Welcome to Reception Class 

Our class is called ‘Pendle’ after Pendle Hill, which is close by. We always have great fun learning and growing together. We follow a creative curriculum led by the children’s interests, which allows the pupils to access all areas of learning in an engaging and interactive way.

Please click the link below to see our Intent, Implementation and Impact statements for the EYFS.

 

CLICK ON OUR WELCOME VIDEO FOR OUR RECEPTION CLASS STARTERS. WE LOOK FORWARD TO WELCOMING YOU TO OUR WONDERFUL SCHOOL

Nativity Songs!

1. We’d Like To Tell You A Story

 

2. Little Grey Donkey

 

3. Down In The Stable

 

4. Such A Perfect moment

 

5 The Angels Song

 

6. There’s A Razzle And A Dazzle

 

7. Wonderful Camels

 

8. A Miracle In Town

10.11.23

Another incredible week in Pendle Class. We would never want to show off buttttt, we have started our phase 3 vowel sounds this week! I think you will see the range of books and language we use will grow exponentially now. Children have made mini booklets and multiple sentences on our strange animal templates; inspired by Patricia Cleveland-Peck. It is truly magical to see our little writers share their own ideas and apply their new phonetic knowledge. In mathematics our number knowledge continues to go and we have worked hard on our growing number bonds, subitising and how numbers are interlinked to make each other. Children have needed a keen eye for counting and an even keener one for measuring – accuracy is key! We move onto a very special part of our week, Remembrance. We have worked hard together to understanding the meaning of a Poppy, where the money goes and the sacrifice that men and women made and continue to make for us. Pendle Class created a wreath to go to church for Remembrance Day along with our friends throughout the school, well done everyone. The Nativity is in full swing and children are creating a show that we will never forget! Thank you to Pendle and Parlick Class for working so hard on positing, choreography and singing. Thank you to everyone who is working hard at home too, it is a massive help. If you need any of the songs please see the list above. Today was our very first Judo lesson with Dan. It was great to see everyone working so hard and working as a team. It was especially nice to see Pendle Class working together at the end for Coach Dan to return his mats – teamwork makes the dream work. The cherry to finish is the wonderful Mrs Luke worked with Pendle Class to create our nature portraits. Children had to work together, gather materials and embrace their natural artistic side, thank you Mrs Luke. Thank you all for a wonderful week, I hope you all have a marvelous weekend together and see you Monday.

20.10.23

‘That is sooooooo Yummy!’ When you hear that you know the Gruffalo crumble went down well. The children worked brilliantly together to create a delicious crumble. Children were shown how to pour, mix, knead and measure ingredients and then let loose. The team work on display was fantastic to see and having our Buddies to eat some crumble and watch the Gruffalo together was the cherry on top!  Thank you to our school chef Tim for cooking and trying our crumble, he was very impressed. This week I have had the joy of meeting you all again and it sincerely was a treat celebrating all the milestones made. The children have gotten off to an incredible start and we certainly mean to carry on. We now say goodbye to Julia Donaldson and our All About Me topic and hello to Patricia Cleveland-Peck and transport. As a class we discussed what we would like to learn about and came across transport (cars, busses, race cars, tractors, diggers etc) we cannot wait. This wonderful new author is going to help us explore the topic of Wheels, Engines, Tracks and all things that go vroom. Thank you all for a wonderful half term. I have you get to spend some quality time with each other and have a safe Halloween. See you all soon!

 

29.9.23

 

Just like that we say goodbye to September and an early hello to October. We will hear sleigh bells before you know it! The children have come across a digraph for the first time and we are trying our best to spot them in a range of words we come across. This week to really showcase our writing we have tried to write our very own sentences! We have used a phoneme frame to help us segment the words and a sound mat to support our phoneme grapheme correspondence independently. We are delighted at how hard we are all working and Miss Deakin even got to have a sneaky peak at our writing. In mathematics children showcased their incredible number ability to subitise and instantaneously recognise 1-5. We are now exploring these numbers to see how they are made up for instance; did you know 4 can be made with 2 + 2 AND! 3 + 1 – who knew! Now to a personal highlight of the week of mine, the harvest assembly. What a time to celebrate harvest together. I sincerely hope you enjoyed our musical performance. I know how hard the children have tried and seeing an audience that big would make me nervous, let alone our Pendle Class team. Well done everyone, I am very proud of you! What you did was incredibly tricky and you all did your best – thank you. I need to finish on a sombre note as we say goodbye to a beloved member of St Francis – Mrs Tyrer. Thank you for everything you have done for the school and the children. I know you will be missed by everyone and we all wish you a very happy retirement. You are a truly wonderful person and an incredible friend to us all. I am sure we will see you again soon. Thank you Pendle Class for another wonderful week. I hope you all have a lovely weekend and see you all Monday.

 

22.9.23

It’s raining, its pouring, but we are certainly not snoring. What a week it has been! I must start with the incredible phonics that is going on in this classroom. The books are a blur of letters and even CVC words – WOW! Children are trying their best to write on the line, keep our letter formation as neat as we can and most importantly be brave and try your best! In addition to that, it is incredible to see the amount of reading that is going on at home. I cannot overstate how happy it makes me to see this – thank you. In mathematics we have come across mighty number 5 and worked on our subitising skills. It certainly is tricky to instantly recognise a number and quantity; but Pendle Class are working hard to do it. We are learning about our kind and caring hands and how we can use them in our daily lives, at school and home. Pendle even made their very own creation wheels to go with the story. I would love to finish with an enormous thank you to our buddies. I have seen with my own 2 eyes how loving each buddy has been and how much your children love them. Thank you Beacon for all your love and support for our new students, they truly think the world of you. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend together and keep reading. Attached below are some wonderful pictures of buddies and wonderful mini people.

8.9.23

Well the sun is shining, the birds are singing and another incredible Pendle Class has arrived – Fannnnnnnntastic! I think you will all have a very quiet night tonight as the children have worked their socks (and jumpers) off. We have started our phonics journey and even started our brand new phonics books. Children have worked their robot arms as we have come across new sounds and CVC words. It truly is a magical time where the love of reading and writing is started. We created our very own cross/crucifix to go into our R.E books and discussed it 1-1 and as a class. We have learned our lunchtime prayer and are working together to make the sign of the cross and pray together. I am delighted by how sensible and respectful of how these young children are of each other. In mathematics we have been number made and encountered from numberblock friends. We have finished the week by looking at using our stampers to make our friends independently and completed some subitising challenges too – wow! The children have transitioned back into school life brilliantly and have fallen into the school routines too. A huge thank you is needed to Mrs Luke and Mrs Tyrer for all their support during this transition period – it has worked to perfection.  To all parents new and old this week has been a wonderful one and I would earnestly like to give you all my heartfelt thanks and want you all to know how privileged I feel teaching your children. The children have come back enthusiastic and ready to learn. In your learning log bags, your children have selected a book from our library to take home. Please do not feel obligated that your must read it, it was just another way to promote a love of reading. I hope you all have a lovely weekend together and I will see you Monday.

 

31.3.23

What a baaaaarilliant week we have had! I will start off by saying a huge thank you to all the wonderful parents and friends of the school that have supported our Farm topic this term. It has really inspired our children and taken their learning that extra step. A huge thank you Chris Airey, Lucy Walling, Luke Walling, Chris Mclvor, Marika Eccles and Nicholas Eccles who brought animals and machinery and were asked a plethora of questions. I and the children really appreciated your time and knowledge – thank you! During this fabulous week, we have had our incredible visitors brining in a calf, lamb and tractors and trailers. Our trip to Wild Board Park was a brilliant one and we managed to get our very own tractor tour, saw a huge range of animals/ minibeasts and learned about how we care for the animals and kept them safe. A personal favourite of mine was seeing the piglets and going on the bumpy tractor tour. We managed to write about our incredible farming adventures this week, talking about what we learned about and what we enjoyed best. In this crazy busy week we also celebrate our schools holy week and children in Pendle class preformed the Last Supper brilliantly in front of a packed hall. Well done to each class that took part. We have filmed 2 takes 1 on the day and 1 with the full casts. I am having some difficulty sharing it with you at the moment, I will notify you when it is done.  I am delighted to say our next topic will be Traditional Tales and children will be exploring a fantastical and wondrous world. Matty Long will be our author study and his books just ooze fantasy. I hope you all have a wonderful Easter together as a family and see you all in 2 weeks.

24.3.23

I must! Must! Must! Start off with our brilliant day in the deep, dark woods. Our outdoor day in glorious sunshine, howling winds and drizzly rain was amazing. Thank you very much to Lisa coming in ensuring we have a marvellous day and thank you Pendle Class showing once again how amazing you all are – Lisa loved you all!  We went on a bird hunt and created our own bird nests using only our nippy fingers (like a birds beak) played games together while gathering firewood, ensuring it has a nice snap, created clay minibeasts and creatures, played in our own DIY mud kitchen, read books, learned about fire safety, used a flint and roasted our very own marshmallows. Action packed to say the very least! This week we did our very own dress rehearsal to Parlick Class and showed off our costumes, acting and singing. It is never easy standing in front of people and performing and I could not be more proud of you Pendle! Our Oh No! Oh Me! My Pie! Stories are stupendous and during next weeks parents evening I cannot wait to show you how much your children have developed in their writing. Next week I will message out, double checking times and dates with everyone. I will privately message you these messages and if your circumstances have changed, we can rearrange a time that works for you. Our next topic is going to be Traditional Tales and the children are preparing to build our very own castle in the classroom, our fairy tale clouds and much more. I hope you all have a lovely weekend and are ready for an action packed week for the end of our farming topic.

17.3.23

Another week that has flown by and it was filled with Science, fun and strawberries. Pendle class have done something rather unique, we extracted DNA from strawberries. Children were simply given the instructions in their pairs and told to crack on. As a team they has to mash and mix, measure liquids, pour, mix and the filter the lumps out of the concoction. After the mixture sits, you can gather the strawberry DNA. It looks a little like pinkey white slime. We then discussed what DNA can be used for and a good reason we learned is the police (defectives) can use it to help them solve mysteries and catch bad people. In our phonics children have completed another story Mummy, Do you Love Me?’ and children are coming up with ore unique ideas to put into their stories and change them even more, creating a new, unique story. In mathematics children have been flying with their subitisng, number bonds and sums. We even created our own number patterns with each other and created our own ways to make 10 and beyond. Children are working very hard to practice their Last Supper Performance and are singing/ performing the actions beautifully. We even have prepped our costumes and if you are reading this, please send your child in with a labelled and named carrier bag for their costume to go in. Children have also worked on their incredibly secret and important project, their Mother’s Day cards and keyrings. Each child has been enthusiastic and eager to celebrate Mother’s Day with you. I hope you all have a very special weekend together and see you all Monday.

 

3.3.23

What a week! When Cruella De Vil makes an appearance you know it will be a well-remembered week. Luckily for us, she was leaving the Dalmatians alone and more focused on celebrating World Book Day!  It was incredible to see all the children in their World Book Day costumes and it may be considered biased (and definitely is) but I thought Pendle Class looked the best. Even though everyone though everyone was mistaking my costume for a cow – A COW! Moving on from that terrible insult to my incredible Dalmatian costume, the children have completed another story and are beginning the process of including our weird and wonderful ideas into are writing. This gives us even more opportunities to have unique vocabulary into our work, sentences and experiment with more sounds and HFW. In mathematics the children opened their very own shop to purchase and sell their own produce. This week it was our class mass service and the children behaved impeccably as always. We are continuing to learn about the Easter story and Father reminded us that Jesus died for our sins and explained that the Easter story can be very sad. We met the lovely Taffy Thomas this week and he showed off his stunning story coat. Taffy Thomas told us several great stories and a riddle. The riddle was ‘I have 7 daughters and each of my daughters has a brother. How many children do I have? One clever clogs in Pendle Class figured it out first time – wow! Taffy explained to us that in stories we can be relaxed with our words, in riddles, strict. To finish he gave us this fantastic poem to finish on. Books are cool, books are great, reading them will make us great!’. To top off a great week, Pendle Class have started creating their own crazy cress heads. We all planted our very own cress seeds and began the careful process of making them grow. The children are working very hard to care for our plants and helping them grow. What a fantastic week yet again. See you all Monday!

 

24.2.23

Poof just like that one week has gone. This week has been one to remember as we have gone pancake mad. The not so mischievous Mr Wolf made his very own pancakes this week. Alas, his neighbours were not particularly helpful and downright rude at times! Their comeuppance was swift as they were all eaten by Mr Wolf in the end – firm but fair I say! It did give us a great idea, to write about how to make a delicious pancake and if you have to write about it, you need to make one! So we did with a huge variety of delicious toppings and it went down a treat. For Ash Wednesday the children behaved impeccably and really demonstrated our brilliant St Francis values. They are becoming much more confident each visit and really try at everything.  In our mathematics we had our first in-depth look at money and we visited Mr McGill’s shop. I had no change so the children have to find the correct coin for the price tag.  We had to think hard about the different coins and how many pennies each one was worth. Children have worked very hard on their Steven Brown projects and will carry on to do so in their art. I think it has been one fantastic week in Pendle Class and our topic was launched with a huge bang as we have a few very little farmers in Pendle Class! One even made a farm presentation about her home, animals and equipment – she is practically farming royalty. She even answered lots of questions and inspired our children to learn more. I could not ask for more! Have a lovely weekend and see you all Monday.

 

10.2.22

The official half way point of the year – unbelievable! What an incredible week to finish with. This week we had Safety Week and the child had a blast. We were lucky enough to work with our friends in Parlick Class and together we ran workshops on safety in the home, personal hygiene, germs (hand washing), online safety /stranger danger and we even became mini safety officers. We even them presented what we learned to our friends in Fairsnape and Beacon class. They shared with us the dangers of electricity, peer pressure and the importance of speaking to a trusted adult. To continue this fabulous week, children also had a visit from paramedics, Thank you! They explained the difference between a big hurt and a little hurt and when it would be appropriate to call 999. We were all given a special homework task from our friendly paramedic visitors and that was to learn our address. So if we ever needed to call 999, we could tell them where we lived to get help as quickly as possible. In even MOREEE safety news, we even had a visit from RNLI who gave us some brilliant advice about staying safe near water and some important signs and flags to look out for. To finish off a brilliant week even enjoyed and took part in the school carol concert; amazing work once again St Francis. Last week the children has a wonderful time at the Manchester Science and Industry museum. Thank you to the amazing staff, you were all so friendly and amazing. Well done to both Parlick and Pendle you all behaved impeccably and showcased the school brilliantly – well done. We are coming to an end of our dinosaur topic and it is safe to say it has been a success. At the start of this term we had 1 passionate paleontologist and now we have a class full of them. The children have decided our next topic will be farming and our author study will be on Jan Fearly. Thank you all for a wonderful year and fingers crossed the second half will be just as good and a little bit warmer. I sincerely hope you all get to spend time together as a family. See you all very soon.

 

6.1.22

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope you all have had a wonderful festive period as a family. I can think of no better way to start this off by saying a huge thank you and well done to Poppy, Bethany and Annie for coming 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd in our reading competition. Thank you to everyone that took part in the competition. I will hand out prizes to our winners and everyone else that took part on Monday! If anyone wants to take part over the weekend, I am more than happy for late additions, I just wanted everyone to enjoy reading over the busy festive period. We have started our number bond work and even got to use a STAMPOLINE! It was messy fun and our Numberblock friends were very helpful. We aim to develop our numberbond knowledge to 10 and recall it quickly. We have started off with our dinosaur descriptive booklets and will be reading the Dinosaur that Pooped a Planet next week, even writing our own story book! The incredible nature loving Miss O’Kane helped the children create their own bird feeders this week to help our hungry birds (and probably a few squirrels). To accompany our book we explored what a dinosaur is and what happened to them. He children loved the fact we got to peak back our space topic to look at the meteor that is thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs. To finish a fantastic week we had our Epiphany Mass. The children behaved impeccably and are becoming braver when calling out the chants such as making the sign of the cross; who would have thought, to quiet would be an issue. Thank you all for a brilliant week, keep up and hard work and I will see you all Monday!

 

16.12.22

Oh my goodness! Just like that it is all over and we will do it all again next year. I must, must, must! Start off by saying a huge thank you to the children, parents/families and Mrs Tyrer. It has been an incredible first term and I am extremely proud of how well the children are doing. The secret mission of Christmas crafts was well under way and I hope you enjoy your calendars and Christmas cards. I can say the children worked exceptionally hard on them and sincerely went that extra mile for you. This week we watched the Pre-school Nativity and the KS2 Church service and they were fab too, not Reception and KS1 level of brilliance – but what is? We have completed our phase 3 journey and where appropriate children will be solidifying phase 2/3 knowledge and then moving onto phase 4 when ready. We are aiming to push narratives into all of our work so our writing is going to grow exponentially. We have continually revisited the cardinal number rule and where appropriate made links, in preparation for our number bonds work next term. The children have decided our next topic is going to be dinosaurs – great choice! Our author study will be on Tom Fletcher & Dougie Poynter, I cannot wait. I hope you all have a lovely Christmas and New Year together. I would like to thank you all once again for your cards and gifts, they are never expected but truly appreciated. Thank you and see you all in 2023!

9.12.22

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! The weeks are truly flying by and it is that brilliant festive period. I would like to start off with a huge thank you to all the parents/ guardians that have supported the children learning their lines, singing, costumes, actions and timings. I am so proud of how well everyone did – thank you! A huge thank you is also needed to Mrs Tyrer, Miss Forshaw and Mrs Davies, the show would have simply not been what it was if not for their huge contribution. A final thank you is needed to all of the incredible children in Pendle and Parlick – well done team, you all did a great job. If you think that was the best part of you week you may be wrong. I was lucky enough to speak with Miss Deakin and the children were desperate to read with her and show off their incredible reading/phonics – they are flying. Miss Deakin could not resist the opportunity to read with our lovely children and I do not think they would take no for an answer. Each child managed to get their very own head teacher award sticker – amazing! In our phonics we have completed our phase 3 journey and have been addressing any gaps in our learning and building up our confidence. Where appropriate we will continually return to phase 2/3 sounds and words, but after the Christmas breakup, we want to start phase 4. In mathematics we have been looking at addition and subtraction; we do love hard work in Pendle class. We have been using mathematical symbols, and recorded our own working out; some children have even been writing number sentences – WOW! On Christmas jumper day we topped off a brilliant day of rasing money for those in need, with a fantastic band performance, well done to everyone involved. Finally, to top off a brilliant week we have been writing our first story booklet, and there is no better place to start than our Nativity story. Thank you all for a wonderful week and see you all Monday. Where does the time go!

 

Please enjoy our Nativity songs below!

1. The Big, Big Story!

 

2 A Big Adventure

3, Knock, Knock! Who’s There?

4. It’s Gonna Be Great!

5. We Are Wise Men

 

6. Here To Worship Him

7. Sing The Good News

18.11.22

Our week started off with the national bullying assembly for anti-bullying week. We have looked at how our behaviour can impact upon others, how we can help children who feel alone / frightened and what we need to do if we are feeling bullied. We even got to meet Captain Positivity who gave the children a great pep talk and talked about the power of positivity. He told us, by saying kind things to our friends will make the world a better place. We had our first joint nativity practise this week with Parlick Class and it is all starting to come together, we will share the songs with you at home for you to practice at home, so we can give 100%. In mathematics we created our very own number lines and experimented with 1 more and 1 less to get our math brains working and used our key vocabulary. Our journey in phonics never seems to slow down and the children continue their brilliant attitude towards writing and reading. Seeing these sentences cropping up independently is wonderful and their own ideas are starting to get put onto paper so it truly is a wonderful time in Pendle Class. This week we have been looking towards the stars and the constellations to learn about and power our art work. We even made our own star from catch a Star. Finally! Thank you to all of Pendle Class for your amazing pyjamas, you looked great and together we raised money for a truly brilliant cause. Thank you to the parents/guardians for your donations. Our story next week is Meanwhile Back on Earth, I hope you all have a lovely weekend and see you all Monday – I can’t wait.

11.11.22

This week we have had a big focus on Remembrance Day and what it is about. Together we created prayers for our soldiers and asked God to protect them and help make the world a more peaceful place – we even made our own mini poppies. On Tuesday we went to our first personal class mass. The children behaved impeccably, working hard to listen, sit beautifully and do the required actions. We even got to sing He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands to the congregation and they were amazing – I am so proud of you all! Pendle Class have even made a remembrance wreath for mass this Sunday, I hope you can attend. In phonics we have started phase 3 sounds and the children are working very hard to implement them and their tricky words. I believe you will really notice a difference in reading at home and the complexity of books. If you need any support, please contact me. In Mathematics we have used 2d shapes to make an array of pictures and continue to build up our understanding of shapes and their identifying features. We even worked on spatial awareness and had to describe where we or the teddy bear was hiding; using words like: in, on, under, behind, between and through. Our topic has come to fruition and are planets are ready! We have a great range of planets to show off, please see the pictures below, we have the rings of Uranus using wire and a can do attitude, Mars, Neptune, Mercury, Saturn and our very own earth in all its splendour. Next week we will be reading How to Catch a Star. I hope you all have a lovely weekend and see you Monday!

4.11.22

What a spacetastic first week we have had! Our first story from Oliver Jeffers ‘Here We Are’ is about our wonderful universe and our world. The children have been particularly impressed with Oliver’s fab illustrations. We used these illustrations to fuel our writing for this week and write about our world, or space or both! In phonics we looked at our end phase 2 / beginning phase 3 digraphs. We are also going to move onto phase 3 sounds while continually recapping phase 2 sounds and tricky words. You may notice another jump In reading books going home;  if you need any support , please let me know. An interesting fact for you all is that it took 5 millions years for the earth to form, which is roughly how long it seems to take our children to paper Mache their own planet. However, the independent cutting, gluing, smoothing, ripping and shaping speaks for itself, so I am sure it is worth the wait. On Monday we aim to begin the painting process of a planet we would like to recreate. The children have loved exploring planets. What a create topic they have chosen for us. In mathematics children have been exploring 2d shapes and used these shapes to create their own 2d shape pictures, we have had rockets, animals, houses and self-portraits, a true mix. Next week we will be reading The Way Back Home. I hope you all have a lovely weekend and see you all Monday.

21.10.22

 

Just like that the end of our first half term. Pendle Class has truly gone from strength to strength this term we had to celebrate this week with a party. There was dancing, snacks and a movie – what more could you want! Phonics slows down for no one and this week is no different. Children have capped another cracking week with their independent writing, some even doing their own independent sentences. We even discussed as a class that we can create our own weird and wonderful sentences soon too! In mathematics we combined our literacy, communication and language and maths to make our very own Gruffalo Crumble, I hope some of it managed to make it home to you. I promise no Gruffalo’s were harmed in the making of it. We used of love of baking to help inform our writing and write about the process of making our crumble. I am delighted to announce that Pendle Class have decided on our new topic and it will be Space! I think we need to give Mrs Silvester a massive thank you for this inspiration; space week clearly has had a huge impact on us. I would like to issue my first huge thank you to Beverly Jones and the Sports for Champions team, it has been a brilliant experience for all children and staff – thank you! Another thank you is very much needed to Ruth Pattern who kindly came in and explained brail and the tools used to support people who are visually impaired/blind. Thank you for your time in raising awareness for something so important. My final huge thank you is to Pendle Class children and parents! This term has truly flown past and it has been a joy for me and Mrs Tyrer. Thank so you much for your hard work and support. It is truly appreciated. I hope you all have a lovely break and see you on the 1^st!

 

14.10.22

Can we all say SMELLY TOESSSSS! It has been another fun filled week. I do not to shock anyone but this has been our 6^th week – where does the time go! A very special thing happened this week, as it was our class photos for the local newspaper and our school photographer. We had a full class and the children remained mess free (mostly) and I most importantly looked incredible – you are all very welcome.  Sentences are becoming a daily thing in Pendle class now and I could not be more proud. Children are extremely keen to work on so many elements of our Literacy/phonics work- it is wonderful. Pendle class are even using their keen eyes to spot all the phase 2 tricky words, what more could a teacher ask for. Over the past couple of weeks we have looked at Barack Obama for Black History Month, he was the 44^th President of the USA and we did an art collage of him. We even made one for the whole school display – it looks fab. Children finished off our pattern/number work with their very own nature patterns and they look as unique as they do. This week we got to show off our incredible signing accompanied by our incredible actions in the school concert. I must say the hall was very busy and full of faces, however, I thought the children did brilliantly and as a big thank you from me, we all went into the prize box. I hope you are all proud of yourselves Pendle! For our final week we shall be reading the Gruffalo’s child, the children have loved our topic all about me and our author study of Julia Donaldson. I better get my chef whites ready for some Gruffalo Crumble! Thank you all and have a lovely weekend.

 

30.9.22

Rain, rain go away! Even though today was a particularly soggy day, the children continue to remain in good spirits and do me and Mrs Tyrer proud. Today something particularly amazing happened; we have been to our first Golden Assembly. The children really showed what a mature group they are as they behaved impeccably. Pendle Class continue to astound and amaze. Miss Deakin so impressed with Pendle Class she asked us to visit her office and give each children a special head teacher certificate – wow! I have told the children this will be a special onetime thing, so please check bags; the elusive certificates are not easily obtained. In phonics we have dived into the wonderful world of tricky words head first. We have been trying to spot them in our reading books and now beginning to write them. Some children even tried to write their own independent sentence – just wow! In maths we are making fantastic progress with our groupings, pattern work and sorting. Children not can only complete these tasks put explain them to a friend or me. In P.E children have become so independent when it comes to tackling the circuits. From day 1 they have always been a brave bunch when perfecting our balance and frog landing, however we have a great degree of confidence and finesse when landing. The hall sounds like gentle tippy taps of mice and no longer the stamp of baby elephants. I hope you all enjoy Bug Club, if you are having any problems at home please let me know. I hope to see ass many of you all at possible this Sunday at our mass. Next week we will be heavily involved in Black History month and Science week – what joy! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend together. I will see you  all Monday!

 

23.9.22

My breath vanished, my vision blurred, I stood nauseous; there, in front of me, someone wearing an Arsenal shirt – the horror! Thankfully, seeing plenty of Manchester United kits kept me going. Joking aside, I would love to start off by saying a huge thank to everyone. It has been amazing seeing children wearing their sporty attire today. Your generosity has been incredible and a heartfelt thank you in necessary – THANK YOU! In our learning journey we are now learning about Tricky Words, the words we will be keeping a close eye on are I,to,the,go,no, they truly are a tricky lot. We are also continuing our phonics journey and to start us off next week will be a digraph (2 letters that make 1 sound) we do not wait around in Pendle. In mathematics the paints have been brought out for the children to make their very own shape patterns. They have worked extremely hard in class worship and our Creation Story work. We have discussed the story together as a class and ordered the story together. Pendle Class also attended their very first whole class mass together this week and behaved impeccably, Miss Deakin even came in and told us all well done. Today we ventured into the lovely library and took home our very first library books to develop that love of reading we want to nurture here at St Francis. Children have loved the Highway Rat and making Rats tails. Next week we will be reading the incredible Zog! Have a lovely weekend and see you all Monday – I cannot wait.

16.9.22

Like that we are 2 weeks down and we show no sign of stopping! Our phonics journey has continued and the children continue to fully embrace it. Every child is taking great care with their books (both phonics and reading) and the work they are producing is making me extremely proud and I am sure it is going to make you extremely proud when you see it too.  In mathematics we have worked on numerical, shape and size patterns. It is always a complex thing to understand at first but by the end of the week children have gotten a good understanding of it and impressively making their own patterns! In R.E we took part in the CAFOD assembly and learned about the challenges people around the world face and how we can do a small act to help make their lives better, through donations of food or raising money for a good cause. We even visited the church today and held our class worship in church where the children behaved impeccably and learned what was going to happen on Tuesday; when we visit for our first school mass. As a class we have discussed our families and who we live with (pets and occasionally plants included) and how we show we care for our family and friends. So far the children have loved the Julia Donaldson author study so I hope with the tale the Highway Rat will be a winner! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Thank you for another fantastic week and see you all Tuesday!

9.9.22

What an incredible week we have all had in Pendle Class. This week has ended with a bittersweet note with Queen Elizabeth passing and our thoughts and prayers will be with her family at this hard time. Pendle class from day one have blown away all my expectations. This week we have worked together to make our classroom rules, started our worship and began learning the creation story. We are learning about our beautiful world and who created it. Children even started their R.E books! We gave an example of our kind hands and a kind things we have done. We even had a go writing it; they just work that hard. The children are quickly learning my love of phonics and writing and they have not disappointed. I think I will need to increase my sticker budget 10 fold as I am giving them out constantly for hard work, perseverance and children trying their best – what more could I possibly ask for! Children have begun working on the basics for reading, how to look at a book with care, use our following finger and basic blending and segmenting skills. We have worked hard on a few activities for our baselines. All of the children have worked to their potential and I am extremely proud of them all. The children have been very keen throughout the week, worked hard and their behaviour has been brilliant. We even have our own special spaces on the carpet, ready to learn and sit in our rows. Today we had a 2 minute silence in memory of Queen Elizabeth and their behaviour was impeccable throughout. Thank you all so much for a fantastic week. I hope you all have a lovely weekend together and get plenty of sleep for another fun filled week. Our story next week is going to be A Squash & a Squeeze, I cannot wait.

1.7.22

What a fabulous week we have had again! Facts, fun and adventuring. This week we read the incredible Animal Jambaree book. We decided to create our very own non-fiction fact books. We researched pictures for our book, illustrated the book and then learned some incredible facts to write about – great stuff team! In mathematics we were rolling dice galore, using spotty nice and number dice. We generated our own sums and always more incredibly, we did so independently. What more can I ask than a classroom of children who love independent math? – FANTASTIC! Combining with our literacy we researched our very own animals, learning facts and getting pictures for them – they look amazing and the children loved writing them. Next week we will be reading Elephant me – what fun. Finally, you all will surely know about that our current receptions visited year 1. I have been told they loved their time with Mrs Davies. They enjoyed music, drawing, writing and Ipad work. To my new and current parents please enjoy the pictures below of the stay and play sessions. I am looking forward to the next week already!

10.6.22

We begin our final stretch of the year – GOODNESS GRACIOUS! Pendle Class decided our final topic should be on Jungles and what a topic it is going to be. To accompany our brilliant topic we need a brilliant author and we have one – Giles Andreae.  He has a huge amount of incredible stories to accompany our topic and a real love of all creatures great and small. We have started on the incredible book Rumble in the Jungle. Children have been working furiously this week on their phonics, mathematics and music. We have had a blast with our phonics and mathematics disco. Nothing has been more fun than grooving and showing off how brilliant and clever we are – fantastic. In R.E we have finished off our fish and bread baskets for our miracle work and discussed the story. In music we worked on percussion and playing out the rhythm using a beater and blocks and then using the C key on the large note maker. We hope to use our very own glockenspiels and showcase what we can really doing – it should be amazing. Pendle class were delighted to get back into the library once again. If you have any stories in bags you want to return to the library, please give them directly to a member of staff when dropping off.  Next week we will be reading Rumble in the Jungle and showing off our stories to our buddies. I hope you all have a lovely weekend and ready for a fun filled week! Take care and see you all soon.

22.4.22

We are back! Once again the children are rested and ready for another wonderful return to school and have done me and Miss Gardner and Miss Salmon proud. I would like to thank everyone for all their efforts for the Bug Club challenge. This week we have started our Farming topic with the one and only Farmer Duck by Marin Waddell. I think I go to sleep here ‘How goes the work?’ QUACK! The children have loved the story and even wrote a story to accompany the book. The children began by retelling the story but during this term we hope to add our own unique narratives to the stories we create to showcase our imagination and magnificent ideas. In mathematics children have worked furiously hard working on numerical patterns and learning about doubles under 10 and how these numbers have relationships together. In our wonderful topic, we have looked at the range of baby animals and Ridgeway farm was still fresh in our minds. Looking at animals and their baby equivalents. We even created or own Farmer duck and a farmer ducking to join him. Next week we shall be reading the story All Pigs Are Beautiful. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

1.4.22

The sun is shining and another glorious week has happened at St. Francis. I must share with you the wonderful news of Jungle John the Bugman! He told us many a fascinating fact about minibeasts, he also showed us his very own collection. Some very lucky (brave) children were selected to hold a stick insect, hissing beetle, butterfly and even his snake ‘Monty’. We did not get to hold his pet tarantula, however, John did show off her sheded skin – very cool. The incredible children in Beacon class helped us investigate the wonderful world of minibeasts, using magnify glasses and magnification pots. We even had a little recording sheet with our buddies to help tick off our discoveries, we even used Ipads to document our discoveries. We then went to the garden to plant our sunflower seeds to take home and sow a variety of seeds in our planters. We have already shown we have green fingers with our wonderful cress growing skills. In even more wonderful news children adored going to Ridgeway Farm and Farmer Helen was wonderful with both Pendle and Parlick class. We investigated things that grow on the farm, explored the farm and learned about different elements of the farm and learned how Helen cares for her animals, we even got to feed for them which was amazing. Children continue to astound and amaze during our Lego Coding sessions with our buddies really showcasing their incredible building and teamwork skills. We have looked at the brilliant astronaut that is Tim Peake and the international space station. On a very special note a huge effort has been spent on our Mother’s Day preparations and it is always heart-warming to see how determined and passionate about making their cards. To finish off our final week of the term Pendle Class took part in the whole school walk for Ukraine. A reflection walk is always tricky, however, our incredible buddies in Beacon came along with us to help. I hope you all have a lovely Easter Break together.

11.3.22

You are all going to be very jealous of our week! The children have been working extremely hard in their phonics and are going to try the jump for phase 5! Children will still continue to use their phase 3 knowledge where necessary. In mathematics we have hopped, jumped and ran a marathon creating our extended number lines is hard work and involved lots of moving around. We had to find specific numbers, spotting patterns and discovering more and less than a given number. On Tuesday we had a lovely afternoon with our buddies! To make it even more special they helped us with magic Lego – amazing! Our buddies explained to us that we call is Lego coding and we use the Ipad to talk to the Lego and tell it what to do. We built our creations as a team and then showcased them all to each other, it was great fun. I will have to tell you the next part in the strictness confidence as we began our crazy cress heads. Currently, there is not much to see but over the next few days/ week we should have a headful of crazy cress hair in time for science week. Today was an We also had the treat of hearing about the amazing success of the school’s choir team and the whole on Pendle class stood up in assembly and sand to our friends, it was very special and I am delighted that we can share this moment with you. If that was not amazing enough of a week on top of our usual brilliance, the author Dan Worsley came in to read us one of his own mini tales and tell us how he got into writing –WOW WOW WOW!  He was such a fantastic story teller all the children and staff were enthralled. Thank you Dan! I hope you all have a lovely weekend with each other and I shall see you all Monday.

4.3.22

Well, well – how much time do you have? These past 2 weeks have been action packed and filled with learning and fun – just how we like it. I would love to start this off my sharing the tremendous news about our riddle competition. Last month Pendle class entered a riddle competition where they submitted their own riddle and everyone was granted a certificate and an offer to publish their work – simple amazing! The children were delighted to receive their certificate and bookmark and were delighted to show it off to you. If you would like for your child to have their work published simply follow the instruction on the letter and hand it in. Our space topic is going down like a dream and children are loving learning about space, we even learned a little about Tim Peake and are wanting more – so more is what we shall get! This week children behaved impeccably during our Ash Wednesday service and I was so proud of our performance, the children worked extremely hard on singing at an appropriate level in church to knock socks off but not literally blow you away. Thank you to everyone who could attend, any that could not I will attach some pictures below, it was a wonderful service. It is not every day you get to steal you fiancés eye liner, but world book day is that day. I was delighted to see everyone in an enormous range of topic and genres, having fun and most importantly enjoying books. We even adventured to the year 5/6 classroom to read our rocket list to our buddies and they even read us a story, it was as magical as it sounded – thank you. I would love to introduce you to the wonderful Miss St Valle-Salmon who will be joining us a student teacher in Pendle class for 12 weeks and I could not think of a more wonderful class and school for her to be learning in. Next week we shall be reading The Dinosaur that Pooped a Planet – how wonderful! I hope you all have a peaceful weekend and see you Monday.

4.2.22

Ni hao everyone! As I have seen from so many of you at home you have learnt about Chinese New Year this week. We have learned a small piece of Mandarin Ni Hao to say during registration which is used as a way of saying hello. It can be literally translated as ‘you good’ as a friendly way to check in with our friends – which we all loved. We almost worked on numerals and the animals from the story.  We did search for our signs and some children were born under a different signs in our classroom as some were part of the dog or cockerel zodiac. We helped find out Miss Gardner’s sign and she was born during the year of the snake and I was born during the year of the pig. I did then explain to the class that you unfortunately cannot choose the animal you like best, you get what you get – even a pig. In mathematics we tested our wits in a multitude of ways helping complete calculations and then creating their own number bond patterns. In P.E the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk was on the loose today as children had to climb beanstalks and steal gold. Children had to work in teams to free their friends from the giants by giving them a high 10, we had to hold a beanstalk pose which was very handy for are pencils roles! Pendle Class worked in secret this week to create a thank you card for the wonderful Ruth, Amy and David that came and showed off their ambulance. The school are extremely grateful for your time so and a huge thank you for what you do in our community you are all superheroes. We have one final week of our traditional tales topic with Sleeping Beauty – I simply cannot wait.  I hope you all have a lovely weekend and see you all Monday.

 

28.1.22

Can you believe it, another Faaaaaaaantastic week!  We have ventured back into the deep dark woods with Goldilocks and the 3 bears. Pendle have been pushed to use prompts of the story to help them write it independently, thinking of their own sentence and applying their phonetic knowledge. Some children even thought of a silly ending to their story to make it funnier and more unique. My favourite tweak was Goldilocks staying and have a tea party with the bears. Our incredible number bonds work is clearly showing as Pendle have shown they are number bond experts. We have used frames to create as many number bonds to 10 as we could think of; then matched them with our numercon pieces just to make sure we were correct. To test our fast thinking brains, we even have to share our number bond knowledge before breaks and choosing time to get them ready to roll off the tongue, if we ever get stuck are fingers come in very hand too. Pendle Class learned about the story of the Good Samaritan this week and noticed that the person helping at the end was a Samaritan and the story was called the Good Samaritan, we quickly understood why it was called that. We then linked that to our neighbour work and thinking what Jesus would want us to do, we decided he would surely want us to help anyone who needed it. Throughout the week we have been going safety crazy for Safety Week! We learned about Pantosarus, Home Safety, Handwashing, Personal Care and Road Safety. We even presented all we found out to the rest of the school in our groups so we could share our knowledge. Fairsnape and Beacon helped us learn about the dangers of electricity, train and water safety. Finally, if this week could not get even better, Amy, Ruth and David brought an ambulance in for us to look at and explore, a huge thank to them all as the children thoroughly enjoyed what you discussed and were mesmerized by the ambulance. Thank you all for a wonderful week and see you on Monday.

   

21.1.22

Goodness gracious this have been a brilliant week to remember! I must start with what has been the talk of the week – Lancaster Castle! The children loved visiting the castle and it was clear to tell by the wonder on their faces, the amount of questions, discussions generated, our fabulous guide Cameron and how quiet the bus was coming back from the castle – lots of walking is required when exploring a castle. Both KS1 and Reception classes behaviour was fantastic and I am exceptionally proud of them both. Thank you to the team at Lancaster Castle for helping us have such a lovely trip. We have not slowed the pace when it comes to our phonics and writing, as the children are writing full books now and the children love to write in them. We are working on generating longer sentences and eventually branch out and change the story in bizarre ways to create a different narrative. The children have been working tirelessly on number bonds working to 5 and 10 and are showing that they can quickly recall and vitally show off their understanding. We also learned about the miracle of Jesus turning water into wine. The children asked lots of questions and then we examined the word ‘miracle’ to better understand its meaning. We also applied the teachings of Jesus learn about Martin Luther King and how he fought for justice and equality while practicing none violent protest. I was very proud by how mature and caring Pendle class showed themselves to be and connecting links to Jesus as we progressed. Next week we will be reading Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. I am sure it is going to be fantastic.

7.1.22

What a fantastic first week back at school I have had – thank you Pendle! It was delightful to hear about Father Christmas visiting all of you and spending lovely time together as a family. This week we read the exciting tale of Jack and the Beanstalk – it was brilliant. We used this beanstalk themed fun to write our very own mini Jack and the Beanstalk story, we worked on thinking of our own sentences relating to the story, handwriting, phonics and reading our work back as if we cannot read it, other will struggle. If you are writing about jack and the beanstalk a giant certainly has to feature so we created our very own giants, some had scary eyes, some had big busy beards and others even had a hairy back, just like daddy – which was too much information for me and Miss Gardner, but a nice detailed feature regardless. In mathematics we created number bond rainbows to account our giants in the sky and our story. The purpose of the rainbow if to see how these bonds interlink with each other and spot patterns, we hope to build up this knowledge as we progress this term. I am delighted to say we went to church together as a class to attend a church service lead by father Sony and the children behaved impeccably as usual – great stuff Pendle! If you have not paid already for the Lancaster Castle trip, the portal is open for you to pay on Parent Pay, please do so ASAP. I hope you all have a lovely weekend and see you all Monday.

 

17.12.21

IT’S CHRISTMASSSSSSSSSSSS – nearly. It might be easier to discuss what has not happened this week, but let’s give it a try. I first must discuss the show all the critics are raving about, our Nativity. A huge thank you must go to all the members of staff who went above and beyond to make the show what it is, the parents for helping at home and the stars of the show themselves the children – thank you! This week we have been revisiting phase 3 sounds that children found particularly challenging and trying our best to remember and apply them in our reading and writing. We are also building up our bank of tricky words to apply to our writing, which will be so much fun when we start our traditional tales topic next term! In mathematics we prepared for our new mathematical challenges and looked at links between numbers which was made easier by all of our subitising work. A large chunk of our afternoons were spent reviewing the Christmas story and breaking it down in groups or 1-1. We discussed even though Christmas is a very special time because we get presents, there is a reason behind them. The celebration is down to the birth of Jesus Christ and that is what we are celebrating. We also explored that fact that some children are not as fortunate as us and may go without presents or a delicious Christmas dinner. Fortunately, Christmas Jumper Day gave us an opportunity to do a little bit of good in the world and share some Christmas cheer. The children also managed to finish off their secret Christmas packs (which might not be that secret now) and are ready to bring you all a little Christmas cheer. I can sincerely say a genuine effort went into each and every craft, as they were for you. As a class we went back to school and recorded our part in the Christmas Story for Miss Deakin’s special school Christmas video, we cannot wait for you to see it. To finish a brilliant week I must say a huge thank you to Miss Gardner, as we are blessed to have a member of staff so dedicated and passionate in Pendle Class, thank you for all you do. To everyone, I hope you all have a fun filled Christmas and get to spend lots of quality family time together. Take care and I shall see you all in 2022!

Nativity Songs- Miracle in Town

1. Tell you a story

02 Little Grey Donkey   

 

3 Down In the Stable

4 Such a Perfect Moment

5 The Angel’s Song

6 There’s A Razzle & A Dazzle

7 Wonderful Camels

8 A Miracle In Town

10.12.21

It has been stupendous to see all these woolly jumpers today and great to hear about the children wanting to help those less fortunate. This week as expected we continue to work our socks off. There will be nothing left of them at this rate! Using our phonics book we have been focusing key sounds that the children find particular tricky and applying them as much as possible in are games, reading and writing. We are now into the thick of trying to memorise our phase 3 tricky words and work on strategies to recognise them. In mathematics we have been applying our subitising skills in various ways to help reinforce our learning. We used different sets of random objects to combine which was a particularly tricky. We did need to use words like altogether, add and equal to help reinforce this understanding. As you can probably can imagine, we have gone Christmas crazy this week as we have been in full swing for our Nativity, we have even completed our very first dress rehearsal with a mini audience. The children smashed it and I hope they can do even better when you see it on Monday – we cannot wait! If you have any questions about the Nativity please get in touch with me or Miss Taylor. Finally, we have been furiously working away on our various secret projects that can be unveiled at the end of next week. I can only reveal a few key details, as it does involve writing, shaping, sculpting, painting, cutting and gluing. I hope you all have a lovely weekend and see you all next week for a magical week.

3.12.21

Well thank you Pendle class for another brilliant week, it is great to be back into the groove of things. We began this week with a story about a rather sad looking bear called Albert Le Blanc. Thankfully for us, he was not a particularly sad bear, he just looked sad. We really enjoyed the story and it was great that they children were picking up on the narrative, they never spoke to Albert and never let him speak. In our phonics we have reached the end of our phase 3 sounds, however that does not mean we are done as they are vital for our writing and reading. We will work to continuously use these sounds to try and apply them in our independent writing to really showcase what we know and include more tricky words into our work. In mathematics it is official that we are subitising superheroes as we work to be a quick counter. We have used flash cards, dice and random objects to support this. We even used our Christmas tree to test our counting and then worked on taking away sums with the decoration and recording our work. As you know we are hard at work for our Nativity. As we got to wear our costumes this week for a mini dress rehearsal, we recreated our characters in clay and they look awesome. We began preparations to create our Christmas cards for you all. The first stage was using our funky finger skills and chopping out our very first snowflake which was just as unique as a snowflake should be. Thank you all for a fantastic week. I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

5.11.21

The race to Christmas is very much upon us! For our first week back we finished off our Stickman story and are ready to read One Snowy Night by Nick Butterworth. We looked at the beginning phase 3 sounds and continued to revisit phase 2 sounds as we cannot forget them! If that has not impressed you enough, we have even written several sentences using phoneme frames this week! In mathematics children continue to work hard on number formation, counting and strategies to help us be even quicker. Children competed against each other to be the quickest counter and neatest number writer – it was great fun. This week we learned about Diwali and created a Diya (lantern) to guide Sita and Rama home. Next week we shall decorate them as they needed to set and they can go home as a memento of this week, you will even be able to light them. In R.E we are learning the Nativity story and in very exciting news we are beginning to learn the songs for our performance  and they children are doing brilliantly! To finish off with even more brilliant news, Pendle Class have had their first whole school Golden Award assembly today and they behaved brilliantly throughout. As usual, I am so proud of them all. Thank you all for another glorious week, keep up the hard work and have a lovely weekend.

22.10.21

Just like that 8(ish) weeks have flown by – where does the time go? To begin this wonderful week we made 3! 3! Gruffalo Crumbles to celebrate a wonderful Julia Donaldson inspired topic ‘All About Me’ and finished with the Gruffalo’s Child. As a class we decided our next topic should be ‘Winter Wonderland’ as so many children are so clearly enchanted by this magical time. We will begin our topic with the Stickman as the children were very excited by the prospect of the story and then we will move onto Nick Butterworth. In mathematics we went on a number hunt for not only number cards, but numbers in our outside area and around the school! We even created our own numbers to hide on sticky notes and got our friends to find them; we did have to ensure they were as neat as possible. In phonics we have reached the end of phase 2 sounds and the children have shown great understanding and a very mature attitude towards reading. This does not mean that we will forget about them, we will constantly revisit them during the next half of the term, highlighting key sounds to focus on. Not forgetting tricky words too – we cannot let them tricky us! We have completed looking at the story of Creation and learned about a few key features of our religion. We know have our eyes fixed towards Christmas and I truly cannot wait. Thank you all for a wonderful half term and a huge congratulations to everyone in Pendle Class as you have worked so hard! Well done, keep up the hard work and I hope you all have a wonderful break together.

15.10.21

Ready, steady, bake! On our snail and whale adventures we have created our very own mini snail to accompany us on our journey. We made it using salt dough we have made from scratch ourselves, following the recipe and using our listening ears, as we do not want it to be a gloopy mess; it is clear we have some bakers in the class! As expected we keep on trying to reach new heights in our phonics and learned another digraph ‘qu’ which we have applied not only in our writing but our reading too. As we continuing our pesky phonics work we are noticing these pesky tricky words cropping up in our books and we will not let them tricky us! In mathematics we used our keen hand and fingers paints to make our very own numberline. We worked especially hard on number formation and matching the number to the correct hard – great work team! In our every growing art books we created our very own picture Piera Mondrian picture to go in our art books and they look stupendous. They really speak volumes of our love of art. With all this sun and rain it certainly helps the garden grow and we used our planting station to do that and grow some beautiful plants for God’s beautiful world. Thank you once again for a wonderful week. I am looking forward to chatting about your child with you next week. We will be finishing off our Julia Donaldson ‘All About Me’ topic with the Gruffalo’s Child – I cannot wait and I hope you have a hungry tum for some CRUMBLE!

8.10.21

To infinity and beyond! This week has been a brilliant space adventure and we have the earth, moon and rockets to prove it! During space week we have been looking at women in space and our focus was on Mary Jackson. She was the first black engineer to work for NASA and we would all like to be a little bit more like Mary as she was a brilliant mathematician. A way we thought to celebrate Mary Jackson was to draw a portrait of her in our art books. We also created a very beautiful earth and a moon picture to show off our funky-fingers and incredible art skills. We then added some string and balloons to make our rockets blast off! A special thank you to Miss Silvester who organised this school wide science day and our school assembly where we could show off our creations and learn from others classes – great fun! In this action packed week, we went to our very first church service for the Feast of St Francis, the children did brilliantly and afterwards we explored the areas set up and met Father Sony, he was his usual smiley and friendly self and we were delighted to meet him. Thank you all for a wonderful week and see you all Monday.

1.10.21

Now the time is really beginning to fly! Children continue to work hard in all areas of their learning. A very special message to begin with is that we once again visited the church in classes in preparation of the Feast of St. Francis. The church was looking more beautiful and tranquil than usual as our wonderful community decorated the church ready for this celebration. We would like to invite all parents to attend the service on Saturday between 1.00am -2.00pm for drop in celebration and to bring your own creation to add to the stations. I would like to thank Mrs Tyrer, Miss Gardner and the KS1 team that made this another incredible week for my reception class. We carried on with our phonics and I am delighted to see how hard we are all working, not just at school, but home too. Thank you for all of your support. This week we have created the mighty Zog, and in a brilliant coincidence met a furry friend too – Oaty! He was not the same dog from Zog. We would like to give a massive thank you to Lancaster Animal Centre and Michael Jones for visiting our school and explaining how to care for animals, provide a loving home and some great learning games. In mathematics we created our very own number lines to accompany the ones in the classroom and to help with our counting and overall understanding of numbers. In R.E we created out crosses and with help wrote our first prayer together. Next week we will be reading Squash and Squeeze. Thank you all for a wonderful week, take care and see you all Monday.

24.9.21

Well that was one knock your socks off week. The children are in full swing and are really loving Julia Donaldson and her books. To celebrate our love of her books we decided to use clay to create our very own protagonists from her tales, I have seen a ladybird, dragon, cat and even a Gruffalo! We finished off our minibeast hunt and unbelievably we discovered the millennium was covered in fairy houses and circles. This obviously blew our socks off and really helped us understand how to care for the habitat we were in. We wanted to handle our environment with care and ensure all of God’s creatures were looked after. In mathematics we used some very helpful ladybirds to help us quiz our number knowledge and using our fingers to paint on our spotty ladybirds. Pendle class continues to work hard in our phonics and we have come across our very first digraph this week ck! Which shows how hard the children are working, we know we need to continuously recap to retain this ever growing range of sounds, so they can stay fresh in our minds. We even began to label our very own ladybirds, drawing from the sounds we already know. In R.E we are learning about God’s love and how we can show this ln all aspects of our life, not just to each other but the world around us. We managed to visit our beautiful church and find Mary, Jesus and even a statue of St. Francis! We discovered lots of crosses around the church and even said a prayer while we were in the church. Thank you all for a wonderful weekend. Next week we will be reading the fiery ZOG! Thank you all and have a lovely weekend.

17.9.21

Say cheese! The camera must clearly love us as we have had our second set of pictures. I know reception year is such a milestone and a year to cherish so the pictures are in your child’s bags. Our phonics adventure continues and children are building up their bank of sounds. Children are really picking up on how to use their robot arms and the processes of segmenting and blending have already begun. As our repertoire of sounds continues to grow the range of books we send home will too. We have also launched Bug Club Online this week and please feedback and let us know how you get on. Just like your home reading books we will update the books online with the sounds we have completed in school. Currently we have looked at S,A,T,P,I,N,D,M,G,O once again this list will grow very quickly so read as much as you can. In mathematics we have had some number races with a friend as we had to match the quantity to the number, it was great fun in having some speedy math sessions. After the children’s brilliant ideas we decided to turn our rack into a petrol station show and at these prices I would be tempted. At the moment we have some fresh fruit and vegetables, car wash and petrol station, open to any well-mannered paying customer. We have created our very own brooms for Room On A Broom and tied them up to the wall, as we cannot have broomsticks flying all over the place! We even entered the deep, dark wood and kept an eye out for the Gruffalo on a minibeast hunt, some children even claim to have seen/heard him, I will leave that up to you. Next Week we will be reading, What The Ladybird Heard – great stuff. God bless and see you all Monday!

10.9.21

Well! Well! Well! I could not be more proud of Pendle Class as they have not only shown what a great reception class they are, but what caring individuals they are too. We carried on our phonics journey this week learning a range of sounds, segmenting words and even trying to blend – WOW! We have used our phonics books and children are showing real pride in their work. In mathematics we used our numbers to help us organise fish, dinosaurs and animals; trying to correctly match value to number. We looked at The Creation story this week and learned who created the world. We looked at key values and our kind hands was something we discussed as a class. All children fed back to the group with a wonderful example of how we can use our kind hands and what we would consider unkind hands. With the help of Miss Gardner the children were supported with how to use MiniMash, the children made their own animal creations to get put onto our display in all of their glory. Thank you all for the wonderful work that is coming in via Seesaw, it is a joy to see. Every Thursday please hand in your Learning Log to me and we shall send them back out on Friday. Have a lovely weekend together, next weeks book will be Room On The Broom.

3.9.21

Welcome Pendle Class 2021! We have had 2 action packed days which I am excited to share with you. It was a real treat that everyone came in with a smile on their face ready to start their reception adventure with us. As you can expect we went over the classroom basics, pegs, bathroom, class rules and started to breakdown the areas of our classroom. It is great to see the children feel so comfortable and begin to gel with other so quickly in a new classroom. This terms topic is ‘All About Me’ and the author study is Julia Donaldson – children love her tales! We have explored the classroom in all of its glory. Unfortunately, for me I have been told that I have several witches in my classroom, however, they are nice witches which I was pleased to hear. Next week we will be reading the Gruu, Gruu, GURFFALO! It is going to be a fab full week, so I hope you all get some rest. I would like to wish a sincere welcome to any new parents starting with me and welcome back to parents of older siblings that I have taught (where is the time going!) my door is always open for you. I update the Pendle class page every Friday with pictures, what has happened and any other weird and wonderful things that may have happened in the week. Please remember your P.E kits for Monday, they spend the day in the kits so you do not need to pack any school uniform. Finally, thank you so much to Miss Gardner for all your help, the children already adore you and another big thank you to our buddies for helping us at lunch and break time, you are the talk of the town. I hope you all have a safe and relaxing weekend together and see you all Monday – God bless.

16.7.21

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night! Like that another year is over and I am sure you are all thinking where has the year gone? This week may have been a crazy old week, but Pendle Class kept up their phonics work and continue to do themselves proud. You all need a lovely break but please do not leave it 6 weeks to pick up a pencil or book! Keep it up team and you will hit the ground running in September. I have put a little resource pack together for you to do with your children if you so choose. This week we completed our map treasure hunts, had ice cream and partied liked it is 1999 which pains me to think is not even close to my current classes date of birth. A special thank you to the wonderful Miss Gardner who has been incredible this year, the children love you and supported everyone in this class. Thank you to Mrs Tyrer for all of your love and support also throughout this school year, the children will love seeing your familiar face throughout the year in Parlick! A sad farewell is needed as Miss Woodcock is leaving to join another extremely lucky school, you shall be missed. Thank you Pendle Class you have been a delight throughout this busy year. Finally, thank you to all of the parents support and understanding throughout the year, you have played an enormous part in your child’s success. I wish you all a safe and happy holiday and hope you all get to spend to much deserved time together and families. God bless everyone.

 

9.7.21

What an action packed week we have all had! As you can imagine Sports Day has been a key focus this week and we have been working very hard on our preparation to tackle any challenge. I promised Pendle Class that if they have their listening ears switched on they will have a brilliant day and they did not disappoint – well done Pendle! In our last P.E session it was great to see children give it their all and we went a little sticker mad, but the children loved it and why not! The story we read this week was Mr Wolf and the enormous Turnip, it was a short funny tale the children enjoyed this busy week and a great way to get some unusual vocabulary into our writing. We returned to the Millennium to finish our maps and take more photos, the photo aspect of our map is completed all we have left to do is complete the labels and painting which will be done next week! A special thank you to Miss Gardner and Mrs Tyrer who worked especially hard and make sure we were ready for Sports Day!  Mrs Davies was full of complementary adjectives for her new years 1s, she has very kindly provided me with pictures for you to look at. To any new parents looking below I am delighted to tell you all more of the same, a wonderful, fun-filled morning – thank you. I will attach some pictures below for you. Thank you all for a superb week and see you Monday for 1 more week – unbelievable.

 

2.7.21

What a FANNNNtastic week! We continued applying all our phonetic knowledge in our phonics and in literacy tasks. The wonderful story this week was ‘What the Ladybird Heard’ and children thoroughly enjoyed it. We wrote one of the versions we chose and worked very hard at expanding upon what we have written to add more flavour to our writing and draw from our every growing vocabulary. A prominent feature of these tales were the hapless Hefty Hugh and Lanky Len as they used a map to carry out their daring heist.  This gave us an idea to create our very own map. We ventured into the Millennium to look  for key features that we would remember on a map, to figure out what we meant by this we instructed others to stand by certain areas, after that we made our own plan using felt pens and card to create a practice map. Our own maps are prepped and are ready to be created next week. The children became mini photographers with Ipads and took pictures in pairs of places of interest too; we will use these pictures to help our drawing and reference points for our maps -how fun! Pendle Class have worked very hard on their Big Bear Funk musical and are fantastic with the quick actions, song and rhythm with or without the glockenspiel. The St. Francis’ Car Wash is going well and children are now creating their very own shops for items around the classroom to their peers. Strangely, tea bags became a big feature in the classroom for our tea rubbings, but the children especially loved the water blowing art and with practice it became a beautiful work of art. Thank you to Miss Forshaw and Mrs Davies who showed Pendle class a wonderful time this Friday as not only was I delighted to hear that all the pupils did the class proud, but that had lots of fun and set an amazing standard for next year when they are in year 1 – unbelievable! A very special treat for me was that my new Reception students came to me today and we had an amazing morning together. We read stories, painted, wrote, counted, chatted, played and met our new friends; it was a real delight for me and Miss Gardner so thank you to everyone that came, I cannot wait to see you all next week! If I do have any new parents reading this, please look below to see pictures of the morning. I cannot wait to start another week – take care everyone.

  

18.6.21

Quack! How goes the work? Very well thank you. This week we have loved the tale of Farmer Duck and although he was weepy and sleepy that did not last for long. The children completed their Farmer Duck stories with their usual enthusiasm, it is fabulous to see all this hard work on their handwriting paying off. We are continuing our journey with phase 5 sounds and our tricky words where we can refer back to another phase 3 sound independently if needed. All children are making great strides in their independent writing and are building up their stamina as it will soon be time for them to leave and join Parlick – unbelievable. In mathematics children have applied their knowledge not only with 1p coins but expanded it to other coins, trying their best to understand that a 5p coin is worth the same a 5 pennies. When purchasing items, you do not want to over or under pay! Especially at the St. Francis’ Car Wash; I hear the owner is a real stickler for the correct amount. Our farming topic took us down a very interesting path of Fairtrade and what it means. I was blown away by the understanding of what ‘fair’ means and what that looks like. We understood that farmers deserve a fair price to buy things we can easily take for granted like clothes, shelter and even food! We also got to see farmers all around the world. The lovely Ruby Red Slippers came into our school this week and spoke to Pendle Class about History – how exciting! Ruby helped us understand what a timeline is and how that organises things in relation to time E.G. morning, afternoon and night. This is given context by thinking about when we were little and even much further back, exploring dinosaurs, which we were experts about. Next week we shall be reading All Pigs Are Beautiful. I wish you all a wonderful Father’s Day and a peaceful weekend.

11.6.21

It is great to have you all back and ready to finish this year on a high! We started off our topic with the familiar face of Winnie the Witch.  Unsurprisingly, a spell that Winnie had cast had gone awry and ended with a gigantic pumpkin! The children thoroughly enjoyed the story and loved independently writing their Winnie books. It is delightful to see our writing come together so beautifully and you cannot help but reminisce to how far each and every child has come. We shall keep up the handwriting and the hard work! In mathematics we are beginning to have an in-depth look at money and to begin with; we need to understand what a penny is. We have discussed this and made some mock shops and car washes to experiment with purchasing and counting out the correct amount. We also made the links that a 5p coin has 5 pennies hiding inside it and a 10p coin has 10 pennies hiding inside it etc, so we could understand the value of these coins. You cannot read a Winnie story and not look create a broomstick and/or magic wand! The children gathered the resources they needed to create their wands/broomsticks and with tape, string and teamwork managed to create their very own broomsticks – great work. After we created our broomsticks we needed to decorate them and they are going to look stupendous when finished, waiting for paint to dry is never entertaining. We also went on a minibeasts and bird hunt to see what we could discover and we found a range of birds and minibeasts to draw and write about-  putting our clipboards to good use my little scientists. Thank you for a fantastic week team. The story for next week is going to be Farmer Duck – it is going to be quacking! I hope you all have a lovely weekend and see you Monday.

 

    28.5.21

Sophisticated, elegant and dignified were just a few words that were not used to describe me in my crayon outfit -strange. Regardless, World Book Day was great fun and it was fantastic to see the variety of costumes everyone had on. The Day the Crayons Quit was a lovely story and it was great to read it as a class and to hear Miss Deakin read it too. We created our very own bickering crayon story with a variety of colours complaining to Duncan about a particular issue e.g. Yellow thinks he is the right crayon to colour the sun, when it is so obviously meant to be orange; or so orange tells me. Our handmade clocks proved incredibly useful to help us tell the time. We experimented with a range of times on the clocks and made a clear and obvious understanding between the minute and hour hand. Great work team on such a tricky topic, we will keep an eye on time as we explore money next term. This week was our first ever school assembly in which Fairsnape (3/4) presented to us and Parlick about seed dispersal with some great visual and interactive props, the exploding seeds proved to be very popular and the balloon and glitter demonstration went down well. We have made some astute observations about our tadpoles and noticed they are growing legs! As a class we decided they needed to be put into the rill as when they turn into froglets and cannot stay in the water permanently. We placed rocks in the rill for the tadpoles to use as hiding places from predators and put the last bit food in for them. We also loved the great eruptions we got some our island volcano, underwater volcano and mountainous volcano, a great bang to end a fun filled topic the children helped build. Pendle Class would like to give a massive thank you to Timothy Knapman who joined us on our world book day and read a range of his dinosaur stories and answered some questions from the class – thank you Tim! The class also got to use the Chrome Music Lab for the first time to create their own mini beat and thoroughly loved using it, we shall continue using the music lab to create more elaborate and interesting pieces of music next term. I hope you all get to spend time with each other during this half term. Take care and see you all soon.

21.5.21

1 Week left to go! I said that the time will fly by. We have had a wonderful time creating our incredible dinosaur investigation work and Miss Silvester was impressed with them. To finish off our dinosaur topic with a bang we are going to erupt our volcanoes with Fairsnape. To help excite us and continue investigating and learning about dinosaurs, we shall share our facts with Fairsnape and ask them for a question to further our learning. This week we have had a slight twist to help us with learning about time – The Hungry Caterpillar. We used to story to help us sequence days and order time that way. We also created 2 clocks to accompany our story. 1 basic clock so we know how a clock should be structured and an individual clock fit for a time telling expert. We shall use these clocks to help with our learning. In phonics we are solidifying our knowledge and working towards writing independent sentences. It is incredible to look back at the start of the year and see the progress we have made – well done everyone! As a class we continued to learn about The Good Samaritan and what a dilemma is. Individually we were presented with a dilemma and had to break it down and resolve the problem with understanding and compassion, using the teachings of Jesus to guide us. Thank you to Mrs Tyrer for your support in helping the class with their Chranga music session as they were fantastic singing and preforming the actions. To let you all know our rescheduled World Book Day is next Wednesday (26^th) and you can come in your world book day costumes, my character might be feeling a little blue. We have started Fair Trade Friday again to purchase something from the shop. Please can you bring in the correct amount of change to minimise the handling of money. Please place the money in an envelope with a label stating what your child would like. I hope you all have a lovely weekend and I cannot wait to see your costumes – take care.

15.5.21

This week we have had a blast as we prepare for our eruption next week! The children continue to work hard on their handwriting and phonics. We continue to draw on a wide range of sounds and work on the tricky words and sounds we do not know. Our brand new phonic books help us keep track of this and we get to celebrate every achievement and know our next target – great fun. In mathematics we continued to work on time and I am delighted to see the progress we have made. Next week to really demonstrate our time keeping skills we decided to create our very own clocks. It is wonderful to see children coming in with watches and proudly discussing time with me and showing their peers. In R.E continuing are dilemma work we revisited the story ‘The Good Samaritan’ and will break down the dilemma’s of that too, and why the Samaritan acted with kindness. The class dinosaur booklet and final art pieces are ready for the big unveil and we will be showing the wonderful Miss Silvester to show off our dinosaur knowledge. We also entered a competition to create our very own stamp for the Royal Post Office. We will keep you updated so please keep your fingers crossed! Our design was on a local superhero like a nurse, firefighter, shop keeper etc. We had a wonderful treat on Thursday as we had the wonderful chance to read with Miss Deakin again (distanced) as Miss Deakin read 1-1 with children on the story bus outside, The children adored reading with Miss Deakin and she loved reading with us – thank you Miss Deakin. We did have to say farewell to our dear friend Mrs. Proctor as she is leaving the school in her official role to be with her family. However, she has promised to not be a stranger and will return for visits and school trips! Thank you for all of your love and support Mrs. Proctor, you will be missed. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend together and I shall see you all on Monday!

7.5.21

It was fab to see so many numbers on show today. Thank you to everyone who donated, we are very thankful for your support as always! This has been a rather special week as we had a special guest come to St. Francis’ and film parts of our school. It was a privilege to show off our school. None of Pendle class students were in the shots, but they upheld our high standards and I am very proud of them for it. During this week we created our salt dough dinosaur fossils to accompany our dinosaur investigation. They are now baked and ready to be painted to make them really stand out and further inspire our dinosaur fossil writing booklets. In mathematics we put a wide range of time skills to the test as we worked on recognising the time, drawing hands on a clock, sequencing events and discussing and ordering events that we do regularly. We are continually drawing from our phase 3 knowledge and really showcasing these skills independently when playing in areas of provision in the classroom. It is amazing to see a few phase 5 digraphs sneak into our work too. The final joyous piece of news I can share with you is that we have a couple of wonderful additions to the St. Francis’ family! Pink and Lavy are the flamboyant names of our wonderful chickens at school. Just to let you all know while the chickens are settling in to begin with, please be considerate around them as we want them to feel safe. I hope you all have a lovely weekend and see you all Monday.

30.04.21

Another week goes by like a flash – 4 weeks to go. Before we begin a huge thank you to you all at home, as it is fantastic to see you all reading; it has a massive impact so please keep it up. As we continue our journey through phonics we are solidifying our phase 2/3 phonics and moving onto phase 4/5.  The class have started our own handwriting books to take our writing to another level and hit the ground running in year 1, it will be here before you know it! In mathematics we are using key vocabulary to organise and sequence events e.g. first, second, next and last. These words can give us an idea of where specific routines/events of the day happen. We continued with our work with clocks using IPads to help us position the hands precisely to really understand the movement of the clock and see that happening. We are creating our very own dinosaur egg to accompany our fact file, it will be our show stopping piece and we have a few exciting ideas to accompany this too. It was fantastic putting our musical skills to the test with everyone using an instrument. We worked on keeping a beat together and then experimented with the tempo of the music. We had snail for slow, elephant for steady and cheetah for fast. We experimented with the different sounds we could make with the beaters and combined those as a class. In P.E we had a competitive edge to it this week as we pitted team against team in a variety of games. The children not only responded well to the challenge but celebrated the win or took the loss well. We also combined into 1 big team to support each other and beat me. It pains me to say they beat the clock and won – darn and blast! Thank you to Ms. O’kane who helped us with potting the school plants. The children worked together to repot the plants and are ready to look spectacular once again. Unfortunately, it did not require any watering as we had plenty of that, but we did not let the rain keep our spirts down. I hope you all have a lovely long weekend and see you Tuesday!

23.4.21

The sun is shining, oh what a wonderful week we have had. As we continue to delve into the wonderful world of dinosaurs with Ian Whybrow, we decided to make our very own non-fiction dinosaur booklets. They contain a huge amount of brilliant facts. As a class we worked together as a team to find in our books. After we found a fact we thought was interesting we had to type it up on an IPad. Please have a sneaky peak below to see what they look like at the moment. We have continued looking at and learning about time and we started that by sequencing a day. They ranged from our school day or our complete daily routine, the essential part was making sure it followed in time order. We also looked at half past as a class and are getting much better at understanding the positioning of the hands and where they go. We are very quick at O’clock right now. Unexpectedly, I never knew we had wild parrots in Preston but currently we have a very interesting feathered friend. Unsurprisingly, we know it will be a beloved pet so if you could share the post the school shared to try and track down the owner, we would greatly appreciate it. The children have enjoyed our feathered friend this week and we have provided him with food and water too. In P.E we have applied a range of skills and even added a team element to these games where we have to rely on our listening ears. We have had a few suspicious attempts at our skills race, but the children gave it 100% and had lots of fun trying their best. As we are continuously watching our tadpoles grow and caring for them we created a water colour picture of them. The aim is to label our paintings and better observe the changes in the lifecycle of a frog. It is truly fascinating. I hope you all have a lovely weekend and see you all Monday – take care.

16.4.21

The first week is down and 6 more to go, as we know it will fly by! Pendle Class received a lovely letter in the post this week asking us to enter a riddle competition. Of course we entered and have risen to the challenge! We have had riddles about, unicorns, jaguars and tractors to name a few. It will end with a very special surprise at the end of term, so I shall have to keep you all in suspense. Miss Deakin shared the story of ‘Doubting Thomas’ this week and we have tried our best to break down a tricky story together. We used some of the striking art work related to the story to illustrate a key part of it and then wrote about the scene we created. We are loving the tales of Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs by Ian Whybrow, we even created our own version of his tale this week. In mathematics we have really hit the ground running and children were looking at the key features of a clock. Once the clock was understood we decided how to create O’clock for a specific time. Ensuring that children realise that the minute hand completing one full rotation is an hour – tricky stuff. A massive thank you for Mrs Foy for bringing in tadpoles and feed for us, they have captivated the class. They have the joy of spending the weekend at my house, I am sure my partner will be delighted. In P.E we are moving onto key fundamental balls skills, not just with our hands, but our feet too. We all had great fun dribbling, throwing and pinching a dinosaur egg through obstacles. To cap off a brilliant week, we used Ipads to begin our research into dinosaurs and labelled key features of them, we will be using this information next week – I cannot wait! I hope you all have a lovely weekend and see you all Monday.

26.3.21

Just like that the second full term is over – time truly flies. We continued with our phonics jumping feet first into tricky word sentences independently. It is truly delightful to think back to September where we were covering beginning phase 2 phonemes and graphemes and now we are writing full sentences – WOW! We will continue to work at key writing principles such as letter formation, fingers spaces and capital letters and begin to expand our knowledge with phase 4 tricky words as we move onto phase 5. Please remember to read your books over the Easter break and continue to work on your sound mats; it is so important. In mathematics this week we have worked with a partners to double and half, as the principle works very well when you compare with a friend. To keep our noggins continuing to tick with numbers, we used spaces hoppers for a number race, call, find and 1 more and 1 less. Our frogspawn have been a great source of inspiration for our writing. We sequenced our own lifecycle of the frog, painted a frog or a tadpole and broke down each step of the lifecycle of a frog with a sentence. In R.E we have had the joy of writing a prayer to make the world a better place and tried our best to understand the importance of Easter. Thank you all for your hard work this bizarre term. I hope you all have a lovely break and see you all soon!

19.3.21

We have had another glorious action filled week. To begin we have been bombarded by brilliant jokes all in the name of Comic Relief. I am delighted to say we have raised £100.20 – thank you! Thank you for everyone who donated and told a joke; you made the whole event what it is. As we had jokes on the brain we all decided to write our own joke down and tell it to a friend (we especially liked this part). In mathematics we have worked very hard on all of this terms key skills of sharing, halving and doubling. We have put a multitude of our mathematical skills to the test in our mini math quiz and I am so proud of how hard you all worked. We have been continuing to learn about the important story of Easter. The class painted Jesus on the cross, which was an extremely sad part of the story, but a very important one. The children’s pictures are stunning and I hope you enjoy looking at them all. We have also created our own salt dough eggs which we have made from scratch. Children had to follow instructions to create their own salt dough to use to mould their egg. it was good, messy fun. Thank you so much to Mrs. Foy who donated tadpoles for us to watch them grow, we greatly appreciate you thinking of us. We also have 2 lovely additions to the St. Francis family as we have 2 female Guinea pigs. They are yet to be named so feel free to think of your name suggestions. Thank you for another great week. We just have 1 week left to go and I cannot wait!

12.3.21

We are back! This has been a truly wonderous week and I would like to start off by saying a big thank you to Miss Gardner, parents and my incredible class. We have not missed a beat this week and I have loved everyday! For our first week back during phonics we are continuing to recap our sounds and tricky words. Our big challenge in our phonics lesson was applying these skills in our sentences that we create on our own and using finger spaces. We also used a timer to keep us focused and trying to beat our previous record. The stupendous Miss Silvester organised our British Science Week and we choose to create our own invention or machine to ‘help’ someone. The ideas are as bonkers as you can imagine, from an animal feeding machine on a farm to a classroom building robot. Please enjoy the pictures below and the accompanying sentence. In mathematics we used our halving mats to halve numbers and share them out. We are working at noticing patterns with numbers, especially between odd and even numbers and thinking about it if will be shared evenly. For our big write we have sequenced the Easter story by using comic strips in which we have illustrated and wrote about key parts of the story.  To finish we have been working on something very special this week as we prepare for a wonderful Mothers Day. Children planted daffodils last term in preparation for this and as a class we have cared for them. You will also find a card made by some special hands just for you. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and see you all Monday.

 

1.3.21

Supertato Additional Resources Please click the link to access the additional resources.

23.2.21

Welcome back! Please find your new Pick & Mix Homework Menu and Curriculum Booklet below.

8.2.21

Princess and the Pea Pack

1.2.21

Please click the link to access the additional resources.

TF-T-091-EYFS-Little-Red-Riding-Hood-Adult-Input-Planning-and-Resource-Pack

3D Shape Nets

25.1.21

Please click the links to access the additional resources.

3 Little Pigs Resource-Pack

3 Little Pigs Pack P1

3 Little Pigs P2

18.1.21

3 Billy Goats Gruff Please click the link to access the resources.

8/1/21

Jack and the Beanstalk Please click the link to access additional Jack and the beanstalk resources.

5/1/21

Resources Click the link to access Goldilocks and the 3 bears resources.

18/12/20

IT’S CHRISTMAS (holidays) !!! Just like that we have completed our first term – congratulations to Pendle and a special thank you to parents and guardians for all your support through these strange times. I would also like to thank Miss Gardner, Mrs Tyrer, Mr Howath and Miss Forshaw for their support this term. This week as you can imagine has been even busier than usual. I am glad to see that the Nativity was thoroughly enjoyed by you all – well done to Pendle!  It is not easy to remain focused for all that time and I thought you all did brilliantly. As you will all know from this term, time certainly does fly and we did not waste a moment of it. This week in phonics we brushed up on our phase 2/3 knowledge and tricky words and put them into a sentence. In mathematics we completed an SSDD challenge where we put our addition and subtraction skills to the test in slightly different ways. As we recorded our Nativity it seemed only fitting using a picture of ourselves to break down the Christmas story and all the key individuals that were involved in the birth of Jesus Christ. We hope you enjoy looking through your Christmas hamper bags; they are full of little treats for you and a tasty one for your children. Thank you for all your feedback about reports and as always, come to me if you need any support or guidance and I shall do my best to help. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year! Stay safe, care for each other and stay away from the sprouts – vile things if you ask me!

4/12/20

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas! The tree is up, tinsel is everywhere and a bright star can be seen, we must be getting closer to our Nativity. Thank you all for your positive feedback, it is great to hear (and see) how much your children have loved working on Purple Mash at home. As Christmas is unique with the type of excitement and wonderment it can bring we have selected a range of Christmas stories to excite us in our Literacy and wider learning. This week we read ‘Dear Father Christmas’ where we made our own list for Santa and told him what we wanted. These lists provided us with a wonderful range of words we can try to apply our phonics to. I have seen trampolines, Spiderman figures, quad bikes, sweets and chocolate and a talking dog to name a few. Santa certainly has his work cut out. In mathematics we had our very own Christmas tree to help us with some subtraction sums. We started with 2 numbers, decorated the tree with the biggest number and then take away the smaller number. What we were left with will be our answer and it is great fun decorating a Christmas tree. In R.E we sequenced the Nativity story and talked about key characters. We have thoroughly enjoyed looking at the wide range of animals recently and we had a special look at where those animals live. We noticed patterns with how an animal looked and where it was likely to live. We then designed our own and thought about where to should live too –it was fab. It is great fun singing our Christmas songs during R.E and understanding who all these key characters are. The book we will be reading next week will be ‘The Christmas Bear’. Thank you to everyone for working so hard on your songs at home, you are all doing great. Have a lovely weekend and see you all Monday.

20/11/20

Where is the time going? We only have 4 weeks left of the 2020 at school! I have had to hold my socks firmly this entire week as the children have tired to knock them off with fantastic addition. We have used random numerals to generate our own sums this week and tried a variety of ways to record our findings. The children brilliantly combined 2 numbers and counted what that number has now become. We drew the numbers as counters and recorded them this way and to really show off we attempted to use the + = in a written calculations and read it as a number sentence we could understand – tricky stuff. Our writing has been barrels of fun this week as we managed to create and draw our own mythical creatures. To begin with we discussed what we wanted to make, sketched and then painted it. After we had it painted there was only one thing left to do, write where it lived and what it looked like. I am not a fan of the teacher eating unicorn for some reason. Please see the pictures below. This week we have learned about Diwali and the story of Rama and Sita. We learned it is a happy festival of colour and light, where we give presents and spend precious time with our family. Pendle class liked the custom of giving sweets to make someone think sweet things about you. We even made Diya lanterns out of clay, we will send them home next week as little tealights for you to remember the Festival of Lights.  The Christmas preparations have gone into full flow and we are working hard to learn all of the songs and actions to them. Please use the link below to practice your songs at home. Next week we will be reading; Salty Dogs. Have a lovely weekend and see you all Monday!

 

13/11/20

How on earth did Holy Quackamole not win? This week has been another busy one and that is just how we like it here! I would like to begin by saying thank you to everyone who sent in money for the British Legion for a poppy. The children worked very hard on their Remembrance Day poppies and prayers. It was great for us as a class to reflect on each classes work to understand the importance of a poppy and what it means for us to wear one. It was brilliant to see the whole class in their own clothes or spotty outfits too. A special thank you to everybody who took part in the Duck Race to help us raise additional funds. The school will announce the total figure on Monday. In mathematics the children worked very hard on their subtracting skills; completing several subtraction challenges all slightly different to truly test their skills. In phonics we have worked our way through the beginning phase 3 sounds and will continue to move along. We are beginning to formulate and write sentences ourselves and adding in our own unique vocabulary to it all. Learning these phase 3 sounds will only continue to help further our understanding and broader our writing. As we have come across a huge amount of strange and wonderful creatures and animals in the Super Happy Magic Forest and the Slug of Doom we decided to create our own in MiniMash, coming in all shapes and sizes. All of your Purple Mash accounts have been created and I will be sending them out via Seesaw on Monday. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and see you Monday! The book of the week will be Super Frozen Magic Forest, which is fitting if you ask me!

  06/11/20

Where do fish keep their money? In a river bank! It has been another stupendous week. The children have picked up where we left off and made a seamless transition back into normal routine. Thank you to everybody who submitted something for the talent show next week. It was great to see how amazing you all are. We have had magicians, comedians, artists, dancers, singers, footballers, musicians and a horse rider so far. From 2 – 11 we have it all and it has been a treat!  This week we dived into phase 3 and this is where our vocabulary will start to flourish. We have used phoneme frames to help us with sentence structure and apply our new phase 3 knowledge. In mathematics we have had a great time with play dough, creating our own questions for us to work out and check. We will continue to hone our skills in mathematics to help us improve and become more independent. Who knew addition was such fun? In preparation for Remembrance Day the class has started making poppies, it was great to see that the children could remember the meaning behind a poppy and the significance of them. This will be key preparation for Remembrance Day as we will be making our own prayer for soldiers while planting our wreath by Hill Chapel. We had 2 special adventures in the outdoor classroom this week. We made our own chalk bonfire pictures which look very charming. We tried 2 approaches to it and discussed our favorite; next week we do hope to use paint. We also got to use our coding penguins for the first time. We need a little bit more practice before we become professional penguin herders. The children loved Super Happy Magic Forest and certainly did not want to wait till next week to read Super Happy Magic Forest and the Slug of Doom! I cannot wait to see you all next week. We will be hearing jingles bells before you know it!

 

 

23/10/20

Where have the 8 weeks week gone? I must start this message with a massive thank you to all the parents, you have been a delight to meet and the support you have given your children has allowed them to make great personal milestones in all areas of their learning. Well done to everyone in Pendle class, I am extremely proud of how hard you are all working and how far you have come in such a small space of time. To see us off on our wonderful ‘All About Me’ Topic we read the final Julia Donaldson book ‘Squash and Squeeze’. The children loved the story and we even made our own clay animals to get us excited to write. They came in all weird and wonderful sizes to an elephant to a duck and her eggs. To really show off how much we have developed this week we wrote 2 sentences in a phoneme frame. We were given a sentence and had to fill in the blank phoneme frame using our own phonics, we could rely on a phonics mat and the children did brilliantly. In mathematics we used the large number line outside and found resources to correctly correspond to that given number; to make it even more exciting we used a timer to add an element of competition. Interestingly, it made for a great addition number sentences too. In R.E we painted a picture of St. Francis’ and spoke about the life he lived. We used this opportunity to have some ‘I wonder’ moments and reflect as a group on the many questions and thoughts we had. When we return back to school we will begin phase 3. Children have shown how much they love reading, writing and what brilliant work they can produce. Please use the half term as a chance to rest and recuperate. However, it is still important that you read regularly at home over this break too. It has been a lovely talking with you all this week during parents evening. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with me if you need any help or guidance. We are always here to support you. As a class we have decided our next topic will be ‘Castles, Princesses and Mythical Creatures’ which sounds amazing! I luckily knew the perfect author for this – Matty Long. Please feel free to give his books a peek. Have a wonderful break and see you all soon.

    

16/10/20

What an exciting week! From buddies to messages from China and whatever could be imagined in-between, it has truly been a great week. A major milestone has been achieved as all children managed to write their own simple sentence, next week I hope to push them even more and include tricky words. We used the Stick Man as inspiration to write our sentence and if you are writing about the stick man you need to make one. The obvious material to make a stick man when you are surrounded by trees is … pipe cleaners and lollypop sticks? An effort was made to use sticks but they were not as robust as I (and the children) would have liked and broke very easily. In mathematics we used a range of resources to count up to a specific total. I was amazed to see such a wide range of resources such as tractors, buckets and bones – Great work team! In R.E we used our reflection time to discuss kind actions we have performed or kind actions others have done for us. It was a really heartwarming opportunity for me to see how much each member of the class cares for each other and appreciates the things they do. Thank you for bringing in your wellies as we once again ventured into the deep dark wood and made our very own Autumn art and leaf rubbings, it was a great adventure and thank you to Mrs Tyrer for all you help. In P.E we changed up the routine slightly and worked as a team to ‘tidy our bedroom!’ which has a big focus on underarm throwing and spatial awareness. We had time for a game of snatch too which is all about speed. Can you believe 7 weeks down 1 to go! Where has the time gone? Our final week we will be reading A Squash and a Squeeze. Have a lovely weekend and see you Monday! A special thank you to Mr Jackson and his class for our special hello, we hope to speak to you again soon!

9/10/20

Nihao! It has been Science Week and we have looked at satellites and what they do and how they get into space in the first place. We thought it would be a wonderful idea to send a message to a Chinese school and pass a hello around the world (Mr Jackson and his class) who teaches in China who will send us a message back, allowing us to learn about another language and culture. On Monday we should have a message from the school, I will put the video below for you to see. Thank you for all the resources you brought in for our junk modelling, the satellites have been made and look fab. Some even have rockets attached to get them into space and astronauts to pilot them. In Phonics we are trying to continuously expand and grown our vocabulary. We have been recapping older sounds to strengthen our ability to segment when writing independently. In Mathematics we have gone back to the shop to test our counting skills and spend pennies to actively think about how much money we have and need to spend. In R.E we have been learning about the wider world and how people live different lives to us, sometimes more difficult lives. We discussed what little actions we could do to make the world a little bit of a better place for everyone and will hopefully manage to organise something as a class (and school) to make a small difference. As we could not have an assembly for the Harvest Festival we have filmed our performance of the Dingle Dangle Scarecrow for you. However, the brilliant idea of using the greenscreen, speakers and stage was brought up and is too good not to. So if you bare with me we will record it again for you for next week, it will be worth the wait! Next week we will be reading the Stick Man. I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

IMG_1874   – Click here to see our video!

2/10/20

We have certainly not have had many puppy dogs tails but a plethora of rats ones! As we enjoyed the ‘tale’ of The Highway Rat we had the disgusting task to making 3 rat tails! 1 big, 1 small and 1 medium. We then used counters to measure the length of the tail and recorded our findings. In phonics we continue to put our segmenting and blending skills to the test and our vocabulary grows ever bigger every day. The children are showing they are capable to apply their phonics to a range of news words. It was lovely to be able to work together to write our own prayers, the children decided if that wanted to give thanks for something or ask God to help them rise to a tricky challenge. We used the outdoor easels the paint the cruel Highway Rat and it is fair to say the children loved painting him. The buddy cards are finally finished and the children have worked so extremely hard. Mrs Rossal will be getting a surprise Monday morning as they will be placed in her classroom with our personalized messages and handwritten cards. We have also finished off Zog’s eggs which look stupendous; make sure you keep an eye on them so they do not hatch, the dragon may not be as kind as our friend Zog. Next week we will be junk modelling our very own satellites for Science Week so any plastic bottles, cardboard etc. would be great appreciated. We should also be receiving a very special message from some new friends. Thank you for a fantastic week, see you all Monday!

25/09/20

4 weeks down 4 to go! To continue our amazing phonics work we have delved even further and are not only building up our understanding of sounds but tricky words too. We have had a broad look at all phase 2 tricky words with the tricky word song. As a team we worked on breaking down tough sentences and spotting tricky words that are trying to trick us. As a class we decided it is rubbish that we could not meet our year 5 buddies so we decided to make them something special. We managed to give you a sneaky peak of our message to our buddy which is always tricky to record yourself speaking. We hope to accompany ourselves with a  card and a picture. Currently we have done the front cover and a page inside, we just need to finish off the letter; I cannot wait to show it off. The loveable Zog story has gone down a treat and we are now creating our very own dragon eggs. The final layer has been put on today and it should be dry by Monday ready for us to get it painted. In the story of Zog we encounter a very helpful princess who showed how to be a loving friend. We took this message into our R.E work and discussed how we can use our ‘kind hands’. We had several great suggestions about what we should not do ‘push, hit, snatch’ and more importantly things we can use them for ‘ share, help , love.’ which sums us up here at St. Francis’. The children are becoming more more independent when using Minimash on a Ipad and using a mouse on a computer which is amazing too. I have to say a huge thank you to everyone as it is a joy to see every parent reading at home and I cannot tell you the difference that will make over the course of the year- keep up the hard work. Next week we will be looking at the Highway Rat, lets hope he does not want to eat any dragon eggs! Have a wonderful weekend and se you all Monday.

 

18/09/20

Like that and another week goes by! We continued our fun journey into phonics and have learned 5 new sounds and lots of new words to accompany them. On Monday we will be encountering our first digraph ‘ck’. I am sure we will be able to rise to the challenge. Throughout the week we have continued to show off our brilliant counting and pattern making skills. Using counting bears we made patterns using colour and size, we then took that 1 step further and made a 2 or 3 part peg patterns; here we had to choose our own colours and placement. Using the outside area we had had great fun playing phonics hopscotch and finding out the word at the end. To add an additional challenge we would write the word and then a CVC word we could think of. The class learned about Jesus and his miracles and the detail the children could go into was amazing. As we unpacked the various stories we all answered an ‘I wonder’ question which gave a unique perspective on things. One that stood out to me was that ‘if Jesus can walk on water can he walk on wine?’ – what a thought. Children created the wonderful Tabby McTat and he his proudly up on our working wall display – whiskers and all. The children took it another step further; once again applying their phonics and wrote the word cat. A special thank you to our head girl who gave the whole of Pendle class the converted Head Girl Award for ‘settling in so well into St. Francis’. Thank you all so another brilliant week. The story for next week will be Zog, I cant wait!

11/09/20

This week started off where we left off, loving learning and having fun. We continued our journey into phonics and worked hard at learning how to segment and blend more words. During phonics we have been working on our letter formation and writing CVC words. In guided reading we have done brilliantly with following the story, understanding what might happen next and share our own unique ideas. We have jumped onto phase 2 stories and this will provide you an opportunity to see how far they have come and to continually practice their segmenting and blending skills. We went on an adventure to the deep dark woods and kept a watchful eye out for the Gruffalo of the Gruffalo’s child. As we had a mini adventure in the millennium we split into 2 groups. One group worked with me on a bug hunt, exploring habitats and seeing what we could find and another worked with Miss Gardner creating hammer art. With bugs on the mind we also did some bug counting and placed them in our jar and we played number hopscotch to keep building up our understanding of numbers.  We have looked at religious symbols this week and worked on our crosses. The first piece of work we put in our book is a beautiful watercolour painting that the children have painted of a cross or crosses. Children continue to become more confident with Mini Mash and I will be sending out the logins soon. The photographs were taken today and somewhere out there a flying pig will be found, as I do not thinks there was a muddy mark or smudge of paint on anyone – hallelujah. Thank you for another fantastic week, see you all Monday!