Week beginning 18th September 2006

Weekly update
Information for new starters (18th September 2006)
Welcome to St Vincent's!
This is the first day of your child's exciting learning adventure at St Vincent's. There will be lots of new things to take in and many changes ahead. Please do not worry as the induction process has been carefully structured in order to enable your child to feel secure and happy making the transition into primary school.

This blogspot will be updated on a weekly basis and will contain lots of information regarding what your child will be learning in school for the week, websites you could visit to support the learning in school as well as activities you could try at home. It is updated every weekend in preparation for the coming week.

The next few weeks will be a settling in time allowing the Foundation Stage Team to get to know your child, their needs and starting point. This indepth induction process enables us to provide your child with the right start to their learning, as we would not like to repeat anything that they have been taught before. If your pre-school provider gave you any records please could you let us have a look at them as this will help us to tune in alot quicker. Please do not worry if you do not have any.

Finally, information will be sent home via your child's reading diary. You should have received this today. The diary is a means of communication between home and school, and in particular we ask that you make a comment every week about your child's reading at home. There will be a further induction meeting when all the children are in full time. At this meeting we will give further details regarding the types of comments you can make but we love to read your comments and always respond to them.

If you have anything you are unsure about please do not hesitate to see a member of the Foundation Stage Team.

Best wishes

Jayne Narraway x

Information for parents of children already starting school.
This week we will be working on developing our Nursery Rhyme Land (our classroom). The children will receive a letter from Humpty Dumpty explaining that he is very worried because he is having a new house built (our home corner) and the last wall he sat on fell down! The children are to investigate brick bonds and work in pairs to create a wall for Humpty. They will test it out using a programmable toy. They will have to program it to try to know Humpty off the wall. this activity will support the children's understanding of problem solving, team work and knowledge of the world. The use of the programmable toy named Roamer is taught early to enable the children to know how to use it in other areas of the curriculum.

Following our theme on Humpty Dumpty the children will be investigating how eggs are changed when they are heated. If you feel like you want to have an egg-citing breakfast (sorry, counldn't resist!) why not have scrambled egg on Monday, boiled egg on Tuesday, fried egg on Wednesday (using fry-lite of course), poached egg on Thursday and finishing the school week off with an omelette.

We love our craft activities in the Foundation Stage and therefore the children will be making jointed Humpty's and creating members of his family. This is to develop the key scissor skills.

Below are a list of websites that you may want to use with your child. They are mainly based on the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty.

http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/Foundation/humptyjig.html - this has a lovely jigsay for the children to put together again (because the all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't!)
http://ngfl.nothumberland.gov.uk/ict/mouseskills/ted.html - click and drag to develop the children's mouse skills and create a picture of teddy's face.
http://wgfl.digitalbrain.com/wgfl/web/foundation/humpty/humpty.htm
http://themouseclub.co.uk - this is obsessive particularly if you play noughts and crosses - I was on for about half an hour!
www.snaithprimary.eril.net/index.htm
http://demo.iboard.co.uk/screens/thread_home.htm?thread_id=5# - dress Humpty for hot and cold weather and make up your own rhyme (this is an evaluation copy but it still works)
http://demo.iboard.co.uk/screens/thread_home.htm?thread_id=4# - sequencing the rhyme and mending Humpty
www.hendersonville-pd.org/hpdnursery.html - range of nursery rhymes ( be warned! the music almost sends you to sleep!)
www.dltk-teach.com/rhymes/humpty/index.htm - colouring pages, finger puppets and paper crafts.
www.starfall.com - for those letters of the alphabet!

As part of our Here I Am topic on babies we also ask that you send in a photogragh of when your child was a baby. We will be sticking it into a book so please do not send one that is really treasured. You will also receive a copy of a prayer you may wish to share with your child.

Handwriting homework will commence this week. Details of how to go about it will be on the inside cover of the book you receive home.

Many thanks

Jayne Narraway x