A special visitor…
Today, Father Christmas came to school to visit the children. We went to his Grotto and he read us a story and the children told him what they would like for Christmas.
The children have also enjoyed doing other Christmas activities such as decorating the arch outside and making salt dough decorations.
Please tell us about any Christmas activities you do this weekend by emailing scholesf2@spherefederation.org
We’re looking forward to seeing you next week for our Christmas performance.
Santa’s workshop!
Today, the children have been busy wrapping their own presents. They have enjoyed using Christmas paper to wrap up different modelling materials such as boxes – this has prompted lots of discussions about Christmas.
If you have any wrapping paper/cards/ decorations that you would like to donate we would greatly appreciate it.
Exploring the snow and ice!
On Friday, the children enjoyed going on a ‘Welly Walk’ to explore the snow and ice. They went onto the field to see what they could find.
The children found big pieces of ice which they were able to pick up and observe:
- “It’s freezing!”
- “I can see through it!”
- “It’s melting in my hands. It’s going to water.”
We collected some of the ice and brought it inside to explore further. We talked about how the ice was formed and why it started to melt when when we brought it inside.
Someone had paint on their hands and touched the ice – it changed the colour of the ice! The children decided to add paint to the ice. “It’s rainbow ice,” they said. It made a crunching noise when we pushed down hard with the brushes. They noticed the ice melted quicker if it had been painted. “The ice is melting if you put it in the paint.”
“Squeeze it tight. It’s melting…it’s water,” said whilst seeing what would happen if we held the ice in our hands.
We then predicted what would happen if we added salt to the ice. “It will melt,” the children predicted.
We then tried to make snow balls. “It won’t stick (ice)… It’s too hard,” they noted.
Home Link – We wish you a Merry Christmas
Most of our Christmas performance songs will be a lovely surprise…
Just to help us along, please enjoy singing the song ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas’ together.
Also, if you’ve any old Christmas cards, envelopes, wrapping paper, gift tags, bows, ribbons etc… please bring them into nursery. Our busy little elves will no doubt use a lot of these items over the next few weeks as they enjoy writing letters to Santa and wrapping presents in the workshop. Thank you in advance for your donations.
Christmas reminders
Reminders
- Christmas ‘Stay and decorate’ sessions will take place on Tuesday 05, Wednesday 06 and Thursday 07 at 8.30-9.30am. We’ll need to finish the Thursday session promptly as we have our first dress rehearsal for the school shortly afterwards! Thank you in advance for being understanding with this.
- Please can all costumes be in school by Tuesday 05 December.
- ‘Story time with Santa’ is on Friday 08. If your child does not usually attend Nursery on this day they are welcome to come into school via the main reception at 10.00am. Please inform a member of staff.
- As you may be sorting out your Christmas bits and pieces, please donate any tags, wrapping paper, or cards to use in our elves’ workshop.
- Please use the Nursery email to forward pictures or non-urgent information to us: scholesf1@spherefederation.org
Let the festivities commence!
It’s the first of December so that means Nursery will have a very festive feel for the next few weeks. We embrace all beliefs and religions and as such, enhance our areas of provision with many different elements associated with Christmas. From snowmen to Santa Claus, Christmas trees, reindeers and the story of the Nativity. The children have been very engaged in general ‘counting’ activities this week. They’ve been using their developing number skills to count out a selection of objects from a larger group and use vocabulary including ‘more’ and ‘the same’ to say what they have. There has been lots of creativity as we began to make our lovely Christmas cards and salt dough stars for the forthcoming ‘stay and decorate’ sessions.
We’ve been practising our Christmas songs and took our ‘rehearsal’ into the hall for the first time on Thursday. Although the stage has not yet gone up, it was certainly exciting to be singing together with F2!
We still love working together to complete jigsaws! If you have any unwanted jigsaws at home, please send them in. They’re great for promoting team work, conversation and taking turns.
The story ‘Laura’s star’ gave us with lots of opportunities to talk about our feelings and the things that are ‘special’ to us. One very caring child said: “I would look after the broken star because it was sad and lonely”. They then went to the creative area and put a ‘bandage’ around a cardboard star decorated with lots of sparkles to make it feel better!
What we are learning this week
We’ll be sharing the Nativity story in key worker sessions and using the small world area to retell the story with our friends. In the home corner, we’ll patiently be counting down the days to Christmas using the advent calendar and decorating the Christmas tree with lots of baubles and tinsel.
The construction area will become a hive of activity as we take on the roles of ‘Santa’s helpers’ to make and wrap presents in the Elves workshop. Prepare to receive some very well wrapped and decorated ‘presents’ at the end of each day!
Our dress rehearsal takes place on Thursday where we’ll be watched by a small audience comprised of siblings from other classes in school. The children will be dressed in their costumes as we make any last minute adjustments before we perform to our families! We look forward to welcoming parents and carers to the ‘Stay and Decorate’ sessions where there will be lots of Christmas craft activities for you to do with your child. Please ensure you have returned the slip so we know how many people to expect on each day!
Spectacular Science
We’ve been focusing on working scientifically for the last few weeks – even learning a song about it.
All the children in Year 1 and 2 have enjoyed predicting, testing and recording results – especially when it involves smashing eggs! Ask your child to tell you what we found out.
Well done to our Golden Star this week.
Homework review
Each week, we share our homework within our classes.
This week, in 1K we each had an opportunity to discuss our creative and spelling homework. After our discussion, we looked at each piece of homework and voted for our favourite. The children decided to vote based on effort, use of colour, neat handwriting and ideas.
These pieces of homework will be on our display within the class.
We LOVE reading!
All the Year 1 and 2 classes visited Scholes Library again this week. It’s really fostering our love of books and reading. We hope you agree that when children choose their own books to read (as we do from the school library each week) they’re more engaged and motivated to read. Below are some lovely quotes from children after their library visit this week.
“I chose my book because it is cute. I like cute things.”
“I chose my book because it is like Christmas.”
“I chose my book because I like it when they hug.”
“I love my book because it is snowy.”
Times tables success!
Each term we carry out a screening check for times tables (out of 25).
In the Autumn term, the average score for Year 5 was 22.3. This has risen from the Summer term when the average score was 17.7.
85% of Year 5 children scored 20 or more. This is a huge improvement compared to 45% last year.
Results in Year 6 improved from an average score of 20.9 to 23.6. 90% of children in Year 6 scored 20 or more compared to 69% in the Summer term.
Congratulations! The homework each week is having a fantastic impact. Thank you for helping your child learn their tables at home.