Good afternoon everyone,

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.

English - In English we have been immersing ourselves in our new vehicle text ‘A River’ by Marc Martin. We have been focusing on the wonderful illustrations and making links to think how these places might be connected. We have also been asking wondering questions and thinking about how questions are punctuated. We also revisited expanded noun phrases and created descriptive sentences for the settings we saw.

Maths - In Maths we have been exploring easy (no exchange) and tricky (exchange) subtraction with a focus upon both drawing tens and ones and counting back to the previous ten to support mental maths. We have learned how to identify subtraction problems which need an exchange by recognising when the ones of the part we are subtracting are larger than the ones of the whole we begin with.

Science - This week we explored the importance of exercise for keeping us happy and healthy. We discussed a range of different ways we can get exercise and how these can help our bodies (muscles, hearts, bones) and our minds (cheer us up, making us relax).

RE - We heard and retold the story of the Annunciation. When we were familiar with this, we looked at the deeper meaning of the story and the things it tells us about both Mary and Jesus.

Geography - We labelled the 5 oceans of the world. Afterwards, we researched facts about each ocean and created our own small fact files.

PE - Our indoor PE sessions focused upon dribbling a basket ball and moving in and out of spaces and our outdoor PE focused on trapping, passing and moving a football.

Art - We learned about the artist Wassily Kandinsky and created concentric circle art.

Computing - We learned about bugs in algorithms and how these need to be debugged by checking each line of code. We debugged our own set of instructions to build a model from cubes.

We also spent some time practising for our Nativity.

Please continue to practise counting in 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s.

Please practise the year 1 and year 2 common exception words sent home before half term. The children need to be able to read and write (spelling correctly) each one of these by the end of year 2.

Spelling

Mr W’s group - Y2 Common exception words (third set again)

Mrs B’s group - Y1 Common exception words (third set again)

We have given out the same spelling words as a fortnight ago as many children were not confident spelling them in their test.

There is also a handwriting practise sheet for each group’s spelling words.

Maths

Subtracting ones by counting back to the previous ten then counting back the rest.

RE/Writing

We are doing our own Jesse Tree in class where we learn 25 stories of the Bible which link to Jesus’s family tree. Please look at this week’s stories and try to write a sentence or 2 to summarise each one.

Golden Award -

Writing Award -

Maths Award -

Year 2 PE lessons will take place on Wednesday and Friday. Please come to school in PE kit on these days.

Water bottles - all the children were given a new school bottle. 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 2 have green tops.

I will not be in class on a Thursday afternoon, as it is my release time. This will be covered by Mrs Bowdell and Miss Andrew and is also when the children will have Music with Mrs Watson.

Party Invitations - I am afraid that Mrs Bowdell 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 creates fuss in class and then upset if they are lost.

School bags - 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.

8.12.23 - follow up from the successful SEND afternoon and will focus on deciding what professional parents would like to hear from and areas that they need support in. Mrs Ormerod will speak about how to navigate the FYI directory and how APDR/ graduated response works in school. There will also be members of the Blackpool parent forum in attendance. We will also look at support around the cost of living. Church hall 2-3.10pm

18.12.23 Year 1 and 2 Nativity! There will be two performances at 10am and 2pm. Each child will be sent two tickets for each performance. These are free but we have to limit numbers as it is for two classes and we can only physically fit so many people safely in the hall at once. Many thanks for your understanding.