90 days ago
Posted on 19th January 2024 by Miss Jones

Beech Class Weekly Newsletter

This week we read the book ‘One Snowy Night’ by Nick Butterworth. The children had great fun making predictions earlier in the week about what might be coming up through the floorboards into Percy’s hut. I must admit, we were relieved to find it was just a mole rather than some of their larger (and scarier!) predictions! They also made a super job of writing labels and captions for Percy the Park Keeper.

In phonics this week we learned the sounds ‘oo’ (zoom to the moon), ‘oo’ (hook a book), ‘ar’ (March in the dark) and ‘or’ (born with a horn) and the tricky words was, you and they.
In maths we have been learning about one more and one less as well as developing our subitising skills. We have been practising recognising the smaller numbers within a number to work out how many are there altogether. E.g. I can see 3 and 1 so it must be 4. I can see 3 and 2. It’s 5.

During our topic sessions we have been looking at maps, including aerial maps and used Google earth to find school and share our journeys to school. Some children then drew maps of their journey to school, thinking about the significant features they pass on the way. The children have also enjoyed exploring ice and frozen characters, working out the best way to release them.

Next week I will be holding a phonics session for parents on Thursday morning at 9am, to share how the children learn to read with the Little Wandle Phonics Scheme and answer any questions you may have about supporting your child with reading at home. It would be great to see you there.

Have a lovely weekend.

Miss Jones & Mrs Kenny

97 days ago
Posted on 12th January 2024 by Miss Jones

Beech Class Weekly Newsletter 12.1.24

Our first full week has flown by, reading the story “Kipper’s Snowy Day” by Mick Inkpen and drawing and writing about our favourite part.
In phonics we have learnt four new sounds ‘ai’ like rain, ‘ee’ like ‘sheep’, ‘igh’ like light and ‘oa’ like goat. The children have been working on their blending skills by sounding out each word before blending to read it then reading the word again to build up their fluency.
In Maths we have learned about zero and have been learning to represent numbers to 5 in lots of different ways as well as recalling the different ways to partition each one.

As part of our learning about What is Cold we have been talking about the seasons and how the weather and environment change during winter. We have talked about our own feelings about and experiences of snow and enjoyed exploring the ‘snow’ in class, making prints like Kipper from the story with the people and animals.

We have also been talking about where we live and looked at maps of the UK and the world, identifying the coldest parts of the planet and learning about some of the creatures who live there.

Just a little reminder that PE is on MONDAY and FRIDAY until February half term so children should come to school wearing suitable kit please. Please also remember they should have their book bags and reading records in school every day. If they are missing anything please let us know and we can arrange to replace them. It is so important that children are practicing their reading skills daily so they can become confident, fluent readers.

Have a lovely weekend,

See you Monday.

Miss Jones & Mrs Kenny

104 days ago
Posted on 5th January 2024 by Miss Jones

Beech Class Weekly Newsletter 5.1.24

Well Happy New Year and welcome back! It’s only been a couple of days but the children are starting to settle back into routine and have adapted easily to the changes in staffing. I have enjoyed spending the last two days getting to know them and look forward to getting to know them better and learn a more about them as term progresses.

In Phonics we have been recapping all the Phase 2 sounds and tricky words and will start Phase 3 next week. We will be learning four new sounds each week and also some new tricky words. It is important the children keep reviewing sounds and tricky words that they already know so they become confident and fluent readers so please look out for resources that will be sent home in the next couple of weeks to support with this. They have all completed drawings and independent writing about their Christmas holidays today, trying hard to use their phonic knowledge and form their letters correctly. They have also quickly learnt two poems from The Poetry Basket – Chop! Chop! and Popcorn! I was very impressed with how quickly they were able to recite them as a class and we will continue to learn to recite more poems from the Poetry Basket over the year.

In Maths we have been recapping what we learnt last term about all the numbers to 5 and how they are made up of other numbers, using the Numberblocks episode ‘Whole of Me’ to help us remember how to partition through song. We will begin our next unit learning about 6,7, and 8 on Monday.

From Monday we are having an extra PE session just for this term with the coach so PE will be on Mondays and Fridays up until February half term.

If you have any queries about your child’s learning, please feel free to drop me an email on beech@crowmoorschool.co.uk

Have a lovely weekend.

Miss Jones, Mrs Kenny & Mrs Evason

111 days ago
Posted on 29th December 2023 by Miss Jones

Letter to Beech Class parents

Please see attached letter sent home at end of term.
Change of Teacher – Beech Class

111 days ago
Posted on 29th December 2023 by Miss Jones

Letter to Elm Class parents

Please see attached letter sent home at end of term regarding staff changes in January.

Change of Teacher – Elm Class

131 days ago
Posted on 9th December 2023 by Miss Jones

Elm Class Newsletter

The children have worked incredibly hard this week completing end of term assessments. It has been a new experience for them and I’m very proud of how they all handled them.
We have talked a lot about making sure they take their time to read questions properly and that they look carefully at signs in maths questions to ensure they are using the correct operation. We will continue to practice these skills next term.
We have almost completed the Pied Piper of Hamelin book – we will read the final pages in English next week – and they independently wrote some super letters back to the Piper from the Mayor.
They have almost completed their History unit on The Great Fire of London and this week we were learning about the rebuild of the capital city by Christopher Wren. They pretended to be residents, thinking what questions they would ask King Charles II, and then drew some designs for rebuilding London talking about what they would change and why.
in D&T we’ve spent some time exploring how to make supports and use different joining techniques. They then created their designs with a partner ready for building next week. If you do have any cardboard boxes we would really appreciate it if you could please send them in to school at the beginning of the week. Thank you!

I hope you all had a great time at the Christmas Fayre. It was lovely to see so many of you there.

This week there are some exciting things going on – the church service at the Baptist Church on Wednesday 13th and Christmas dinner and jumper day on Thursday 14th. From Thursday children can wear something ‘Christmassy’ until the end of term (Wednesday 20th).

We will still have PE on Tuesday and Thursday as normal – apologies for the confusion with my typo last week!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend Please remember to read read read!! ☺️

Miss Jones

146 days ago
Posted on 24th November 2023 by Miss Jones

Elm Class Weekly News 24.11.23

Another week has flown by I can barely believe it’s almost the end of November!
In English we are continuing to read The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Michael Morpurgo and the children are becoming really engrossed in the story. We’ve written character and setting descriptions so far and this week enjoyed lots of role play and hot seating to prepare for writing our newspaper report. We have been focusing on using conjunctions – because, but, if and when – and making sure we are using the correct tense when writing.
Last week in Maths we started our unit on Shape, focusing mainly on refreshing their knowledge of 2D shape names and properties, learning to talk about the number of sides and vertices different shapes have. This week we have moved on to 3D shapes, learning to name and describe them by talking about their faces, edges and vertices.
In computing the children are learning about digital photography and how they can use framing, positioning and lighting to ensure they take good photos as well as learning about the right to privacy and asking for permission when taking a photo of a person.
They are enjoying learning about The Great Fire of London in History, finding out about the events of the fire but also what it was like to live in 1666. They have been quite surprised by some of the jobs that existed then and how they are different today. In geography We’ve spent some time exploring atlases and Google earth to help us compare London to Shrewsbury and have been exploring building structures in D&T.

Please note, next week only PE will be on WEDNESDAY (29th) and Thursday (30th), instead of Tuesday and Thursday. Please ensure children are in their PE kits on those days. If you have any queries, please email me on the class email elm@crowmoorschool.co.uk

Have a lovely weekend.

Miss Jones & Mrs Evason

160 days ago
Posted on 10th November 2023 by Miss Jones

Elm Class Weekly News 10.11.23

What a busy first week back we have had! It was lovely to see the children again and hear all their half term news.

In English this week we have started our new book “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” by Michael Morpurgo. We started by reading the start of the story where the rats have just began to invade Hamelin. The children have been intrigued by how the children were living in the story and have written some fantastic character descriptions for the boy and the Mayor. We will continue to read this book over the term and use the text as our stimulus for writing.

In Maths we have completed our unit on Addition and Subtraction. Next week we will start our unit on Shape.

This term we are learning about The Great Fire of London in history and our D&T, Art and Geography will also be linked to it. If you have any everyday small and medium sized cardboard boxes that you want to recycle, please send them in over the next few weeks so we can use them for our D&T project. In Geography we are comparing Shrewsbury to London and will eventually be producing a little travel leaflet for tourists to visit both places.

Just a little reminder that PE is now on TUESDAYS and THURSDAYS. Please ensure children are wearing their PE kits on these days and ear-rings should be removed as per school policy.

Today we had a class assembly to talk about Remembrance and held a 2 minute silence after listening to The Last Post. It was lovely to hear how much the children already knew about why poppies are worn during our discussion and the children were all very respectful during the silence.

Also, just to let you know that this year, Chestnut and Elm class will not be putting on a Christmas Production of their own. We will be taking an active part in the whole school Christmas Celebrations instead. More details of this to come!

Have a lovely weekend and we look forward to seeing you next week!

Miss Jones & Mrs Evason