It's Christmas!!!

Hi there!
Firstly, can I take the opportunity to thank all the children and parents for their kind gifts and wishes. I will miss you all very much but I’m sure life will be changing very soon in the Narraway household!

Here are a few domestics to begin with…

Christmas lunch
On Monday, we don our party hats and best singing voices (if we have any left!) and have our Christmas lunch. If you have asked that your child has lunch on Monday, they won’t need a packed lunch. Please also remember that there will be no toast served on Monday, so the children will need to bring their own snack.

Cathedral Visit
On Tuesday afternoon our Year 6 and our Foundation Stage children will be attending the annual Carol Service at the Cathedral of Christ the King in Liverpool. The children will leave school after lunch and will return at approximately 4pm. Please ensure that all outstanding permission slips are sent into school by Monday. Thank you.

Christmas Party
The children’s party takes place next week, but there are still a number of children who need to bring in their £2.50 contribution. If you haven’t already done so, we would be grateful if it could be sent into school by MONDAY, so that we are able to arrange the party bags. Santa’s elves are working really hard at the moment, so the more time they have the better!! Many thanks!

Carol Service
It is our annual Carol Service on Friday 19th December, led by Years 5/6. This year, it will take place up at St. Joseph’s Church at 10am. The children will arrive at school as usual at 8.45am and will walk up to church for the service with the escort of the community police for extra safety. Please ensure that any permission slips are returned as soon as possible, as we will be unable to take children out of school without them.As I am sure you will appreciate, we will need lots of volunteers to help walk our children up, so please do let any member of the team know if you will be able to help us with this. It is sure to be a lovely occasion, where we can all take time out from the hectic preparations and reflect on the real meaning of Christmas.

Now…

Just for FUN!!
Here are some lovely activities to keep your children busy whilst you get things organised.
http://www.emailsanta.com/ write a letter to Santa and see the reply appear before your very eyes!
http://www.northpole.com/ a real favourite of mine! The disco dancing Santa is fabulous!http://www.northpole.com/PersonalizedStories/ this is lovely and the children will love printing these off! Just enter a couple of pieces of information and your child will appear as a character in their very own story!
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/Xmas/ a very interesting site, explaining all about the customs and traditions of Christmas.
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/Xmas/meaning.htm I loved this story! Maybe one for Christmas Eve?
http://www.star28.net/snow.html?msg=they this made me giggle! Get the penguin to write your name in the snow. What about trying this to help with the spelling of those tricky words?http://www.learn-ict.org.uk/resources/rudolph/rudolph.htm Rudolf is missing! Read this lovely interactive story with your child. A great way of developing those comprehension skills.
http://www.funranch.com/games/tree/index.htm decorate the online Christmas tree
http://www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/games/snowman_v4.html build your very own snowman...without getting your hands cold!http://www.nevada.edu/~blake/Christmas.carols.html why not sing through some of these traditional Christmas Carols in preparation for our carol service?http://www.kidzone.ws/math/christmas/index.htm although these are based on American ‘grades’, some of these Christmas themed Maths worksheets are still really useful.
http://christmas.iboard.co.uk/ lots of Christmas online activities to try. I really like the writing ideas, which use a framework and a wordbank to help. Why not print some off to bring in to show?

And now for what they will be learning this week.

Communication, Language and Literacy
By the end of the week, the children:
MUST be able to recognise and name the letters s, a, t, p, i, m, n and d
SHOULD be able to recognise and name the letters above including g, c, k and o, and begin to orally segment the words.
COULD be able to use the letters taught so far to segment and blend words;

You should have received an update regarding letter and sound recognition via your child’s diary on Friday.

I would continue to use the letter recognition websites below to support letter recognition with a focus mainly on the letters of the week or any that we have taught yet your child is unsure of.
www.starfall.com - this is a great all-rounder. Remember to encourage your child to use the letters they are unsure of. I will stick this information in your child’s diary this week.
http://www.ictgames.com/phonic_fighter4.html - I love this game!
http://www.channel4.com/learning/microsites/H/hoobs/activities/interactiveActivities.jsp?id=letters - activities 12 and 13 are good for helping with identifying the initial letters.
http://www.ictgames.com/phonemeFlop_v4.html - this is great and the sounds are said correctly too.
http://www.ictgames.com/soundBingo.html
http://www.ictgames.com/letterlifter.html

NEW!! http://www.ictgames.com/phonemePopLS_v2.html - you can use this website to focus on the letters of the week.

High Frequency Words
These are checked weekly and we do aim for the children to know all term one words by Christmas. You may have noticed that I have sent more high frequency words to work through in my absence. Here are some websites that may also be of use to you:
http://www.ictgames.com/plankgameR.html
http://www.ictgames.com/wordreader.html
http://www.ictgames.com/lcwc.html - click on the rectangular cells and type in the high frequency words to make your own grids.

Problem-solving, Reasoning and Numeracy
On Friday you will have received an update on your child’s number recognition via their diaries. Again the children have been making pleasing progress.

As I stated last week, for the next few weeks leading up to Christmas, the children will focus on number recognition, ordering numbers and number formation. Here are some great websites to support this area of learning.
http://www.ictgames.com/nileNumbers_v2.html
http://www.ictgames.com/saucerSorter.html
http://www.ictgames.com/caterpillar_slider.html - get the children to say the number sequence in order to be able to order the random numbers
http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/ngfl/ngfl-flash/numbers_eng/numbers_e.html - fantastic for supporting number formation
http://www.abc.net.au/countusin/default.htm - a range of websites to support mathematical skills and concepts.

Here I Am
The Christmas story will continue to be the main focus of this week, with the children re-enacting the nativity in the role-play area.

I think that’s all for this week.

Keep safe and I’ll let you know any news.
xxx