVE then they can come into school, but we would ask that that child tests daily using lateral flow tests to ensure they remain negative and do not pass the virus onto others. Thank-you for your help with this matter - we must all remain vigilant to keep each other safe.
If your child is isolating from school due to Covid 19 and they are well enough to work, you can find their work on the HOME LEARNING page of the Year 1 section of the website. I have using Oak Academy units as they all contain a little video and a task for the children to complete that does not require you to print anything - your child just needs a piece of paper and a pencil!! And maybe some colours for the art activities! https://www.ourladyassumption-sch.co.uk/yr1-home-learning
Please DO NOT send the work into school with your child on their return, but send photos of it through Class Dojo and add work to your child’s profile. You will each get an invite to this through the email you gave to school when your child was in Reception.
If your child is off school, please inform the office and NOT the Year 1 email or Class Dojo. Many thanks
Any questions or queries either catch me or Mrs Veasey at the gate or email using year1@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk.
Things to note…
Children should have their water bottles each day. Water bottles must be taken home and washed daily.
PE is Monday and Friday
Earrings cannot be worn for PE
Earrings should only be small, plain, gold or sliver studs
Children should have long hair tied back for school
School bags should just be the red book bags you were given in Reception
Please keep reading folders in the children’s school bags so that they have them on the right day - many thanks.
SICKNESS BUGS - over half of Year 1 have now been off school with sickness bugs since our return from half term. If your child is sick or has diarrhoea, please ensure they stay off school for a full 48 hours after they were last sick or had an incident of diarrhoea. This ensures the bug does not spread through the rest of the class.
We have continued to talk about the importance of hand washing, particularly after the children have gone to the toilet. We can monitor hand washing when children wash their hands in class, but not when they go to the toilet in class time. Please can you stress to your child the importance of hand washing with soap and water for their health and safety and that of others. This is particularly important to stress this amongst the boys, who are in and out of the toilet in seconds. Many thanks for your help and support with this issue.
The children have brought home their two lines to learn of the poem ‘T’was the Night Before Christmas’. Year 1 will perform this poem in class, I will film each of them individually and then a professional will edit the videos together to make a little film of the children which will then be put on the website in time for the end of term. We will work on the poem in class, but I would really appreciate your help at home so that the children know their lines off by heart. Many thanks, in advance for your help with this. The videos will be edited together in school on 8th December so we need to ready to hand the films over on that date - so I would like to film the children on MONDAY 6TH DECEMBER, that then gives me a days grace if anyone is off on that date, I can film them the day after!! To add a Christmassy air I would like to ask the children to come dressed in a Christmas jumper, if they have one, on that day or a Christmassy top - BUT PLEASE NOT THE OUTFIT YOU HAVE PLANNED FOR THIS YEAR IN CASE THEY GET ANYTHING ON IT!! Christmas jumpers would be great - just wear normal PE uniform (as it is a Monday) and then the Christmas jumper instead of the PE jumper. Any problems just let me know.
T’was the Night Before Christmas Poem (incase your child losses their lines!)
The PTFA have arranged a Christmas Jumper Day for the week after, so sorry that this means the children will come in Christmas jumps twice - but the PTFA day is too late for filming to be ready for the end of term.
PTFA CHRISTMAS JUMPER DAY - 14TH DECEMBER - we are asking for a donation of £1 on this day for PTFA funds - which are then spent on items for the children in school. Many thanks.
And finally…..have a lovely weekend, stay safe…..Mrs Hollinghurst and Mrs Veasey
A few pictures of our week……
