Oxfordshire County Council
HAILEY CE PRIMARY SCHOOL
Hailey, Witney, Oxon, OX29 9UB
Headteacher: Mrs. D. Davies Tel: 01993 703802
Fax: 01993 849 790
email:
Hailey C. of E. Primary School
26th February 2016
Foundation Class Newsletter – Term 4, 2016
Dear Parents and Carers,
Welcome back after the February holiday! We have a short term ahead and lots to do.
Topic and Learning
This term our topic is a mixture of ‘Why Do Spiders Eat Flies?’ and ‘Are Eggs Alive?’ Each week the children will experience their learning through this topic. The nature of the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum means that where possible, we go with the children’s interests and ideas. Therefore, possible themes in our topic may be: how spiders and other mini beasts feed and grow; how spiders and other mini beasts move to find water, food, shelter and to escape from danger; about different environments, habitats and the small creatures who live there; about the life cycle of various animals; about animals that are born in the spring; how to care for and nurture baby animals; about the spring weather, including rain and wind; about different types of farm animals and their names. During our topic work, the children will be introduced to a selection of fiction and non-fiction books as well as some poetry and rhyme. Our term will be rounded off with One World Week, where we will be focussing on life and art from different cultures.
In Maths this term we will be concentrating on numbers; counting, recognising, ordering and writing. We will be doing some more on addition and also subtraction. The children will be encouraged to group sets of objects, counting them to find the total, as well as counting on in order to add numbers together. We will also begin to think about doubling and halving as well.
Reception children will continue to take part in PE on Monday afternoon but please make sure your child has a PE kit in school at all times, as we may occasionally use it on other days. The children usually wear shorts and t-shirt but as the weather gets colder, they may need jogging bottoms and a jumper. Please make sure that all uniform is clearly labelled; because the children all get changed together, their belongings can easily get muddled up.
Routines
Just a few reminders about our routines; please ensure that children are settled and left in the classroom by 8:50am. Children need to bring their book bag to school every day. Please check the book bag everyday for letters and other information that may be put inside throughout the day.
Please can I remind you that although the children are very welcome to bring in juice to drink at lunchtime, for drinks during the day, they should only be bringing in water. These bottles can be put in the dragonfly box as you come into the main part of the classroom. Please can I ask that juice is put in the box on the shelves above the pegs so the children are not tempted to drink them during the day! Thank you!
The children will spend a large part of the day outside, regardless of the weather, so will need a pair of named wellies in school at all times. Also, should your child have any ‘accidents’ we do have spare clothes and underwear. We will send home any wet clothes in a bag and would be grateful if you could wash and return the spare clothes as soon as possible. Please ensure that all clothes, shoes, lunch boxes, water bottles etc. are named from the start in order to help us match up the right items to the right child and to avoid items getting left at school at the end of the day.
If your child is unwell, please remember to phone the school in the morning, so that we are aware. It is school policy to follow up if we haven’t heard anything from you. If your child is of nursery age, we won’t of course follow up if it is a day that your child is not due to attend.
Learning at Home
Please don’t forget our ‘WOW’ board in the cloakroom area. On the display are a selection of ‘wow’ certificates and stars; please help yourself to these whenever you feel that you need or want to share some learning that your child has done at home. We will then share these in class and display them on the board.
Topic Homework
We do ask that the children have the opportunity to explore and discuss our topic at home with you. Please find attached some details regarding topic homework for the term. Hopefully there is enough of a selection of ideas that are appropriate for all ages in the FSU, but do ask if you have any questions.
Further Information for Nursery Children (Butterflies and Caterpillars)Show and Tell
Show and Tell will continue on Tuesdays. You will find the themes for each week below:
23rd Feb – things beginning with ‘n’
1st Mar – things beginning with ‘c/k’
8th Mar – things beginning with ‘e’
15th Mar – things beginning with ‘h’
22nd Mar – things beginning with ‘r’
Books
We will also be giving the children an opportunity to bring home a picture book to share with you at home. Sharing a book at home helps to develop your child’s love of books and reading. By talking and observing as you read, it allows them to develop an understanding of how they can tell a story using the pictures, as well as identify characters and emotions within a story. This is an excellent start in the processes of learning to read. Books will be changed on a Thursday morning, so please ensure your child’s book is in school on that day. Thank you!
Collection
At the end of the morning (12pm), if you are late collecting your child and the gate has been closed, then please go round to the school office to collect them.
Further Information for Reception Children (Dragonflies)
Reading Books
Thank you for your continued support with your child’s reading. Reading and sharing a book daily, is very beneficial to your child’s reading development. Many of the children are still using pictures, repetition, rhyme and knowledge of stories to help them read, which are really useful strategies, but they are increasingly also blending the sounds of short words to work out what the word says. In class we are currently learning all the letter sounds, and practising to blend them to read short, mainly CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words. It is helpful if you ask your child to point out individual sounds in words, and also encourage them to sound out and blend in words such as sat, mum, dad, etc., or harder words. Please remember to record your child’s reading in their reading diary; you are welcome to include both school books and books from home/the library, but please remember that the school books are of an appropriate level to help in the development of your child’s reading and it is important to include them in the books that your child reads during the week. Your comments also help to see the progress that is happening at home, so please continue to do this with the books that you read.
Other Homework
Please continue to help your child with the High Frequency Words that I sent home last term; these will really help to develop the fluency of your child’s reading and mean that they have a bigger bank of sight words without having to ‘sound out’.
Please also practise things like counting, ordering numbers and shape recognition; although they sound simple, it all goes to help the mathematical development of your child. Simple adding and taking away is also going to be key now. This can be made very practical; for example, while eating dinner, talk about how many ‘peas’ will be left after eating 3 or if “you eat 2 potatoes and I eat 3 how many will we have eaten altogether?” These are just very simple examples, but hopefully it illustrates how easy it is to turn everyday things into questions that will help develop mathematical understanding.
I hope we have a good term ahead of us and also hope for some dryer weather to enjoy our outdoors environment even more. If you do have any matters to discuss, please let me know and we can agree a time that is suitable for both of us.
Yours sincerely
Lizzie Griffiths
FSU Topic Homework
Topic: Why Do Spiders Eat Flies? / Are Eggs Alive?
Below you will find a list of possible homework ideas, linked to our topic this term. Please select 3 activities to do with your child at home across the whole term. We suggest one activity every 2 weeks. Please ensure that at least one activity provides some work that the children are able to bring in and share with myself and the rest of the class.
If you have any questions, please just ask.
Homework activities to choose from:
1) Look for mini beasts that live in your garden. Make a map to show where you found them.
2) Look for mini beasts that live in your garden. How many different kinds of mini beasts can you find?
3) Find out about animals that lay eggs.
4) Design a new mini beast.
5) Make a home for a mini beast.
6) Visit a farm to find out about different kinds of farm animals. Take some pictures of the different animals that you see.
7) Look after an egg. How long can you look after it for? What does it need?
8) Make an egg animal.