This week we have continued with our focus on Mary, Mother of Jesus. We have been working hard on learning the Hail Mary prayer and adding this prayer to our morning prayer ritual. The children are doing really well…maybe it is a prayer that you could say together at home too.

English - we have continued on with our RWI lessons. During these sessions we all focus on phonics, reading, spelling and sentence development. We have also been working on our pre-cursive handwriting in which we focus on how to write our letters, starting on the line. We have also been learning how to spelling because suing the rhyme….big elephants can always understand small elephants. As well as that we are focusing on the tricky words of ’said and ‘you’ - how to recognise them, read them and spell them.

Maths - this week we have continued to work on parts and wholes as our introduction to addition and subtraction. This week we have used our part part whole models to help us them to help us partition a number into two parts and then use them to help us write four calculations to match our model. We have looked at how the whole can come first, so 4+6=10 can also be written as 10=4+6.

RE - this half term is all about Mary. We have continued with our learning of the Hail Mary prayer and also written some I wonder questions about things we wonder about Mary. Fr Frank led our class worship on Thursday…take a look at the photos at the end of the blog.

Science - our topic this half term is all about animals. This week we have focused on the similarities and difference between reptiles and amphibians.

Geography - our focus for this half term is all about the world around us, with a focus on continents. We continued this week with looking at the seven continents of the world and then focusing in on Asia this week and particularly China.

ICT - this have term it is all about algorithms - we have started by looking at algorithms as simply a set of instructions. We have considered how precise our instructions have to be if we want someone to do exactly as we want!

No Art this week as we had a very special author visit from Jeff Kinney - author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books - as your child all about this!!

Also on Wednesday we all went into the poly tunnel to plant some bulbs ready for spring..take a look at the photos at the end of the blog.

Congratulations to this week’s winners…

Golden Award - Esmae for showing friendship, kindness and care this week to all those in her class by sharing her stickers from home with her class mates.

Writing Award - Arlo for developing a beautiful pre—cursive handwriting style and working hard to use that in all of his writing.

Maths Award - Eva for super work this week using her part part whole model and for turning this into four calculations. Eva has shown a good understanding of parts and the whole.

PE will be on **Monday and Friday** so please send the children into class in the PE kits on those days. **No earrings can be worn for PE so please ensure that they are taken out at home.**
**Water bottles** - all the children were given a new school bottle this week. This will come home each night to be cleaned and re-filled. Please only use the school bottles and ensure your child brings theirs each day. Lost water bottles can be replaced at the school office, but I am afraid you will have to pay for those. Year 1 have white tops.
I will not be in class on a Thursday afternoon, as it is my release time. This will be covered by Mrs Veasey and Mrs Connolly and is also when the children will have Music with Mrs Watson
**Party Invitations** - I am afraid that Mrs Veasey and I will **not** be able to give out party invitations in class. **Please do not send your child into class** with them for them to give out - it creates upset and fuss about something that takes place outside of school.Thank-you for your understanding with this matter.
**Key Rings** - please do not put key rings onto your child’s school bag, it create fuss in class and then upset if they are lost.
**School bag** - please continue to use the red book bag that your child was given in Reception, we don’t not have the room to store large bags. Many thanks for your help with this matter.
**Homework Expectations** - please see the Homework page for what I expect the children to do at home…..don’t worry, it’s mainly just reading!! Yr1 Homework — Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Primary School (squarespace.com)

Catholic Life of our school..

The following resources are a great way of keeping you all informed of our current liturgy themes and of the weekly Gospel scripture, with some activities that the children can complete at home. We hope you find these resources useful and that they help you to support prayer and worship in your own homes.

https://www.paperturn-view.com/uk/wednesday-word/faithfulness?pid=MTA101634&v=74.6

http://www.tentenresources.co.uk/prayers-for-home/parent-newsletter/

Photo Permission - n order for me to put your child’s picture on the website I need your permission. Five parents sent their child’s form in WITHOUT ticking the correct box to say YES we can put your child’s picture on the website. Despite you having signed the form we cannot take it for granted that you mean yes. PLEASE check with the school office if I have sent you another text this week - you may have missed to tick the correct box! Many thanks.