Duckling Newsletter 13/3/15

Friday 13th March 2015 Our News!

Firstly, a big thank you to all you for dressing up or dressing down for Comic relief and for your kind donations. Also, many thanks for all the fantastic things you have sent in for our Vets/Pet shop and the lovely spring plants for our investigation table.

We have had a very busy few weeks, just for a change! Here are just a few of the things we have been doing! (Remember to keep looking at our blog on the school website too!)

We have enjoyed reading Dear Zoo and The Great Pet sale. We know the stories so well that we can retell them in our own words. We have learnt a lovely song to go with the Dear Zoo story, complete with actions. Ask them to show you at home. We enjoyed using the pattern of the story to help us write our own letters to the zoo to ask for a pet. We have also been busy reading the story, ‘My mum is fantastic!’ We managed to come up with loads of fabulous words to describe our mums too which we then used to write about our mums in their Mother’s Day cards.

We have been able to identify which things in our world are living and non-living and have enjoyed looking after our virtual pet dog, making sure it has all the things that it needs to stay healthy and alive! So far, so good! We are pet experts!

Last Friday we were very lucky to have a special visit from a parent Mrs Shanbhag, who came to show us how to make rangoli patterns, as we learnt about the Hindu festival of Holi. We said goodbye to winter and welcomed spring here by trying out some very colourful Bollywood dancing!

We have been asking questions and collecting information in mathematics using pictograms and simple tally charts. The children are able to answer questions based on their findings, such as ‘How many children have no pets?’ and ‘Which pet is the least popular?

STARS OF THE WEEK Jessica Williams for being an all-round super star!

Callen Ormand for working really hard with his reading and his phonics.

Nicholas Eaton for being so enthusiastic about his learning and doing lots of extra learning at home too!

Thomas Dean for trying hard with his work and being very proud of his achievements Our next news letter will be on Friday 27th March and will give details about all the fun activities we have planned for the next few weeks.

Any questions please don’t hesitate to ring, email or come and see us.

Staff email: Mrs Claydon l.claydon@carletongreen.lancs.sch.uk Mrs Catterall m.catterall@carletongreen.lancs.sch.uk

OUR LEARNING On Monday we are very lucky to be having a visit from the local Veterinary practice.

The children will have the opportunity to find out about the very important job of a vet and a veterinary nurse. They will also have the chance to think of their own questions they would like to ask our visitors.

We will be reading a fun information book called ‘Guess My Pet!’ The children will have to guess what pet each person has from the clues they are given. We will then use this idea to write our own pet riddles for their friends to try and guess.

Mrs Claydon has a number of different pets at home which she hopes to bring in and let us have a look at on our investigation table, such as a hamster, chinchilla and gerbils.

Please let your child’s class teacher know if your child has any allergies.

Following on from the vet visit we will be making our own posters for the vet/pet shop to inform people how to look after and care for different pets.

We will learn a new song, ‘Come to the pet shop.’

In mathematics we will begin to look at time and will start by ordering familiar events in our day, the days of the week, months of the year and the changing seasons. We will complete ‘One Minute Challenges’ to see what we can do in one minute!

Our PE lessons will take place outside over the next few weeks. We had great fun in the rain practising all our skills. We did rolling a ball to knock down the cones. It was very hard to keep the ball on the floor and stay accurate. We jumped in hoops like kangaroos, rabbits and frogs, threw bean bag animals into a bucket and cycled around a sets of cones. We also pretended the wobble boards were surf boards and the rain was the sea spray. Let’s hope next week is a little sunnier!

During our fine motor time we have created paper plate faces of all the staff around school. They will be displayed in the entrance hall ready for our Induction Evening. Why not come and see them and see if there is a likeness. We will be doing some Easter based activities too before the holidays.

Spring and Easter We will find out who celebrates Easter, how and why?

We will find out and talk about how we celebrate Easter in our own homes and decorate our home corner.

We will make Easter nests during snack time and make nests from natural materials outside. We will explore why eggs are a symbol of Easter and Spring and find out which animals hatch from eggs.

Despite the weather still being quite wintery, we have managed to spot some signs of spring on our spring welly walks and will continue with these next week! We will then begin to create some spring artwork for our displays in the classroom.

We hope to have some spring lambs come and visit our classes on Wednesday 25th March, for our children to handle and look at.

Please inform your child’s class teacher if you have any concerns or allergies that we need to be aware of.

REMINDERS Missing Toy A small toy mermaid has gone missing from Mrs Catterall’s desk. Someone had brought it in to show to the class and it has disappeared. Please can you talk to your child at home to see if they might know where it has gone? Many thanks.

Spare Clothes Please return any outstanding clothes borrowed and brought home from school as we are running low. Thank you.

Pet Photographs Please send in any photographs of your child and their pet for the display in our pet shop or alternatively email them to your child’s class teacher for them to print out.

Class Blog Don’t forget to go on the school website and have a look at the class blog and photo galleries which show examples of what we have been doing in school.

Walk to School We have started the Walk to School initiative, whereby the children can keep a record of how often they walk to school. Remember, if you live further away from school, you can still take part, by parking a little further away from school and walking a short distance.

Dates Easter Disco Thursday 19th March 5-6pm EYFS and KS1 Easter Holidays Friday 27th March School closes for Easter 2.30pm Unfortunately we will not be able to hold our Easter Open afternoon on this day as first planned as we have a special assembly happening in school at this time.

We will however arrange another open afternoon as soon as possible. Thank you.

TALK HOMEWORK

Talk for Numbers Say the days of the week in order Say the months of the year and the seasons in order Carry out some 1 minute challenges at home – see how many times you can skip around the garden in 1 minute, write your name in 1 minute, how many items of clothes can you dress up in, in 1 minute Make a little picture diary of your day, your weekend What did you do yesterday, today and what will you do tomorrow? www.ictgames.com/numeracy www.tesiboard.co.uk

Talk for Reading and Writing Keep learning your sounds and tricky words ready for an assessment Read your reading book every night Make a little book all about different pets and how to look after them www.phonicsplay.co.uk Phase 3 and 4 TALK FOR TOPIC Find out about an unusual pet e.g. a snake or a chinchilla and what they need to stay healthy and clean?

Ask your family what you will be doing to celebrate Easter Go to the library and find some books about Easter and Spring Find out which animals come from eggs Decorate an egg for Easter

Talk about everything!

Have fun!