Amethyst, Diamond & Emerald Blog - Friday 16th February 2024

 Happy Friday everybody! Incredibly we find ourselves half way through this current year! Looking back, myself, Miss Smith & Mrs Yuille are so, so proud of all the the progress the children have made - we could not have asked them to work any harder and it is lovely to see the pride the children have themselves for the achievements and successes they have made! Here's to the second half of the year being just as fab!

World Book Day

This year, World Book Day is on Thursday 7th March. To promote reading within our school community, for this day the children can bring in a favourite book from home which they can share with the other children in their class.

They can also bring in a prop which serves as a clue to their favourite book/character or come dressed up as a favourite character too if they so wish. On this day all the children will also receive a £1 World Book Day voucher!

We would like all the children to have a relaxing half term, so we are not sending homework books home this week but if you can keep up the reading little and often this will have a hugely positive effect on their progress.

Have an enjoyable and relaxing week!

Much love

Mr Jude, Mrs Yuille & Miss Smith

Amethyst, Diamond & Emerald Blog - Friday 9th February 2024

 Happy Friday everybody! Hopefully you will have seen our castles beginning to take shape in this week's newsletter. As we tend to do these sessions at the end of the week, the photos are a week behind where we actually are but suffice to say next week the photos will involve a lot of grey paint!!!

Class Dojo

It is lovely to see so many of you signed up to our Class Dojo app. The children are loving seeing their Dojo points increase and we are all working towards our class goal of 1000 points to get an extra playtime! We will be looking to use Class Dojo's messaging system to replace our Key Stage emails, so if you have any messages for us please feel free to use this. 

A reminder that any messages relating to changes in collection arrangements during the day should still be sent to the office who will bring the message to us. If you need any help in signing up and joining Class Dojo, please come and see us.

Well-being Day

Next Friday (16th February), we will be having a Well-being Day. Children can come to school wearing comfy clothes, not their school uniform. There will be activities planned to enhance everyone's well-being such as mindfulness activities, art, music and yoga!

Maths Homework

This week, we would like you to look at pages 36 & 37.

For Year 1's this focuses on halves. It is helpful when discussing fractions to relate it closely to division. So when discussing finding half, relate it to the same as dividing it in 2. The games below explore how to recognise halves in shapes and how you can find half of amounts by sharing.

Half Not Half Game

Find Half By Sharing

For Year 2's this focuses on doubling and halving. As usual, relate these mathematical concept back to the basic operations of maths - doubles as times by 2 and halving as divide by 2. The game below has a mode for finding half and double of different amounts to help develop a rapid recall of these facts.

Hit The Button

Don't forget to keep up all your fantastic efforts with your reading at home - it will make a huge impact on your child's reading development. Keep using the range of questions we have discussed previously as well!

If you have any issues or questions, please, please come and see us at the end of the day - we would love to see you!

Have a super weekend!

Best Wishes

Mr Jude, Mrs Yuille & Miss Smith

Amethyst, Diamond & Emerald Blog - Friday 2nd February 2024

 Happy Friday everybody! Work on our "The Quest" project is in full swing now and we have been looking at how a trebuchet works for our explanation writing in English. We have also started to turn our attention to the most exciting aspect of our project, the construction of our model castles. There will be lots of pictures of this process in our newsletters over the next few weeks so keep an eye out for those!

Maths Homework

This week, we would like you to look at pages 34 & 35.

For Year 1's this focuses on dividing. This is explored initially as practical sharing equally between 2 people. Begin to explore which numbers can be fairly shared and which leaver an odd one left over. This is good to help your child think about odd and even numbers. 

For Year 2's this also focuses on dividing. As mentioned before, in Year 2 we relate all division calculations back to their multiplication inverse as this is often a more efficient method of solving a calculation.

Both year groups can enhance their knowledge of division through the games below:

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/mental-maths-train

https://ictgames.com/mobilePage/doggyDivision/index.html

Don't forget to keep up all your fantastic efforts with your reading at home - it will make a huge impact on your child's reading development. Keep using the range of questions we have discussed previously as well!

If you have any issues or questions, please, please come and see us at the end of the day - we would love to see you!

Have an amazing weekend!

Best Wishes

Mr Jude, Mrs Yuille & Miss Smith