Happy Shrove Tuesday

There were lots of happy faces today tucking into their delicious pancake day lunch. The sausages, fish fingers and jacket potato proved popular and the pancakes were quickly eaten up. In class we learnt about why we have a day called pancake day when we don`t have a special day for other types of food. The children are now really looking forward to their special World Book day menu.

SPECIAL WORLD BOOK DAY MENU FOR THURSDAY 2ND MARCH

SPECIAL WORLD BOOK DAY MENU

MINCE BEEF PIE

BBQ CHICKEN

CHEESE AND TOMATO PIZZA

JAM DOUGHNUT

West Ham Takeover Day

West Ham Takeover Day
Just to let parents know we have some very unhappy children.
West Ham failed to turn up today!
This is particularly annoying as they had already cancelled last week and they did not inform us they were unable to attend.
Apologies to all parents/carers who made a special effort to send in claret/blue PE kits.
I have e-mailed them to express my concern and want parents to know that, despite the fact I am a Chelsea supporter, I share the children's disappointment.

Year 2 Maths Challenges!

Here are some maths challenges for this half term.
Please encourage your child to solve them at home and bring in their outcomes to school to share.

Nursery Learning Challenge Spring 2

 Learning Challenge

Each half term we will be setting our pupils a challenge related to their learning, this is in line with the rest of the school. We believe that it is important for us to provide guidance for parents on how their children's learning can be extended at home.

The learning challenge will include either a nursery rhyme, illustration or a piece of music. Please talk to your child about the challenge and help them to engage in their learning. The children can choose how they present their learning challenge outcomes to their teacher or class however the table below details some ideas for the learning challenge.

The learning challenge replaces traditional ‘homework’ and runs alongside daily reading with your child. Is it expected that you read with your child every day.

This term our topic is ‘Amazing animals/Julia Donaldson’ therefore the learning challenges are as follows…

Poem/Song to learn:                  5 little ducks went swimming one day

5 little ducks went swimming one day, over the hills and far away

Mummy duck said, quack quack quack quack,

And only 4 little ducks came back.

4 little ducks went swimming one day…   (continue down to 0)

Song: Julia Donaldson performing her stories as songs: http://www.juliadonaldson.co.uk/songs.htm

Author: Find out about Julia Donaldson. Use books and computer to research Julia Donaldson. What does she do? What books has she written? Find out about her life.

Nursery Rhyme	Author
1.    Learn it off by heart. 2.    Draw a picture to illustrate the rhyme.	3.    To research the author  4.    To learn the word 'Author' and what it means.

Nursery PM Dinosaur afternoon!

PM Nursery children had the chance to go into the hall last week to learn all about dinosaurs. As well as seeing a baby dinosaur and hearing it roar, they also got to witness a life size T-Rex! What a fun way to spend the afternoon!

Nursery- Phonics Workshop for parents

Phonics Workshop 

Parents are invited to come into Nursery for a workshop explaining how we teach your children phonics (letters) and how best you can help them at home. 

Friday 10th March
AM parents- 10.20-11.00am
PM parents- 1.15-1.55pm 

Please come to the session your child attends. There will be practical advise on how best you can help your child achieve their full potential in Literacy. If  you have younger children to look after they are welcome but please be mindful that you may have to leave the room if they are making too much noise. 

We value your participation in these events and hope to see you all there! 

A big well done to Ronnie Thomas in year 5.

Last week Ronnie received his yellow belt at the VM Kickboxing and MMA Academy. His continued hard work and effort has enabled him to achieve this goal and we are all sure he will continue to make progress through his belts.




A big well done from everyone at Mead.

Reception Newsletter -Spring 2 Week 2

Term: Spring 2                      Date: 27.02.17

Dear Parents,

We  had a super week back learning all about dinosaurs and our dinosaur day was a huge success. We will be continuing with our dinosaur theme this week so if your child has anything at home connected to dinosaurs we would be delighted for them to bring in dinosaur themed things to show. Remember Thursday is world book day so the children may come to school dressed as a book character and we will have a day celebrating the wonder of books and stories. We will be working on the theme of estimation through our focus maths times. Estimation is a skill for life learning to work out the approximate number by looking so we will be teaching the children to make an estimate based on what they have seen and know.

Our Learning Objectives for this term are:-

Personal, Social and Emotional:

Explains own knowledge and understanding, and asks appropriate questions of others.

Shows confidence in asking adults for help.

Confident to speak to others about own needs, wants, interests and opinions.

                       

Communication and Language:

Uses vocabulary and forms of speech that are increasingly influenced by their experiences of books.

Uses language to imagine and recreate roles and experiences in play situations.

Can retell a simple past event in correct order.

Physical Development:

Eats a healthy range of foodstuffs and understands the need for variety in food.

Shows understanding of the need for good practices with regards to exercise, eating, sleeping, and hygiene can contribute to good health.

Show an understanding of a need for safety when tackling new challenges and considers and manages risks.

Literacy:

Recognises rhythm in spoken words

Describes main story settings, events and principal characters.

Hears and says the initial sound in words.

Mathematics:

Estimates how many objects they can see and checks by counting them.

Recognise some numerals of personal significance.

Counts an irregular arrangement of up to ten objects.

Expressive Art and Design:

Constructs with a purpose in mind, using a variety of resources.

Builds stories around toys, e.g. farm animals needing rescue from an armchair 'cliff'. Understands that they can use lines to enclose a space, and then begin to use these shapes to  represent objects.

Understanding the World:

Enjoys joining in with family customs and routines

Beginning to construct, stacking blocks vertically and horizontally, making enclosures and creating spaces

Looks closely at similarities, differences, patterns and change

Messages.

 Learning Challenge

 Each half term we will be setting our pupils a challenge related to their learning. We believe that it is important for us to provide guidance for parents on how their children's learning can be extended at home.

 The learning challenge will include either a nursery rhyme, famous person, illustration or a piece of music. Please talk to your child about the challenge and help them to engage in their learning. The children can choose how they present their learning challenge outcomes to their teacher or class. 

  Person:  A Super Hero /a dinosaur

  Piece of Music: Johann-Strauss Radetzky: March

  Poem/Song to learn: Jack and Jill went up the hill

Nursery Rhyme	Piece of music	Person
1.    Learn it off by heart. 2.    Draw a picture to illustrate the rhyme. 3.    Find out about the origin of the rhyme.	1.      Listen to the music and dance to it. 2.      Find out facts about the composer. 3.      Produce a collage or picture to illustrate the piece of music.	1. Draw a portrait of the person./dinosaur 2.   Find out facts about the person/dinosaur 3. Watch the person/dinosaur in action.

Well done to Barbados class for winning this week`s Remarkable Readers award. Who will be next?

On Wednesday 8th March between 8.30 and 9.00 we would like to invite you to stay and Read with your child. Reading is so important but we know how busy life is so this is an opportunity to hear your child read/share a story with your child in school.

 Dates for your Diary:

Tuesday 28th February-Pancake day lunch

Thursday 2nd March - World Book Day

Wednesday 8th March-Stay and Read morning 

Kind regards

The Reception Team

A dinosaur came to Mead!

On Thursday Reception were busy digging for fossils. We became palaeontologists for the morning and using our brushes we carefully wiped away the sand to uncover our fossils; we discovered a triceratops horn, a pterodactyl fossil which we found had a wing span of 1.5m, a dinosaur claw and tooth and also some other sea creatures which existed 65 million years ago. The children discovered that dinosaurs could be herbivores, omnivores or carnivores and that they became extinct because of a meteor which fell to earth.  

Did you know? The biggest and heaviest dinosaur was an Argentinosaurus.

In the afternoon the children eagerly awaited their surprise and they were not disappointed when they met ‘Chewy’ the baby dinosaur and then Millie the Tyrannosaurus Rex. They were all extremely brave and even went and stroked Millie before posing for a picture with her!

It was a great introduction to our topic this term, bringing our learning to life. We never realised how many dinosaur experts we had in Reception!