Welcome back after our half term break, it’ll soon be Christmas! It has been great to see all the children in school and ready to learn.

We will be doing PE on TUESDAYS and WEDNESDAYS from now on. Please make sure pupils come to school in the correct kit on those days.

This week we have been reading the book ‘You can’t take an Elephant on a Bus’ by Patricia Cleveland-Peck. It is a really funny book with lots of problems as the animals try different modes of transport. The children have used ‘but’ in sentences. Next week we will be reading ‘Katie in London’ by James Mayhew.

In phonics, the children have learnt four new graphemes called split-digraphs.

• a-e as in cake, made & snake
• i-e as in time, ride & slide
• o-e as in cone, bone & those
• u-e as in rule, cube & prune

The children continue to work hard in their maths lessons. They are becoming more fluent in recalling their number bonds of ten by using the number bond song to help them. They can use a number line to subtract numbers within ten and are beginning to solve word problems by working out if they need to add or subtract.

Our geography this half term is based on the countries and the capital cities of the UK. This links to our history where we are learning about past kings and queens of the UK. We started by thinking about the qualities that would make a good monarch and the rules they would introduce if it was them!

In Design and Technology, they will be making fabric faces of themselves using scraps of fabric, felt, lace and wool. If you have any of these items that we could use, we would be very grateful for donations. They will be spending time practicing their simple sewing skills for the next couple of weeks.

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 great weekend,

Mrs Dowell, Mrs Armstrong and the new Mrs Savory!