Here we go!!!!!!!!!!!!

8th September 2008

Thank you!!!

What a great start to the new school year we had last week! The children came in brilliantly last Wednesday and were ready and raring to go in Year One. It has already been very evident that you have been working with your children over the holidays, so we should certainly be reaching for the stars this year.

Also, a huge thank you, for ensuring that EVERYTHING has been labelled. It has made such a difference and saved a huge amount of time, sorting out whose jumper belongs to who! This ultimately means that we can devote all of our time, to supporting your children's learning.

Staffing

We welcome Miss Knight to our team this year. Many of you will already have met her, as she will be seeing the children out of our classroom door each evening. We also have Mrs Walker with us each morning, with whom many of the children are already familiar.

Please feel free to pass any messages onto any member of the team, either on the playground, or through the diary. Reading books are changed on Tuesdays and Fridays each week, so if you need a reply in the diaries, they will be replied to on these days.

First Aid and Medication

Mrs Walker has asked me to inform you that unfortunately we can only administer prescribed medicines to children in school. This means that all medication brought in, MUST contain a precription label either on the bottle, box, or inhaler. It is also necessary to complete a medication form each time a different medication needs to be administered. These forms may be obtained from Mrs Walker or the school office. Many thanks for your understanding with this.

Induction Meeting

We have our Induction meeting this Tuesday 9th September at 3.15pm in my room. In this meeting, you will be given lots of information on what your child will be learning this year, how we will support them and how you can support their learning at home. You will have the opportunity to ask any questions, as well as the chance to 'sign-up' to help out in school - reading, art work, talks you can offer...we would love it and be very grateful!

Induction

For the first two weeks of school, there are lots of new routines to get used to, so we shall be following what is known as the 'Induction Process'. This may mean that your child comes home and says that they 'haven't done anything' today! Please be assured, that this is most definitely NOT the case! Lots of the information that we will be gathering over the next fortnight, will be through observations, discussions and assessments of your child. This time is invaluable for both us and your child, as we can ensure that the curriculum that we will be covering, will be tailored to match your child's needs exactly.

Literacy

We will be completing our assessments this week of the children, so that we can ensure that they are equally supported and challenged by the formal activities which will begin next week.

Included in those assessments will be the testing of the High Frequency words. As last year, once these are completed, they will be stuck into the front of your child’s diary, so that you are able to support them at home.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/hfwords/index.shtml a great site, where you have to match the shape of the HFW to its spelling

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/cvc/index.shtml choose any of these activities to help with CVC words (cat, hat, mat etc)

http://www.ictgames.com/dinosaurwordsrepeat.html you need to turn the volume up for this one! Click on the dinosaur egg to hear the word and then click on the written word that matches it.

http://www.ictgames.com/lcwc.html I love this one! You can either choose from the lists of prepared words, or you can type in the words that your child is working on. You need to click on start to begin ‘look, say, cover, write, check’.

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/assets/resources/flash.php?&file=stickyl drag and drop the letters on the green letter rack at the top of the page and then click on the ‘Send’ button to send it to the word bank.

http://www.ictgames.com/wordreader.html listen to the word and then click on the matching flower

http://www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/games/airport_xray.html this may bring back memories of your holidays (doesn’t it seem a long time ago?!) Scan the suitcase to find the high frequency words.

Numeracy

As with literacy, we shall be assessing just how much the children have been able to recall from last year, so that we can ‘hit the ground running’ with more formal numeracy sessions.

This week, we will be assessing the children’s knowledge of number – can they match the correct number of objects to the digit? Do they know the number names? Are they able to form the number correctly? Can they count in 1’s, 2’s, 5’s and 10’s? Can they order numbers correctly, both forwards and backwards?

A good way of practising ordering numbers (and a good way for children to check for themselves if they have got it right!) is to completed traditional ‘dot-to-dot’ puzzles. Tesco or Asda have lots of books of these ready-made for you!

Perhaps when you are putting the shopping away this weekend, you could ask your child to group things together – If I have 6 tins, how many more will I need to make 8? 10? Also, why not get your child to pair up all the socks for the family? This is a really good way of encouraging them to count in twos.

http://www.wmnet.org.uk/wmnet/custom/files_uploaded/uploaded_resources/850/calcbalancev3.swf click on the number names in the middle of the scale to match the number name to the digit. This will be a really useful site to bookmark, as we will be using it regularly throughout the year.

http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/ngfl/ngfl-flash/numbers_eng/numbers_e.html this site is useful for practicing the formation of each of the numbers. The first slide is VERY fast, so click on the green arrow on the bottom right-hand side to practice the numbers individually.

http://www.numbernut.com/basic/activities/number_mem20_1-10words.shtml play a memory game and match the number names to the digits at the same time!

http://www.sums.co.uk/playground/n2a/playground.htm click on the ‘continue’ button to start the activity. This activity looks at the number names up to 100, so give it a go if you fancy a challenge!

http://www.primaryonline.co.uk/sitetour/pol/blastoff1.html a lovely game in which you have to launch 5 spaceships! Remember that the number name won’t always match a spaceship, so you have to click on ‘next’ until you get a match. This game is most suitable for Year 1, as it covers numbers up to 20.

http://www.ictgames.com/postletter.html fancy a challenge? Listen to the number and post the letter in the correct letterbox.

We look forward to meeting you all at the Induction meeting on Tuesday, where you will be able to ask any questions you may have.

Take care and have a great week,

Year 1 team xx