Weren’t they fabulous? I am sure you were all as proud as we were of the children last week when they performed ‘A Christmas Tail’. I hope they all managed to catch up on their sleep over the weekend and are ready and raring to go on the last two week stretch before the holidays.
This week, we will be finishing off our writing assessments and you will be informed of your child’s targets to help them move forward in their learning before the Christmas break. You will also receive updated targets for your child’s reading and numeracy in their diaries. We have been really pleased at the amount of progress they have made this term and can’t wait to see where the new year will take us!So, what have we got planned for this week?
Christmas lunch
On Monday, we don our party hats and best singing voices (if we have any left!) and have our Christmas lunch. If you have asked that your child has lunch on Monday, they won’t need a packed lunch. Please also remember that there will be no toast served on Monday, so the children will need to bring their own snack.
Christmas Party
The children’s party takes place next week, but there are still a number of children who need to bring in their £2.50 contribution. If you haven’t already done so, we would be grateful if it could be sent into school by MONDAY, so that we are able to arrange the party bags. Santa’s elves are working really hard at the moment, so the more time they have the better!! Many thanks!
Literacy
We will be focussing on the children’s writing skills this week and they will be writing their very own versions of the ‘Greatest story ever told’ – the Nativity. We had a great time using our drama skills last week, retelling the story using our nativity masks! Using their knowledge of the sequence of the story and their ability to write using some adventurous vocabulary, we should see some fantastic pieces of writing.
Have a look back at the sites from last week, in order to help the children sequence the story.We will be encouraging them to use our ‘mantra’ for writing of Think it – Say it – Write it. Now that we have had the excitement of our production, we are sure that the children will rise to this challenge.
By the end of the week, the children:
Must be able to write a simple sentence to explain each stage of the Christmas story
Should be able to use a range of interesting words when describing the setting, characters and events in the story; be able to join sentences with simple words like ‘and’ or ‘but’
Could use a range of story language and descriptive phrases to entertain the reader; be able to use conjunctions like ‘because’, ‘so’ and ‘when’ to join ideas in sentences.
Phonics
We shall be reviewing the letter sounds and patterns that we have been working on this half term. It would be really helpful if you were able to spend just 5 minutes each day during the holidays, going through these with your child. You will receive an update of the sounds your child needs to work on in their diaries this week.
http://www.ictgames.com/cluster.html spelling game based on the initial sounds they can hear
http://www.ictgames.com/hybrid.html it took me a while to figure out how to play this game! To select a word in the wordsearch, click on the first and the last letter of the word you wish to highlight, and the cow will ‘MOO’ if you are correct! A great way to investigate spelling patterns.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/longvow/snap/snap.shtml click SNAP when the sounds match the word written on the right hand side
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/longvow/spelling/spelling.shtml drag and drop the correct spelling pattern into the gaps before the time runs out.
Numeracy
The children completed their termly numeracy assessments last week and they were fabulous! We were amazed at the way the children were able to apply what they had learned to problem solving. We are using the last two weeks before the Christmas break, to reinforce a few areas that the children found challenging.
This week we will be looking at Doubling and Halving numbers up to 10. The work on partitioning, will really help with this.
By the end of the week, the children:
Must recognise doubling as the addition of two equal amounts
Should know doubles of numbers up to at least 10 and the corresponding halves
Could begin to derive doubles of multiples of 2 up to 20 and the corresponding halves
Beware, some of these websites are quite challenging, so you may have to sit with your child while completing these activities:
http://www.wmnet.org.uk/resources/gordon/Hit%20the%20button%20v9.swf one of my favourite sites. Click on the doubles/halves button and select the doubles on the left hand side to begin
http://www.ictgames.com/bridgedoubles.html select the doubles from the circles to complete building the bridge
http://www.abc.net.au/countusin/games/game1.htm move the sheep into the correct paddocl to double the quantity
http://www.freewebtown.com/weddell/mw/doubling/doubling%202%20digit.swf if you fancy a real challenge, see of you can work out how to double any two digit number
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/maths/num%20machine/double.html type in the number you want to double and see if you can calculate the answer before the machine!
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/maths/num%20machine/halver.html exactly the same as the previous site, but this is the halving version.
Carol Service
It is our annual Carol Service on Friday 19th December, led by Years 5/6. This year, it will take place up at St. Joseph’s Church at 10am. The children will arrive at school as usual at 8.45am and will walk up to church for the service. Please ensure that any permission slips are returned as soon as possible, as we will be unable to take children out of school without them.As I am sure you will appreciate, we will need lots of volunteers to help walk our children up, so please do let any member of the team know if you will be able to help us with this. It is sure to be a lovely occasion, where we can all take time out from the hectic preparations and reflect on the real meaning of Christmas.
Request
Could we please ask that if you have changed any contact details, particularly Mobile numbers, please remember to inform school, so that our records may be updated.
Festive Fun
Lots of the children comment on how they have ‘been on the games on the blog’ when we read through the blog on Monday. All of the sites, links and activities on the site are used in class to support our learning, but every now and again, we include sites which are ‘just for fun’.
http://www.emailsanta.com/ write a letter to Santa and see the reply appear before your very eyes!http://www.northpole.com/ a real favourite of mine! The disco dancing Santa is fabulous!
http://www.northpole.com/PersonalizedStories/ this is lovely and the children will love printing these off! Just enter a couple of pieces of information and your child will appear as a character in their very own story!
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/Xmas/ a very interesting site, explaining all about the customs and traditions of Christmas.
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/Xmas/meaning.htm I loved this story! Maybe one for Christmas Eve?
http://www.star28.net/snow.html?msg=they this made me giggle! Get the penguin to write your name in the snow. What about trying this to help with the spelling of those tricky words?
http://www.learn-ict.org.uk/resources/rudolph/rudolph.htm Rudolf is missing! Read this lovely interactive story with your child. A great way of developing those comprehension skills.
http://www.funranch.com/games/tree/index.htm decorate the online Christmas tree
http://www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/games/snowman_v4.html build your very own snowman...without getting your hands cold!
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/winter/ some great ideas for Christmas crafts to doat home, using all those empty boxes.
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/christmas/ Christmas crafts
http://www.nevada.edu/~blake/Christmas.carols.html why not sing through some of these traditional Christmas Carols in preparation for our carol service?
http://www.kidzone.ws/math/christmas/index.htm although these are based on American ‘grades’, some of these Christmas themed Maths worksheets are still really useful.
http://christmas.iboard.co.uk/ lots of Christmas online activities to try. I really like the writing ideas, which use a framework and a wordbank to help. Why not print some off to bring in to show?
Many thanks once again to all who supported the Christmas productions and the mums and dads who came to help behind the scenes for all our performances, but particularly on a very wet and windy Wednesday evening! You were fantastic!
Have a great week!
Year 1 team xx
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