Good afternoon everyone,
On Sunday we embark on our second week of Advent by lighting our second purple candle, the peace candle. During our anticipation and preparation for the coming of Jesus, we think of the ways in which we can be peaceful and how we can help others to be peaceful too. We think about our families and how we can help them at home to bring them peace and how we can do the same in school to support our classmates and teachers.
This Week
In English, we have researched and collected data about frogs and their life cycle and have used these to create a plan to help us to write our own frog life cycle explanation texts. So far, we have written our introductions and have considered the purpose of these: to draw in our reader and make them want to know more.
In Maths, we have focused on calculations again, concentrating more on mental maths methods. We have learned about adding one-digit numbers to two-digit numbers by first making ten and then counting on the rest to solve. E.g. 26 + 9 is the same as 26 + 4 + 5. Making 10 helps us to solve trickier mathematical problems further along.
In Science we have learned about keeping clean and hygienic and why this is so important. We discussed the various ways we keep ourselves clean, why this is so important and what might happen to us if we don’t keep clean. The children have been fantastic with their ideas.
In RE, we have begun to learn all about advent, the reasons we celebrate advent, and all about the advent wreath and symbolism of the parts, including candles. We have made an advent promise for how we can help to bring hope (this week’s theme) to others. We have also written about our Holy Trinity models and explained what they represent and why.
In Geography, we have learned all about the five oceans. We learned a song to remind us of these oceans and have identified the continents they are near. We also began to discuss how plastic pollution effects our oceans and what changes we can make to help prevent this.
We have also been doing lots of nativity practice!
Nativity
We will be (all being well) performing our nativity play in our last week to one of the other classes in school.
However, on this coming Wednesday (8th) we have a videographer coming into school to film the various performances. When this happens and we are given the finished videos I will send out the link to parents.
Christmas Cards
Please could I ask that children do not bring in Christmas cards for each child in class. We don’t mean to come across as mean-spirited but giving 27 lots of 27 cards out is quite the laborious task and really eats into learning time. It can also be quite upsetting for children who may have been left out by mistake or cannot bring in cards of their own for any reason.
Instead, if you would like to send cards, please send one whole class card which we will put on display in class.
Alternatively, whilst waiting for the gates to open at the start of the day or when picking up at the end of the day, your child can give out cards then. Unfortunately, we are unable to do this in school.
Christmas Jumper Day
This year’s Christmas jumper day will be on Tuesday 14th December. The PTFA are organising this and we ask for a £1 donation which will be used to buy resources for children to use in school.
Homework
Please continue to practice nativity lines and the away in a manger song.
There is also another set of 10 common exception words to practice for a spelling test.
Maths – adding 1s crossing ten. The children need to partition the ones number so that the first part makes the number add up to a tens number then add on the rest of the number. E.g. 15 + 8 would be 15 + 5 + 3. They then write the solution mentally or using the number line.
Award Winners
Golden Award – William - for focusing well on his explanation text writing.
Writing Award – Gabriel - for super ideas for his life cycle text.
Maths Award – Beaux - for a huge growth in her confidence in addition and subtraction.
Have a lovely weekend,
Mr Whetnall, Mrs Bowdell and Miss Collins
