Friday 25 June 2021

Amethyst, Diamond & Emerald Blog - Friday 25th June 2021

 Happy Friday, everybody! This week, we have continued looking at fables in English and working on multiplication strategies in maths. Before this week's announcements a polite request - whilst we are happy for children to wear a watch to school to help them tell the time, please ensure that they are of appropriate size and do not have the capability to take photographs. Thank you!

PSHE - Changing Me

This half term in Personal, Social and Health Education we are learning about how to cope with change. This includes learning about change in ourselves as we grow from a baby to how we are now. It also includes a lesson next week in which we will be noting the differences between male and female bodies, using the correct terminology. This lesson is very much laying the foundations for future Relationships and Sex Education, which is now a statutory requirement to be taught in schools. We see this as a crucial part of Safeguarding our children and keeping them safe. We are planning to deliver this lesson on Thursday 1st July.

Hares About Town

This summer, if you head into Southend, you are in for a "hare-raising" surprise! The Hares About Town trail starts on the 1st July. There are 30 hares dotted all around the town, each with their own story to tell. Accompanying the hares are over 50 leverets, including our school leveret Lenny. 

Miss Wakefield and Mrs Holmes were very lucky to have a sneak preview of all the Hares on Tuesday. They are AMAZING and include a hare that has been created by one of the parents at school. Mrs Cairns' hare "View of Lepus" can be found in Priory Park.

We have been given some trail maps to sell, on behalf of Fair Havens. The suggested donation for these is £1 and we will be selling them at the gate, after school next week. 

PE Kit

A reminder that PE kit for Monday is a light blue t-shirt with navy blue tracksuit bottoms/leggings or shorts. Trainers should be black. We appreciate that if PE kit no longer fits, people are making do with what they have until the summer and this is fine, however, please be mindful of our uniform policy when restocking in the holidays.

Homework Tasks

Must Do

  • Reading - please keep reading! Remember: 5-10 minutes everyday and then discuss the text afterwards, asking for opinions, favourite part or questioning what happened so as to ensure that your child is understanding the text as well as reading it. Please let us know if there is any aspect of your child's Big Cat book shelf that needs amending.
  • Maths Homework Book - this week we would like you to complete page 63.
For Year 1, the page is all about the properties of 2D shape. For Year 2, it is about sorting 2D shapes. Follow up these pages with some interactive games that further support this learning from the Top Marks website:


Choose the "Shapes" category and try the games "2D Shapes Sorting Using Carroll Diagrams" and "Geoboard" where you can see if you can make your own shapes.

  • Spelling and Reading Common Words - keep looking at these words often, doing a chunk at a time. The lists can be accessed from our Key Stage web page "Useful Information" tab - use the link below and scroll down to see the menu of word lists. Start with the Yr 1 High Frequency Word List 1 & 2 and then move on to the Yr 2 Next 200 Common Words A & B. If your child can read these words, begin practising how to spell them by looking at 5-10 words at a time.
  • Phonics - if your child still needs support in phonics please visit some of the websites listed below. These have some games to blend and decode unfamiliar words even without a subscription. 

  • Reading Extension Tasks - in the back of the Big Cat ebooks is a detailed break down of other tasks that can be completed using the book just read. These include vocabulary activities, comprehension questions and creative writing responses. If your child has particularly enjoyed a book, these tasks can be a good vehicle for further developing key skills. 
  • Comprehension Tasks -three more comprehension tasks for you in our Home Learning Folder. These will be labelled as A, B and C. Use the colour level books your child is reading as a guide to which one to attempt:
  • PINK, RED, YELLOW books - try Task A;
  • BLUE, GREEN, ORANGE books - try Task B;
  • TURQUOISE, PURPLE, GOLD or higher - try Task C.
Here is a link to our Home Learning Folder:

  • Project Task - this week we have been continuing our look at a range of Aesop's Fables and we have been considering how we can change the story of "The Hare & The Tortoise" by changing its setting e.g. under the sea. We have thought about how the characters and features of the setting must change accordingly. Choose a different fable and see if you can think about how, if the setting changes, other features will also have to change. Draw or write your new fable in its setting!
Don't forget, we are always available on our Key Stage 1 email. If you have any questions or concerns about homework or indeed about anything, please just ask and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

ks1@downhallprimary.com

Have a lovely weekend!

Mr Jude, Mrs Yuille, Mrs O'Connor & Miss Langley

Friday 18 June 2021

Amethyst, Diamond & Emerald Blog - 18th June 2021

 Happy Friday everybody! We've reached the end of a very hot week but all the children are still working very hard and we are very pleased with how well they are coping at the end of a long and challenging year! This week, we have been looking at fables in English and identifying this genre's features. In maths, we have been working on addition and subtraction strategies.

New School Website

Over the past few months we have been working on refreshing our school website. This started with the individual phase group pages and now includes the whole of the website. We have added lots more photographs of our wonderful children and premises and hope to add more in the future. We have also had a little rearrangement of the information available to hopefully make it easier to access the information you need. There is also a "Children's Hub" tab at the end of the taskbar which gives quick links to many of the common learning platforms that your child might find useful to support their learning. We hope you like the changes and a massive thank you to Mrs Balkwill for working so hard in driving this project through to completion! Visit our lovely new site here:

https://www.downhallprimary.com/home

Classes For Next Year

One reason to visit our new website today will be to check out the letter that explains arrangements for classes in September. The letter explains how the classes will be organised in September and, on Monday 21st June, your child will come home with a slip of paper that will tell you exactly which class they will be joining in September.

Homework Tasks

Must Do

  • Reading - please keep reading! Remember: 5-10 minutes everyday and then discuss the text afterwards, asking for opinions, favourite part or questioning what happened so as to ensure that your child is understanding the text as well as reading it. Please let us know if there is any aspect of your child's Big Cat book shelf that needs amending.
  • Maths Homework Book - this week we would like you to complete page 59.
For Year 1, the page is all reading time to the half hour. For Year 2, it is about the properties of 2D shapes. Follow up these pages with some interactive games that further support this learning from the Top Marks website:


For Year 1, choose the "Measures" category and try the games "Telling The Time In Words" and "Hickory Dickory Clock."

For Year 2, choose the "Shapes" category and try the game "2D Shapes Sorting Using Carroll Diagrams."

  • Spelling and Reading Common Words - keep looking at these words often, doing a chunk at a time. The lists can be accessed from our Key Stage web page "Useful Information" tab - use the link below and scroll down to see the menu of word lists. Start with the Yr 1 High Frequency Word List 1 & 2 and then move on to the Yr 2 Next 200 Common Words A & B. If your child can read these words, begin practising how to spell them by looking at 5-10 words at a time.
  • Phonics - if your child still needs support in phonics please visit some of the websites listed below. These have some games to blend and decode unfamiliar words even without a subscription. 

  • Reading Extension Tasks - in the back of the Big Cat ebooks is a detailed break down of other tasks that can be completed using the book just read. These include vocabulary activities, comprehension questions and creative writing responses. If your child has particularly enjoyed a book, these tasks can be a good vehicle for further developing key skills. 
  • Comprehension Tasks -three more comprehension tasks for you in our Home Learning Folder. These will be labelled as A, B and C. Use the colour level books your child is reading as a guide to which one to attempt:
  • PINK, RED, YELLOW books - try Task A;
  • BLUE, GREEN, ORANGE books - try Task B;
  • TURQUOISE, PURPLE, GOLD or higher - try Task C.
Here is a link to our Home Learning Folder:

  • Project Task - this week we have been looking at a range of Aesop's Fables. Look online for some different versions of these fables and see if you can retell a fable using pictures, captions or longer passages of writing.
Don't forget, we are always available on our Key Stage 1 email. If you have any questions or concerns about homework or indeed about anything, please just ask and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

ks1@downhallprimary.com

Wishing you a "cool" weekend!

KS1 Team:)

Friday 11 June 2021

Amethyst, Diamond & Emerald Blog - 11th June 2021

 Happy Friday, everybody! It was lovely to welcome everyone back for our last half term this year and hear about all the exciting things the children had been up to in the holiday! It was great to see many of you had a chance to see the beautiful feathers on display and feel like part of something for the collective good! A few important announcements for the coming week:

Active Lives Survey

Miss Sharman has invited the Year 1 children and parents to take part in the Active Lives Survey. This is conducted by Sport England in order to inform the great and the good about the activity of different year groups in schools across the country. If your child is a Year 1, parents are invited to take the quick survey using the link below. The survey closes on 18th June.

https://ipsos.uk/AOZGE

End of Term Reports

On the 8th July, your child will receive their end of term report detailing their progress and areas for future development. Although there are no formal assessments made this year, due to the National lockdown at the beginning of Spring Term, the report will contain an indication as to whether your child is working towards or working at national expectations. There will be an opportunity to discuss this report in a Zoom parent/teacher meeting after you have received the report. Further details of all of this will follow shortly so keep an eye on the weekly newsletter!

Hot Weather

Well, summer seems to have finally arrived and it is nice to be reminding you about sun hats rather than coats! On hot sunny days, please ensure that you have applied sun cream to your child before school and give them a hat to protect them from the sun. The children are allowed to bring in sun cream if you wish them to reapply cream during the day but they need to be able to do this themselves and are reminded not to share!

Homework Tasks

Must Do

  • Reading - please keep reading! Remember: 5-10 minutes everyday and then discuss the text afterwards, asking for opinions, favourite part or questioning what happened so as to ensure that your child is understanding the text as well as reading it. Please let us know if there is any aspect of your child's Big Cat book shelf that needs amending.
  • Maths Homework Book - this week we would like you to complete page 57.
For Year 1, the page is all about the days. Practice ordering and reciting these units of time in the correct order. Extend if confident to the months of the year. For Year 2, it is comparing times. Extend to timing yourself or other people in your family doing different things. Which or who is quickest/slowest? By how long?

  • Spelling and Reading Common Words - keep looking at these words often, doing a chunk at a time. The lists can be accessed from our Key Stage web page "Useful Information" tab - use the link below and scroll down to see the menu of word lists. Start with the Yr 1 High Frequency Word List 1 & 2 and then move on to the Yr 2 Next 200 Common Words A & B. If your child can read these words, begin practising how to spell them by looking at 5-10 words at a time.
  • Phonics - if your child still needs support in phonics please visit some of the websites listed below. These have some games to blend and decode unfamiliar words even without a subscription. 

  • Reading Extension Tasks - in the back of the Big Cat ebooks is a detailed break down of other tasks that can be completed using the book just read. These include vocabulary activities, comprehension questions and creative writing responses. If your child has particularly enjoyed a book, these tasks can be a good vehicle for further developing key skills. 
  • Comprehension Tasks -three more comprehension tasks for you in our Home Learning Folder. These will be labelled as A, B and C. Use the colour level books your child is reading as a guide to which one to attempt:
  • PINK, RED, YELLOW books - try Task A;
  • BLUE, GREEN, ORANGE books - try Task B;
  • TURQUOISE, PURPLE, GOLD or higher - try Task C.
Here is a link to our Home Learning Folder:

  • Project Task - this week we have been developing our skills in sequencing events from stories. Choose a story that you know well or a book that you have recently read. Break it down into 4-6 key events and then sequence these using pictures and sentences. Putting different events from a story into the correct order is one of the key comprehension skills in Key Stage 1.
Don't forget, we are always available on our Key Stage 1 email. If you have any questions or concerns about homework or indeed about anything, please just ask and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

ks1@downhallprimary.com

Have a fantastic weekend!

KS1 Team:)