Comic Relief Fundraising

A huge thank you to everyone for wearing something red, donating to Comic Relief and joining in the fun last Friday.  

Together we raised a whopping £280.78 and there seems to be more money trickling in as the days go by.  We had a great time in our classes taking part in the Southend Sports Partnership Dance Challenge, doing quizzes and puzzles, making joke boxes, learning about where Comic Relief money goes and most definitely sharing some smiles together!  I have to say that the joke box was a big hit in Diamond Class and extra thanks go to those children that brought in joke books from home on that day.  

Best wishes to you all for a great time with lots of rest and play over the holiday, and we look forward to welcoming everyone back after the break!

 

Amethyst, Diamond & Emerald Blog - Friday 26th March 2021

 Happy Friday and welcome to our last blog before Easter! Massive well done to all the children in Key Stage 1 who have worked so hard during the three weeks since we have been back. All the teachers have been very proud of how the children have coped and adapted to all the changes they have faced.

Emerald Class & The Easter Egg Hunt

On Thursday, all the children took part in an Easter Egg Hunt. They needed to find different card eggs spread around the playground areas and then decode anagrams on them to find an Easter word. It was all very exciting and here are Emerald Class in full swing!

Summer Term & "Down At The Bottom of The Garden"

After Easter we will be beginning our new project "Down At The Bottom of The Garden." On our webpage there is an overview of the learning that we will be covering in this project. Here is a link:

https://sites.google.com/downhallprimary.com/year1-2/our-projects/year-b-summer-down-at-the-bottom-of-the-garden?authuser=0

One of the tasks we do in class is creating a habitat diorama or scene in a shoebox. If you purchase new shoes during Easter, please can you keep hold of the box (so long as it is not too big!) as the children will need one to create their environmental scene. If you have any spares we would love those too!

New Dinner Menu

After Easter there will be a new 2 week rolling Menu. Here is a link to it from our newsletter:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hZx1Ppyd3FuyQVES7o_awq5RL386CzWX/view

Homework

This week, we would like the children to continue with their Maths Homework book and complete page 41. 

We would also encourage you strongly to keep up your child's reading over the Easter Holidays by using the Big Cat Virtual Books. You have access to the same books we have in school and in much greater numbers than ever before so please take this opportunity to keep the reading ticking over. We cannot emphasise how much this will contribute to your child's progress across the whole curriculum.

Here is the link to the login page and please get in touch if you have lost any login details:

https://ops.collinsopenpage.com/sso/login?service=https%3A//ebooks.collinsopenpage.com/wr/index.html&eulogin=true

We would all like to wish a relaxing and happy Easter Holiday!

Best wishes

Mr Jude, Mrs Yuille & Mrs O'Connor

Amethyst, Diamond & Emerald Blog - Friday 19th March 2021

Happy Friday everybody, we hope you have had a good week! It has been another busy week in Key Stage 1with taste testing for our Chocolate Bars in full swing!

Diamond & Comic Relief Day

Today everyone looked dazzling in their "Wear Something Red" challenge for Comic Relief. We took part in the School Sports Partnership's "Make You Smile Dance Challenge" and tested ourselves with the "The Great Red Nose Day Quiz." We also took some time to reflect upon the importance of Comic Relief and considered how the money raised will go a long way to supporting children's Rights through projects both close to home in Essex and further afield around the world.

Homework

This week, we would like the children to continue with their Maths Homework book and complete page 39. 

Don't forget, we are still always available on our Key Stage 1 email. If you have any questions or concerns, please just ask and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

ks1@downhallprimary.com

Wish you a relaxing weekend.

Best wishes

KS1 Team

Amethyst, Diamond & Emerald Blog - Friday 12th March 2021

 Happy Friday everybody, we hope you have had a good week! It has been absolutely wonderful to have all our children back in class and we have all been blown away with how magnificently they have all settled back into school life. It has been especially lovely to see them interacting, chatting and playing with their friends again and to enjoy simply being in the company of other children.

Over the next few weeks we will look to share some of these experiences with you via our blogs. Starting with...

Amethyst & Lenny the Leveret

As you may have seen in the newsletter from 2 weeks ago, Miss Wakefield and Mrs Holmes have been bringing the children's ideas about decorating our giant baby hare, Lenny, to life. Lenny the Leveret will form part of the "Hares About Town" trail in Southend in July. This week all the children in school added their fingerprint to Lenny. It was a lovely occasion that felt like it brought the whole school together even though we are in our own bubbles. Here are some of Amethyst class adding their prints:

Comic Relief - Friday 19th March

Get ready to wear something red and take part in fun and games in class for Comic Relief next Friday! Have a look at this week's newsletter to see what we are doing - here is the link:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/1mLw9RyjjXJUFg8XKMbTegclhph2StDRV/view

Homework

This week, we would like the children to continue with their Maths Homework book and complete page 37. Don't worry if you have fallen behind a little in this, just start again from where you got up to last time.

Even though we are all back to as close to normal as we can be at the moment, we are still always available on our Key Stage 1 email. If you have any questions or concerns, please just ask and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

ks1@downhallprimary.com

We really hope that your child has enjoyed their first week back as much as we have. We wish you a relaxing weekend.

Best wishes

KS1 Team

Amethyst, Diamond & Emerald Blog - Friday 5th March 2021

 You have made it! You are all stars! We are very much looking forward to seeing all the children back in school on Monday. Here are just a few reminders about day-to-day procedures because it all seems like such a long time ago that we were last here!

Children will need to bring in a water bottle each day and also a book from home that they can keep in school to read and enjoy during our ERIC sessions. We would also ask that they bring in a coat every day - it is better to have it and not need it than go cold! Don't forget extra layers are also good on PE days.

All children will still be arriving and leaving by the Downhall Park Way entrance at their class's allotted time. Please aim to arrive as close to these times as possible to minimise the number of people at the gate:

Emerald: 9:00am-3:25pm

Amethyst: 9:05am-3:30pm

Diamond: 9:10am-3:35pm

If your child has a sibling in school, then they both arrive and leave school together at the earliest of the 2 times. A full list of all classes' timings can be found in the return to school letter (see the link below) which is on the website as well as information for families ordering home testing kits for personal use.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AT0K3b_xRWM64jpmVZCrmooZTSB96E3Q/view

Don't forget that Monday is PE day for KS1, so the children will need to come in with their PE kit on for the first day. Don't panic if things don't fit - find a suitable alternative if necessary!

School dinners will be available from Monday - here is the link to view the Dinner Menu for next week:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1athi2gKjJEDX0tB5YMHP0T7PGZMdLEXu/view

If you have any questions about about any of the above issues, please just contact us:

ks1@downhallprimary.com

I know we have said it many times but this does not stop it from being true - thank you so much for all that you have done since Christmas. You have been amazing. Much gets said in the media about this generation of children and the risk of them being disadvantaged due to the pandemic but I feel that many lessons such as selflessness, thinking of others and the importance of family will come from this challenging time. Do not forget, we cannot control the situation but we can control the attitude with which we face it.

Take care and have a great weekend.

Your KS1 Team:)

Amethyst, Diamond & Emerald Blog - Wednesday 3rd March 2021

 Dear Families

We hope that you are all well and that your children are ready and looking forward to returning to school on Monday! We wanted to share some information regarding our project on return to school, however, if you are here looking for Monday's blog, just keep scrolling down and it is just below this one!

Charlie & The Chocolate Factory

We are still planning on covering as much work related to our project as we can in the 3 weeks before Easter. We did mention this just before Christmas but after so much happened (or didn't happen!) since then we'd like to remind you of the 2 aspects of this project that needs parental consent.

In our Art/DT lessons, we will be designing and making our own chocolate creations. We will be taste testing some possible ingredients for this purpose. Obviously, we will take known dietary needs into account but if you have any concerns about this, please let us know via our email.

We would also like to watch the film "Charlie & The Chocolate Factory" (2005) to support our writing in English lessons. This film is certified PG. If you do not want your child to join us in watching it then please let your child's teacher know, again via our email.

New Key Stage 1 Website

We have a new website for KS1! You can access it from the classes tab on the main website or directly using this link:

https://sites.google.com/downhallprimary.com/year1-2

Under the Useful Information tab you will find resources such as phonics mats, high frequency word lists and end of year writing expectations. There is a separate page for each of our projects and information about the work we cover. There is also a direct link to our blog. This is a link to the entire feed so it has all the blogs on it. Please have a look and let us know what you think or if you encounter any problems.

If you have any other questions about the children returning, please just contact us:

ks1@downhallprimary.com

We are all very much looking forward to seeing you next week!

Mr Jude, Mrs Yuille & Mrs O'Connor