And we're off!!!

Hi there!

Finally, it is time to begin on our learning journey. Before I begin explaining what your child will be doing this week could I just mention a few domestics?

The Morning
The children have settled well and are becoming more familiar with the daily routines and expectations for behaviour. The morning is still very hectic and we really do need to speed this up, as we are often late for assembly due to doing the register late. PLEASE could I ask that you allow your child to come in on their own if possible. There are five members of staff in the team, all of which can assist your child should they need it, and they are more than capable of doing everything for themselves now. Obviously, if your child is upset then do accompany them in but please allow us to take over as they do settle much quicker. Many thanks in anticipation of your support.

Coats
Many thanks to all those parents who have took my advice about the key ring on their child’s school jacket. Now that the children are using the outdoor area throughout the school day they do need to be independent in putting on their own coat and this has really helped. Also, those children who have hung their own coat up in the morning know where it is too which fosters much more independence. Lastly, please make sure your child does have a coat in school every day as they will need it to access the outdoor curriculum. Thanks.

So what will we be doing this week?

On Tuesday morning at 9.10am there will be a Mass to celebrate the Harvest. Many thanks for all your donations towards the food parcels for the St Joseph’s Welfare Centre. We were overwhelmed with your generosity. Parents and families are welcome to attend the Mass. Of course, we can not let the children take part in the Harvest Mass if they do not know why they are celebrating it. Therefore, we begin this week with our own celebration of the Harvest in the classroom. The children will explore the fruits and vegetables, grains and beans that the land produces.

A little prayer the children will learn this week and that you may wish to share as a family is:
Thank you for the food we eat
Thank you for the world so sweet
Thank you for the birds that sing
Thank you God for everything. Amen

Perhaps a visit to the local farm shop or grocery store to see what items of food the land produces would be a great way of helping your child to understand the Harvest festival. Here are some websites you may wish to explore with the children also.

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/Harvest.html - share with your child the reason why we celebrate Harvest.

http://www.reonline.org.uk/allre/tt_nframe.php?http://www.request.org.uk/infants/festivals/harvest/harvest00.htm - this is a simple version of how the Harvest is celebrated.

The Little Red Hen

The children have worked on a lovely display for in the hall as a focus for the Harvest based on the story of The Little Red hen. However, ‘For one morning, and for one morning only!’ the children will have a live performance of the story by the team. Yes, we will be acting out the story on the outdoor stage for the children. We each have a role to play but our ‘shy and retiring’ (mmm) Mrs Latham couldn’t wait to be the hen! I’m sure the children will love it! My sewing machine has been smoking this weekend as I have made very simple costumes for the children to wear to act out the story in their play. Apologies in advance if your child comes home with any white fur on them. I looked like I’d been tarred and feathered after making the duck costume and my vacuum cleaner will never forgive me! This is all in aid of developing the children’s love of story and language skills. I’m sure it will be a real success.

Our resident baker, Mrs Latham, will also be making bread with the children to reinforce the story of The Little Red Hen. She will make the dough from scratch with them and them miraculously turn it into a wheat sheaf to accompany the Harvest display.

Communication, Language and Literacy
The children will have the opportunity to develop their story skills and role play through the props for the Little Red Hen as well as the small world table which will have a windmill and a farmyard scene. In addition to this, they can tell the story through the use of the magnetic storyboard. Of course, the staff will be listening in to observe the children as this is an aspect of the Foundation Stage Profile the children need to achieve.

Rhythm and Rhyme
The focus for this week will be on RHYME and RHYTHM. The children will be exploring different words that rhyme and playing matching games, learning rhyming songs and poems, making up their own rhymes etc. In your child’s diary, you will see that this is also their reading target that we shall be working on but you can reinforce at home also. Please feel free to make a comment in the diary regarding how your child is doing with any rhyming you have done at home with them. So, by the end of the next two weeks, the children:
MUST be able to join in with a familiar rhyme;
SHOULD be able to match two rhyming words;
COULD be able to continue a rhyming string.
As you can see, we will work on this for two weeks as rhyme is very hard for some children to grasp. Here are a few websites to help.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/laac/words/dg3.shtml - select level 1
http://www.zelo.com/family/nursery/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/teletubbies/nurseryrhymes/

In addition to this, the children will have a few surprises from our friendly giant who often leaves us gifts. On Monday, the children will have a parcel containing wrapped up books for them. These books will have a time and day of the week on them denoting when they can be opened. The stories and rhymes will have a rhythm to them. We will be reading the stories, encouraging the children to join in with the patterned language. We will even be adding percussion instruments to them.

But the fun doesn’t end there…oh no! A rhyming bag with clues to nursery rhymes will be a daily focus for the children before lunch. Can they guess the rhyme from the clue?

Problem-solving, Reasoning and Numeracy
We are just completing a few more assessments of the children on entry on their ability to count reliable. There will be a range of activities available to the children to enable us to observe their counting. These will include, making sausages with the playdough for the pans, making juggling balls for the clowns to match the number given on the mat, threading beads onto a string to match the number shown on the card, playing skittles outdoors and counting how many they knocked down etc.

For those children who know all their numbers to 10, we will be assessing their ability to order them from 0 to 10 and then backwards using a washing line, pegs and numbers,

Creative Development
The children will develop their observational and drawing skills through having the opportunity to draw and paint the different fruits and vegetables they have seen. In addition to this, they will use the beans, pulses and lentils to create pictures in our creative area.

Linked with the work on rhythm, the children will explore the music area and investigate the different sounds that can be made. They will be encouraged to maintain a rhythm. The computer will also have a program on called Mouse Music which the children can explore sounds and create their own musical composition.

Our MORNING WARM UP will involve dancing and doing actions and movements to a rhythm. We will start with a march and build up to skipping and galloping.

To develop their listening skills the children will complete a listening walk and then have the opportunity to draw, paint or make a model of something they heard. If you have any boxes, yoghurt pots, kitchen rolls etc that you could send in for our workshop boxes that would be great.

Knowledge and Understanding of the World
The children have come into school with great ICT skills and therefore, we move straight onto CLICKING and DRAGGING. The children will dress the teddy on the computer screen be clicking and dragging the clothing onto his body. Again, these websites are great for the children to play on a develop these skills.
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/ict/mouseskills/ted.html
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/ict/mouseskills/joiner.html

In the water area, the children will explore which fruits and vegetables float and sink. This is always an interesting activity and the children love to guess why. Something you can try at home is comparing a baked potato before it is cooked and then after to see if it floats or sinks.

Physical Development
As I have mentioned, the outdoor area is a vital part of your child’s learning environment. The outdoors this week will be used to support many other areas of learning but for physical development, we will be focusing on throwing and catching. The children are fully aware of the rules for sharing the wheeled toys and where to use them. Therefore, we add challenge by placing obstacles in the way for them to manoeuvre around.

They will develop their pre-writing skills by moving with sticks and ribbons as well as making marks on the playground with chalks.

PE has gone well so far and the children are trying very hard to get changed independently. The target for this week is to learn to stop and start on command and keep control of their bodies.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development
As a school, we follow the SEAL programme. The theme this half term is ‘New Beginnings’. The children will be in small groups to have circle time to talk their feelings. This will be related to incidents within the classroom when the feelings may occur.

Here I Am

The children will learn about God who knows each one by name. This is an opportunity for the children to practice the writing of their names, a skill they MUST learn to enable them to be independent when in the learning environment.

Phew! I think that's about it for this week! Have a great one, we will!

Best wishes

Jayne Narraway and the Foundation Stage Team xxx

It's nearly time for the real FUN to begin!

Hi there!

Firstly, look at what some of our children did last week when we were assessing their understanding of shapes.

How amazing are they? They are inspired by the artist Wassily Kandinsky. WOW!! That's all I can say! Soon our classroom will be decorated with one by every child.

NOW...

A very warm welcome to our last set of parents whose children started last week. The children are really doing very well getting used to the routines of the school day. There is so much to remember! Later in the blog is some information for you in particular.

This is the final week of assessments before the FUN begins! We are brimming with ideas of what to do with the children. However, the personalisation of the curriculum is vital to the children’s learning. Therefore, stuck in your child’s diary on Friday was a simple questionnaire asking for information about your child in order for us to build a unique curriculum to suit our children. Please complete it over the weekend so we can start to plan for the rest of this half term. Thanks in anticipation of your support.

Domestics
You may have noticed the hectic morning start we have. This can be very unsettling to the children, particularly when we have so many adults in the classroom in the morning. Once your child has sat on the carpet, please could we ask for a swift exit from the classroom, as we need to get the other classes in school by 8.45am. If your child is now very grown up, and some are doing this already, then do feel free to let them in on their own. There are five members of staff to sort them out and the children do need to do everything for themselves in the morning.

Snacks
Could I also remind you that ALL snacks need to be labelled. Even fruit. How children know that the label free banana in the snack basket is not theirs I shall never know but it’s a sixth sense they must possess. Believe me…children will not eat their snack if their name is not written on it!

Coats
As the weather gets colder please ensure that your child always has their coat in school. The outdoors is an extension of our classroom and the children will next week be able to free flow from inside and outside.

I have also noticed that the navy school coats are somewhat lacking in a place to place the children’s name tags. It is taking about 10 minutes of playtime to sort this out. Please, please, please could we ask that you label them very clearly? One suggestion would be to get a small keyring to attach to the zip so your child can identify their own.

Having trouble teaching your child how to do their tie? Click on the comments link at the bottom of last week’s blog and thanks to Mrs Roche we have a tried and tested rhyme which I too will be using!! Anyone who does have tried and tested methods of helping their child with ANYTHING please feel free to make a comment too.

Here’s Looking at You
We had a great time on Friday recapping over the different parts of the face and drawing self portraits. Once again the children laughed their little heads off at the song I taught them particularly when we got to the tongue. See if they can remember it! We will be working more on faces but through different media this week. We will be looking at collage and everyday items. If you have any nuts, washers, bolts, screws, nails, coils, springs etc that you can donate we would be grateful beneficiaries. I could divulge what we will be doing with them but you’ll just have to wait and see!

www.starfall.com
Remember to check out this great website because on Monday we begin out journey of learning how to read and write!

Harvest Festival
Each year we volunteer to do the display for the hall to celebrate the Harvest. The children will be doing some leaf printing and some observational work on berries and leaves. Perhaps you could collect any conkers, pine cones or branches with berries on for us to use and explore. Thanks.

NEW STARTERS 18th September

Welcome to our very own blogspot! This will be updated every weekend for you to find out information about what your child will be doing in school from Monday to Friday, as well as great websites to keep your child occupied whilst learning too. Please make sure that you check it at least once a week as additional information can be posted on here as well.

We have already begun to assess your children since they walked through the door. The children are not even aware we are doing it as we have such a strong play based curriculum. Basically, your child’s first week in school is used to settle them in to the routines and ensure they feel safe and secure. In addition to this, we work with the children to find out what they are able to do. This then enables us to plan for exciting learning experiences which are relevant and challenging to what the children need.

Below are some dates for your diary but then if you scroll down on the blog you will get information about what your child will be doing this coming week in class.

Dates for your diary!

We will be holding our annual celebration for St Vincent’s Day (27th September). On Friday 26th September, the children are asked to come into school in their own clothes in return for a donation of tinned and packaged food to be made up into hampers for St Joseph’s Welfare Centre.

Our Harvest Festival Mass will be celebrated in the school hall on 30th September at 9.10am. Parents are welcome to attend.

Our Induction Evening for the Foundation Stage will be held at 6.30pm on 14th October. This meeting will include vital information about how we teach your child, organisation of their learning as well as a chance to meet other parents and the staff. Due to the nature of the induction evening we ask that children do not attend. Thanks.

Snacks
Snacks are available for purchase from the cook in the morning. Toast is 22p, milk is 16p and fruit juice is 22p. if your child would like to purchase these then please ensure their money is in a labelled purse or wallet. Please can I take this opportunity to remind parents that St Vincent’s is a healthy school and hope you will support us in this by providing your child with a healthy snack each day. Thanks. Each afternoon the children receive a piece of fruit as part of the Free Fruit for Schools Initiative.

Reading
On Monday your child will receive their reading diary, six words to learn and a book to share with you. The reading book will be changed on a Monday and a Thursday. Please could we ask that you make a comment in the diary each time you read with your child?

CALLING ALL DADS!!!
Research states that boys learn to read more easily when they are taught by their dad’s.

So…what else is on for this week?

Getting to know you, getting to learn all about you…
Can’t you tell I’m a fan of the musicals? Don’t you just love The King and I? This week the children will play lots of games that will encourage them to learn each others names.

Time to start getting physical
On Friday we will attempt our very first PE lesson. This is an occasion that causes amusement amongst many of the staff. I can’t understand why. Perhaps trousers on back to front, shoes without socks and shoes on the wrong feet are a give away? On a more serious note, PE times are often the most unsettling of experiences for children when they start school so please be assured that anxiety about PE is common (even for me).

I therefore send an SOS out to you as parents. Please try to make your child as independent as possible when dressing and undressing. As a parent of a four year old I know how tempting it can be to fasten a few buttons, put on the odd sock or tuck in the shirt. As part of their learning and development, children in the Foundation Stage need to dress and undress themselves independently. Aaghh…TIES!! Don’t worry we do the children’s ties and top buttons for them.

We are aware of the delay in PE shorts at the school shop so feel free to send in an alternative for now.

Click, click, clickety, click!
Not only are we doing PE this week, but we are venturing into ‘The Land of the Giants’ (the juniors) to work on the computers in the ICT suite. The children will be working on developing their mouse skills by clicking and dragging. Here are some great websites you can use to support your child. The use of these websites and the computer in general will help your child as we use the computers a lot in school.
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/ict/mouseskills/ted.html
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/ict/mouseskills/joiner.html

The Domestics
Please could you ensure that your child has their book bag everyday, in addition to a water bottle and a snack, both of which will need labelling. TOP TIP!! Why not print off labels on the computer to stick on snacks?

Finally, if you have any questions then please feel free to pop in and see any member of the team.

Have a great week!

Jayne Narraway and the Foundation Stage Team xxx

What a great start!

Hi there!

Firstly, a very warm welcome to our next set of parents whose children started last week. The children are really doing very well getting used to the routines of the school day. There is so much to remember! Below are some dates for your diary but then if you scroll down on the blog you will get information about what your child will be doing this coming week in class.

Dates for your diary!

We will be holding our annual celebration for St Vincent’s Day (27th September). On Friday 26th September, the children are asked to come into school in their own clothes in return for a donation of tinned and packaged food to be made up into hampers for St Joseph’s Welfare Centre.

Our Harvest Festival Mass will be celebrated in the school hall on 30th September at 9.10am. Parents are welcome to attend.

Our Induction Evening for the Foundation Stage will be held at 6.30pm on 14th October. This meeting will include vital information about how we teach your child, organisation of their learning as well as a chance to meet other parents and the staff. Due to the nature of the induction evening we ask that children do not attend. Thanks.

Snacks
Snacks are available for purchase from the cook in the morning. Toast is 22p, milk is 16p and fruit juice is 22p. if your child would like to purchase these then please ensure their money is in a labelled purse or wallet. Please can I take this opportunity to remind parents that St Vincent’s is a healthy school and hope you will support us in this by providing your child with a healthy snack each day. Thanks. Each afternoon the children receive a piece of fruit as part of the Free Fruit for Schools Initiative.

So what are the children doing this week?

Faces
We had a great time on Friday learning the different parts of the face and drawing self portraits. The children laughed their little heads off at the song I taught them particularly when we got to the tongue. See if they can remember it!

POPAT
This is a great game to support listening skills as well as developing early phonic skills. The children have all made a great start and I’m working very hard to catch them out but it’s just not happening!!! We have assessed the children on their letter recognition and you will soon receive a note in your child’s diary with the letters to focus on for this half term. This is a fantastic website to support letter recognition. The children have already had a chance to play on it in class and so should be able to have a go on their own at home. Check out:
www.starfall.com

Harvest Festival
Each year we volunteer to do the display for the hall to celebrate the Harvest. The children will be doing some leaf printing and some observational work on berries and leaves. Perhaps you could collect any conkers, pine cones or branches with berries on for us to use and explore. Thanks.


NEW STARTERS 11th September

Welcome to our very own blogspot! This will be updated every weekend for you to find out information about what your child will be doing in school from Monday to Friday, as well as great websites to keep your child occupied whilst learning too. Please make sure that you check it at least once a week as additional information can be posted on here as well.

We have already begun to assess your children since they walked through the door. The children are not even aware we are doing it as we have such a strong play based curriculum. Basically, your child’s first week in school is used to settle them in to the routines and ensure they feel safe and secure. In addition to this, we work with the children to find out what they are able to do. This then enables us to plan for exciting learning experiences which are relevant and challenging to what the children need.

Reading
On Monday your child will receive their reading diary, six words to learn and a book to share with you. The reading book will be changed on a Monday and a Thursday. Please could we ask that you make a comment in the diary each time you read with your child?

CALLING ALL DADS!!!
Research states that boys learn to read more easily when they are taught by their dad’s.

So…what else is on for this week?

Getting to know you, getting to learn all about you…
Can’t you tell I’m a fan of the musicals? Don’t you just love The King and I? This week the children will play lots of games that will encourage them to learn each others names.

Time to start getting physical
On Friday we will attempt our very first PE lesson. This is an occasion that causes amusement amongst many of the staff. I can’t understand why. Perhaps trousers on back to front, shoes without socks and shoes on the wrong feet are a give away? On a more serious note, PE times are often the most unsettling of experiences for children when they start school so please be assured that anxiety about PE is common (even for me).

I therefore send an SOS out to you as parents. Please try to make your child as independent as possible when dressing and undressing. As a parent of a four year old I know how tempting it can be to fasten a few buttons, put on the odd sock or tuck in the shirt. As part of their learning and development, children in the Foundation Stage need to dress and undress themselves independently. Aaghh…TIES!! Don’t worry we do the children’s ties and top buttons for them.

We are aware of the delay in PE shorts at the school shop so feel free to send in an alternative for now.

Click, click, clickety, click!
Not only are we doing PE this week, but we are venturing into ‘The Land of the Giants’ (the juniors) to work on the computers in the ICT suite. The children will be working on developing their mouse skills by clicking and dragging. Here are some great websites you can use to support your child. The use of these websites and the computer in general will help your child as we use the computers a lot in school.
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/ict/mouseskills/ted.html
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/ict/mouseskills/joiner.html

The Domestics
Please could you ensure that your child has their book bag everyday, in addition to a water bottle and a snack, both of which will need labelling. TOP TIP!! Why not print off labels on the computer to stick on snacks?

Our next set of children will start on Thursday this week. Please could we ask you, as ‘old hats’ to settle your child as quickly as possible to allow the morning process to be as unsettling for the new children. Thanks.

Finally, if you have any questions then please feel free to pop in and see any member of the team.

Have a great week!

Jayne Narraway and the Foundation Stage Team xxx

And we're off!!!

Welcome to our very own blogspot! This will be updated every weekend for you to find out information about what your child will be doing in school from Monday to Friday, as well as great websites to keep your child occupied whilst learning too. Please make sure that you check it at least once a week as additional information can be posted on here as well.

We hope that your child has had a great first two days at school. We have been thrilled with them all!! We have already begun to assess your children since they walked through the door. The children are not even aware we are doing it as we have such a strong play based curriculum. Basically, your child’s first week in school is used to settle them in to the routines and ensure they feel safe and secure. In addition to this, we work with the children to find out what they are able to do. This then enables us to plan for exciting learning experiences which are relevant and challenging to what the children need.

Reading
Your child will have received their reading diary, six words to learn and a book to share with you. The reading book will be changed on a Monday and a Thursday. Please could we ask that you make a comment in the diary each time you read with your child?

CALLING ALL DADS!!!
Research states that boys learn to read more easily when they are taught by their dads.

So…what else is on for this week?

Getting to know you, getting to learn all about you…
Can’t you tell I’m a fan of the musicals? Don’t you just love The King and I? This week the children will play lots of games that will encourage them to learn each others names.

Time to start getting physical
On Wednesday we will attempt our very first PE lesson. This is an occasion that causes amusement amongst many of the staff. I can’t understand why. Perhaps trousers on back to front, shoes without socks and shoes on the wrong feet are a give away? On a more serious note, PE times are often the most unsettling of experiences for children when they start school so please be assured that anxiety about PE is common (even for me).

I therefore send an SOS out to you as parents. Please try to make your child as independent as possible when dressing and undressing. As a parent of a four year old I know how tempting it can be to fasten a few buttons, put on the odd sock or tuck in the shirt. As part of their learning and development, children in the Foundation Stage need to dress and undress themselves independently. Aaghh…TIES!! Don’t worry we do the children’s ties and top buttons for them.

Faces
The children will begin to learn about the different features of a face this week as a precursor to the work we will be starting next week. I have a song that they can learn to the tune of ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ which teaches them the parts of the face. We do have to be careful when pointing to the nostrils though!!

Click, click, clickety, click!
Not only are we doing PE this week, but we are venturing into ‘The Land of the Giants’ (the juniors) to work on the computers in the ICT suite. The children will be working on developing their mouse skills by clicking and dragging. Here are some great websites you can use to support your child. The use of these websites and the computer in general will help your child as we use the computers a lot in school.
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/ict/mouseskills/ted.html
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/ict/mouseskills/joiner.html

The Domestics
Please could you ensure that your child has their book bag everyday, in addition to a water bottle and a snack, both of which will need labelling. TOP TIP!! Why not print off labels on the computer to stick on snacks?

Our next set of children will start on Thursday this week. Please could we ask you, as ‘old hats’ to settle your child as quickly as possible to allow the morning process to be as unsettling for the new children. Thanks.

Finally, if you have any questions then please feel free to pop in and see any member of the team.

Have a great week!

Jayne Narraway and the Foundation Stage Team xxx