Information and Reminders
Firstly, the Year 1 team would like to say a big ‘thank you’ to all of you who were able to attend our exit point on Wednesday. The children had a terrific time sharing their learning with, not only their families, but also the other year groups within the school. We believe that learning should be practical, tangible and – most importantly – fun and this topic has certainly provided that! Now we can’t wait to start our next topic, ‘Freeze It’ which will have a heavy science focus. We will be using the Disney film ‘Frozen’ (you may have heard of it…) as the story which will drive our learning. The children will have to help solve Elsa and Anna’s problems and help to melt the ice surrounding Arendelle and hopefully we will find our own Happily Ever After so please try to watch ‘Frozen’ over the Christmas holiday if your child has not seen it already!
Our Infant Christmas Show is fast approaching and the Infant school team will be sending home information regarding any costumes which you may need to provide on Friday. We do not expect parents to buy a costume for the show but we may require coloured clothing (T-shirts, trousers) which we can then enhance for the production. For example, if your child is a Christmas star in the show, we may need you to send in a black T-shirt and black trousers and we will then add tinsel to make the stars sparkle.
We are all so happy to see children coming into school with appropriate uniform for the cold winter months but please do not forget that your child will need at least a thick coat, a scarf and gloves. We teach the children to tuck their gloves into their coat pockets so they don’t get lost; please reinforce this with your children at home. We know how important being active and socialising at playtime is for children but we cannot let them play outside if they don’t have the correct uniform!
You should also have started to receive your child’s new tricky words and phonic sounds. Please continue to practise these at home with your child whenever you read with them.
Upcoming dates
Sunday 27th November - Christmas Bazaar
Thursday 8th December – Christmas Carol Concert
Friday 9th December – CCAs finish today
Monday 12th December – Infants Christmas Show (Matinee) – 1.30pm
Tuesday 13th December - Infants Christmas Show – 6pm
Wednesday 14th December – Primary Workshop and Coffee Morning (Reading) – 9am to 10.30am
Wednesday 14th December – Primary Christmas themed STEAM Day
Thursday 15th December – Early Years and Primary Christmas Parties
Friday 16th December - Last day of term (School ends at 12pm)
Monday 9th January – First day of spring term
Stars of the Week
Year 1A – Elizabeth
Year 1B – Min
Year 1C – Calum and Marco
English
In English next week, we will begin our new mini-Topic ‘Who Stole Christmas?’ which will be based around the famous Dr Seuss story, ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’. A huge Christmas present will be delivered on Monday morning with a note telling us not to open until Thursday. The children will think about, talk about and then draw what they think is in this HUGE Christmas box and then they will write a description using interesting adjectives and conjunctions. When we finally open the present, however, it will be empty apart from a note from the Grinch telling us how much he hates Christmas because he is lonely! Over the next two weeks we will be thinking about what we want at Christmas and what we need and what really makes us happy at this time of year; perhaps that will convince the Grinch to return our gift…
Please listen to the story of ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ by following this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04_gGu3-_1w
Maths
We will move on from our learning about time to consolidate our work on calculation. We will explore counting on from a larger number by rolling dice and using our conservation of number to identify the amount without needing to count first. We will then continue this work using our fingers to recognise an amount immediately and then count on from that number. The children will record these calculations as number sentences using + and =.
Topic
It will be a very busy week in the Infants over the next three weeks with Christmas fast approaching and our show coming together beautifully! The children have been busy learning their class songs and choreography and they will begin rehearsing in the PAC in preparation for the big event. We will talk about how different countries celebrate Christmas, particularly the children’s home countries and compare the similarities and differences.