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Singlewell Primary School

Year R Starfish

Starfish May Update!

This week, Singlewell School have taken part in many discussions, visits and activities as part of CAREERS week! Starfish class have talked about so many different jobs, including jobs they may never have heard of before such as a meteorologist, oceanographer, sign language teacher, interpreter, botanist and archaeologists. Our circle time discussions have been eye opening and the children have been inspired by our volunteers that kindly came to speak to us throughout the week.

We have listened to a swimming teacher, hairdresser, construction worker, zoo-keepers and an air hostess and been amazed by the hard work and dedication it takes to achieve your dreams. We have talked about how ALL of our school values (being curious, ambitious, resilient, equal and safe) are important when working towards and achieving a career we love. We enjoyed dressing up as our future job. Have a browse through our photos to see what we got up to.

A gentle reminder to also make sure you have used the app and scopay to pay for the school trip which will be on Wednesday 19th June.

Mrs Atkinson and Mrs Gardner

Happy Easter from Starfish!

We have had a very busy, very fulfilling end to our fourth term where we have helped to support comic relief and completed lots of challenges focussed around the story, ‘Oliver’s Fruit Salad’.

We hope you enjoyed our Easter Eggs-travaganza activities as much as we did. The children made fantastic Easter crowns to wear for the day and the egg bunting they decorated looked amazing throughout the school! A huge thanks goes to Miss Rivers (Year 1 teacher) for organising such a fabulous celebration for our school community to join in with. A big thanks too to, Mrs Catt and Mrs Broad for preparing and creating fun games and activities as well as all the wonderful parent volunteers that helped out on the day.

Thank you for all of your positive comments during parents' evening and for continuing to support all we do in school. Please check your child’s home diary for more egg-citing Easter challenges to complete over the holidays. We’d love to see some pictures of any fun days out you have. The children always love to share these in class.

We look forward to welcoming the children (and hopefully some sunshine) back in Term 5 where our topic will be ‘Animals’. We are already super excited about the fun challenges we have planned for our Starfish.

Mrs Atkinson and Mrs Gardner 

Starfish March Update!

Welcome back Starfish Class, for another fantastic term, where our topic is ‘Growing’.

The stories we have explored so far are, ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and ‘The Enormous Turnip’ and ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’.

The children are in the process of growing their own Beanstalks and we are looking forward to observing them over the coming weeks and comparing heights. We’re excited to see if any of them reach the castles!

During our PE sessions we have been learning new skills, focused on manipulation and coordination. See our pictures where we had to gain complete control over unpredictable balloons. Can your child remember what movements we had to do?

The children (and adults) were very excited when the duck eggs were delivered and one even hatched before it arrived! We have been talking a lot about how we should care for it and have been enjoying learning facts about ducks. We look forward to seeing them grow over the next week and can’t wait to see what exciting challenges we will be completing in celebration of our ducks. If there are any parents who would like to adopt a duckling or know of a good home for the ducklings, please see Mrs Atkinson or Mrs Gardner during drop off or pick up time as this is an option instead of sending them back.

Starfish February Update!

Over the past few weeks, Starfish class have enjoyed many new learning challenges with a focus on the Traditional Tales, ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ and ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ and ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’.

We enjoyed taking part in tasting porridge and experimenting with different toppings. We compared our likes and dislikes with our classmates and discussed textures as well as what a healthy breakfast or snack would look like.

Now that we have built up a familiarity of various Traditional Tales, we are able to make comparisons and talk about similarities and differences with a focus on story language and repetition. We have especially noticed these aspects when drawing story maps and coming up with actions to retell the stories.

Can your child act out their favourite traditional tale at home?

We have also been using our new story sacks to make up our own stories. Thank you for any donations you made towards these. We loved coming to school in our comfy pjs, mixing with other classes and visiting the library during National Story Telling Week!

During our whole class Maths sessions, we have been focussing on adding and subtracting small groups of objects. We have enjoyed doing this in a practical way and acting out number sentences using our arms to represent the symbols.

Every week we celebrate our CARES school values during assemblies. We look forward to our reading celebration assembly at the end of each term. A friendly reminder to keep signing the reading record every time you read with your child or they read or look at text independently. We would love to see our raffle ticket box to be bursting this term!

Mrs Atkinson and Mrs Gardner

Starfish January Update!

Happy New Year!

It has been wonderful welcoming all of the children back after the holidays. We look forward to seeing what 2024 brings for Starfish class.

We have got stuck in straight away with a variety of engaging challenges and stories. Our topic this term is, ‘Traditional Tales’. So far we have looked at, ‘The Gingerbread Man’ and ‘The Three Little Pigs’. It has been great to see the children tell us what they already know about these familiar stories. We have made our own 'story roads' and actions so that we can retell the stories with expression. This has helped us to prepare us for our challenges and writing as well as support our growing vocabulary. Can your child show you how to act out the story at home?

Some of our challenges have included:

  • Using our senses and the ingredients to make a gingerbread mixture in the tray
  • Adding two groups of buttons on the gingerbread men to find a total
  • Writing speech bubbles for the gingerbread man
  • Using a variety of materials to make collage gingerbread men
  • Finding out which objects float and which sink in the water
  • Making a house for the gingerbread man
  • Using different construction materials to build a bridge for the gingerbread man
  • Writing wanted posters to catch the Big Bad Wolf
  • Matching the numbered pigs to the correct houses
  • Using the natural materials and puppets to retell the story
  • Washing the muddy pigs in the water tray
  • Using the ordinal numbers 1st 2nd and 3rd for our painted houses

This term the children have begun their PE sessions with Mrs Gardner on Wednesday afternoons. They are going to be learning new skills and developing their knowledge of gymnastics. Please see our pictures to see our first session.

Mrs Atkinson and Mrs Gardner

Starfish December Update!

Since our last class message, we have been learning about how people celebrate Weddings, Birthdays and Christmas!

We have enjoyed talking about and exploring how different cultures and religions, celebrate these events. We’ve looked at videos as well as discussed our own experiences and have been reading the story, ‘Kipper’s Birthday’ and ‘The Nativity Story’.

Some of our challenges have included:

  • Writing about what we might see at a wedding. For example: rings, flowers, dancing, cake
  • Designing and making our own wedding hat
  • Ordering the wedding shoes by size
  • Making celebration drinks for a wedding party in the water tray
  • Writing a wedding guest list using our friends name cards
  • Writing birthday invitations and cards
  • Building different sized chimneys for Santa
  • Finger painting repeating pattern candy canes
  • Wrapping presents
  • Matching the Numicon to the correct number post box

Over the last few weeks, we have also celebrated Remembrance Day and supported the Children in Need charity by dressing up in spots or our own clothes and taking part in specific activities. Please look at our photos to see what we got up to.

Thank you for attending our book sharing session earlier in the term and parents evening. The children have really enjoyed sharing their learning and progress with you, as have we!

We loved exploring the snow, however brief it was, and have enjoyed taking part in other school activities, such as Christmas jumper day.

We have also loved taking part in school assemblies on a Friday where one Starfish is awarded every week for being either, Curious, Ambitious, Resilient, Equal or Safe. Look at our pictures to see who has received an award and who has been a star writer as well!

Mrs Atkinson and Mrs Gardner

Starfish November Update!

It’s been wonderful welcoming the children back after the half term. They have been super eager and excited to get on with our new topic, Celebrations. We have kicked off the term learning all about Halloween, Bonfire night and Diwali.

Some of our challenges have been:

  • Making shape firework rockets
  • Writing the letters of our names on rockets
  • Cutting out the shapes to make pumpkins
  • Writing the sounds we know in glitter
  • Ordering numbered firework rockets
  • Matching the fireworks to the correct number
  • Designing firework safety posters
  • Creating and decorating Diwali pots out of clay
  • Making paper lanterns
  • Writing about the things we need to wear when we go to a fireworks display

And much more...

At the end of last term we discussed Martin Luther King as we celebrated Black History Month. We talked about our own aspirations and dreams after talking about the iconic ‘I have a dream speech’, and discussed how we can make sure we treat everyone equally which is one of our school values.

Mrs Gardner & Mrs Atkinson

Starfish October Update!

Over the last two weeks, Starfish have been continuing to show their creativity, enthusiasm and curiosity when it comes to new challenges and activities.

We had a fantastic time during our first whole school event, the school Colour Run. This gave us an opportunity to explore more of the school grounds as well as make special memories with our friends and families.

In class, we have been looking at the story Elmer as well as finding out about Harvest festival and Autumn.

Some of our challenges have been:

  • Making scarecrows and talking about shapes
  • Discussing Elmer’s feelings
  • Counting the colours on Elmer and writing numbers
  • Creating an Autumn senses poem
  • Making a farmyard scene
  • Printing the right amount of leaves on the numbered trees
  • Sorting fruits and vegetables into groups
  • Drawing and writing about what we are most thankful for.

You can see some of these challenges in action in our photos.

We have been working really hard to learn a new letter sound every day and put our knowledge into practice during phonics activities. We now know the sounds: m, a, s, d, t, i, n, p, g, o, c, k, u, b, f, e, l, h, r, sh.

Well done to all of the children working hard at home to practice writing and reading these sounds. We have enjoyed sharing all of the children’s writing practice in their home diaries. This is a great start to begin word reading soon.

We got creative during our first Parent Workshop where we explored 6 different Autumn activities. Thank you to those that came and have fun with us. This term has flown by and we are super proud of how the children have settled in so far. We’re looking forward to the last week of term and coming back with more energy next term where our topic will be, ‘Celebrations’.

Mrs Gardner & Mrs Atkinson

September Update!

What a fantastic 2 full time weeks our super Starfish have had!

To summarise, our busy start to Reception, we have been:

  • Getting to know each other and the environment
  • Learning and following the class rules
  • Learning our CARES school values (to strive to be Curious, Ambitious, Resilient, Equal and Safe)

To sum up some activities we have completed, we have:

Each made our own Starfish:

  • Been practicing how to recognise and write our names
  • Learning the first 10 sounds of Read Write Inc. (m, a, s, d, t, i, n, p, g, o)
  • Playing ‘Fred Talk’ games to help us hear the sounds that make up words

We have been busy completing 'Learning Challenges' focussed on the stories, ‘Guess How Much I Love You and Owl Babies. Some of these include:

  • Making rabbits and owls out of shapes
  • Counting carrots and matching them to the correct number
  • Making rabbit headbands
  • Painting owl babies using sponges
  • Making our own family trees
  • Using playdough to make owls
  • Retelling the stories using puppets

We know that the first term for Reception children (and parents) can be tiring and challenging but we have been amazed at how resilient and enthusiastic our class have been. Keep it up Starfish!

Mrs Atkinson and Mrs Gardner

  1. Prime and Specific Areas with ELG docx
  2. EYFS Parents Guide doc
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