Rejoice: the Lord is nigh." As Christmas draws near, the Church emphasizes the joy which should be in our hearts over all that the birth of our Savior means for us. The great joy of Christians is to see the day drawing nigh when the Lord will come again in His glory to lead them into His kingdom. The oft-repeated Veni ("Come") of Advent is an echo not only of the prophets but also of the conclusion of the Apocalypse of St. John: "Come, Lord Jesus," the last words of the New Testament.

This Sunday is known as Gaudete Sunday. The term Gaudete refers to the first word of the Entrance Antiphon, "Rejoice". Rose vestments are worn to emphasize our joy that Christmas is near, and we also light the rose candle on our Advent wreath.

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. We have continued to use counters to support our work as well as our ten frames to show how a number can be represented and the different ways we can make a number. We call these facts Number Bonds. Our number bonds to ten are our main focus of learning at the moment as we try to learn these facts and commit them to memory. If we know these facts by heart AND can apply them, it saves us time with our other learning. These are facts you can practice at home. This week we have also focused on the language of word problems and relating this to our use of part part whole

RE - this half term is all about Mary. This week we have looked at the role of the shepherds and the message sent by God in telling the lowliest in society the news about Christ’s birth first.

Science - our topic this half term is all about animals. This week we have been thinking about wjat all animals needs to survive.

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 South America and Brazil in particular this week.

Art - this week the children have continued to focus on their sewing, although with a few Christmas projects!

NATIVITY - our work has obviously been de-railed slightly by the nativity this week - we hoped you enjoyed all our hard work!

Well done to this week’s winners….

Golden Award - Alistair for always caring about the well being of those around him - Alistair has a gentle and caring soul and he is always looking out for others. That does not go unnoticed.

Writing Award - Sophia for developing the most beautiful pre-cursive handwriting style and writing reflectively about the shepherds this week.

Maths Award - Kian for always being super keen in Fluent in Five Maths and sharing his knowledge and understanding with others.

General pieces of information

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.
Trainers - if your children is wearing trainers with laces for PE they must be able to tie them by themselves. This is a health and safety issue - please ensure your child can tie their laces before sending them in lace-up trainers.
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 orange tops.
I will not be in class on a Thursday afternoon, as it is my release time. This will be covered by Mrs Debowska and Mrs McCooey and is also when the children will have Music with Mrs Watson.
Party Invitations - I am afraid that Mrs Debowska 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 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!! HOMEWORK EXPECTATIONS - YEAR 1 — Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Primary

A huge well done and congratulations to all of Year 1 for their wonderful Nativity performance this week. They performed three times this week and each time they sang beautifully, remembered the actions and where they needed to be!! Simply wonderful. Well done….we are all very proud of you. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did.

This year we are introducing the Travelling Nativity to the families in Year 1 at Our Lady’s! Families will be invited to host Mary, Joseph and the donkey for an evening and night each and then pass them on to another family. Please see the letter you were sent last week for more details OR find it here. This will start on Monday 2nd December and continue on until the end of term.

Travelling Nativity Letter

Thank-you so much to the families who have welcomed the Nativity already - beautiful photos (see end of blog), along with lovely pictures and writing from the children. I have been delighted with how well it has been received and the children are all so excited at the end of the day to see ‘if it is going to be them’!!

17.12.24 - School Christmas dinner and festive wear day!! Wear your Christmas jumper, socks, hand bands for the day!!

19.12.24 - Schools closed for the Christmas holidays - normal finishing time.

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/wednesday-word/christmas-holiday-special?pid=MTA101634&v=158.3