Dear Bluebells and Bluebells Parents,
What a term! It has been full on. We started with an excellent visit to Segedunum, where the children’s knowledge of the Romans was brought to life. Children loved dressing up as Roman Soldiers and spending time pretending to be Celts. Thank you to the parents who joined us and to all who contributed towards the trip.
Our first half term of Maths involved embedding a lot of the basics of working with 3-digit numbers, this will continue throughout the year, but it is nice to have been able to stretch the class with some tricky concepts such as right angles, mass, money and time. This week, as well as doing some fun Christmas activities, we have given the children some devilish Maths problems to solve and they have really dug their teeth into them. Finally, I have seen great progress in their times table knowledge (4s and 8s particularly) so thank you for those who have worked at home on these. Just chanting the multiples on the way to school or before bed can be quick but impactful.
In English, I have seen some absolutely outstanding writing. We started the half term writing a recipe for Wormy Spaghetti (taken from ‘The Twits’) and made the mistake of allowing them to choose their own ingredients. There were some devilishly revolting suggestions – I would advise rejecting any offers of breakfast in bed from your little ones. After this, we based much of our writing on a wonderful book by Neil Gaiman called, ‘The Day I Swapped my Dad for Two Goldfish’. Children learned how to write dialogue and then wrote a superb sequel called, ‘The Day I Swapped my Sister for….’. Since then I have introduced diary writing based on an advert that made a lot of the children (and some of the staff) cry in sympathy for a beleaguered hedgehog (it has a happy ending). They wrote as if they were the hedgehog and we used some fantastic adverbials. Finally, we have spent this week writing poetry based on ‘The Polar Express’.
Overall, I have seen huge improvements in sentence-level structure throughout the class. They relish our morning task of writing a sentence based on a picture and are enthusiastic to read and share ideas.
You will received some Christmas crafts from the children. The calendar, made in computing, was all their own work. We wanted to leave it as authentic as possible so did not correct too many errors! Additionally, children have spent the past few weeks designing and testing prototypes for their pop-up Christmas card. They created some super levers and I think the children enjoyed figuring out how these worked, as well as going wild with their designs.
The children continue to be a happy and cooperative bunch. Aside from a few, normal squabbles, they are really supportive of each other and love to celebrate each other’s successes. It is lovely to see them getting on well. If ever your child feels unsettled, worried or isolated in class – please let me know as soon as possible so we can take action. We still have some work to do on quiet learning. We have lots of discussion and partner work in class but understanding when quiet work is needed can be a challenge. We will get there though.
In RE, we have studied Hinduism and learned about Advent with a super visit from Reverend Danie of the local parish. In Science, the children have been really interested in sound and how noise travels from an object to the ear and how we then process this as sound. At one point we had children acting as the cochlea, ear drums and auditory nerve – it ended up with us in hysterics but I think they understood the idea more or less. In PE, we have done lots of dancing and extended this to the classroom where we have done a good few times tables dances.
The children’s reading continues to improve. Their ability to fluently read and understand texts is growing. It is such a gateway to learning that we work regularly and hard on this – any reading aloud at home is really helpful. Children have loved the homework of bringing in books to discuss and I plan to do more of this in the New Year. Our class text this half-term was ‘The Hundred Mile an Hour Dog’.
In our last week, we made sure the children got lots of time to enjoy the festive season. We wrote poetry based on the Polar Express, practised our French and made some lovely crafts.
Next term, the children have some exciting things ahead. We’ll be looking at a great story about ‘Cloud Tea’ and linking this to work on Fairtrade and the chimpanzee expert, Jane Goodall. We’ll be working on some super problem solving in Maths, learning how to make sandwiches in D&T and understanding more about how the body works in Science.
I hope you all enjoy a super break over Christmas and although Miss Foster and I are totally exhausted, we can’t wait to get back to the classroom in January. Thank you all for bringing such kind, respectful children to class. They all have wonderful personalities and ideas, it is a great pleasure to get to teach them.
Have a peaceful and happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
Mr. Newman
Article 13: You have the right to find out things and share what you think with others, by talking, drawing, writing or in any other way unless it harms or offends other people.
Article 28: You have the right to a good quality education. You should be encouraged to go to school to the highest level you can.
Article 29: Your education should help you use and develop your talents and abilities. It should also help you learn to live peacefully, protect the environment and respect other people.
Article 31: You have the right to play and rest.