Headteacher: Anna Moss

0121 445 1622

Red Class

Red Class Friday Fanfare 22.12.23

22.12.23

Hello Red Class Families,

Our last day was full of fun and laughter with party games, party food and our celebration assembly. In fact, it’s been a week of Christmas activities with our Christmas Show and a delicious Christmas dinner (thank you Mrs Barker and Mrs Miles).

Towards the end of term, especially near Christmas, the children become incredibly tired and give their every effort at school. Their emotional ‘cup’ runs empty and their behaviour is simply saying, “I’m tired and ready for a break”. Congratulations, Red Class, for achieving so much during such a long term. 

In January, we will begin a new topic, ‘Blackwell Film Festival’ and we’ll continue our writing adventures as we learn to form letters using the cursive script. If you want to make a start during the holidays, Mrs Moss has made a number of videos on our You Tube channel showing letter formation. We always start with the curly caterpillar letters: c, o, a, d, g, q. Writing your name with cursive letters would be useful holiday homework too. Remember your tripod grip. If you’d like some holiday Maths homework, then please count forward and back to 5, then 10 and 20. Try 1 more and 1 less tennis to 10 using your hand to hit the ‘ball’ and work on your positional language. Perhaps, choose one decoration on your Christmas tree as a starting point and then find another above, below, between, to the left, to the right, in front or behind.

The children worked hard on their Christmas cards and calendars. We used our collage skills of cutting, sticking and overlapping. Every year, you can look back at their 2024 calendar and see how much they’ve changed from their Reception Christmas Show!

Finally, a big ‘THANK YOU’ for all your support and encouragement this term. Your kind cards, gifts and messages mean a lot to the team and we feel really lucky to be part of one big Blackwell family. Your child’s first term at ‘big’ school is complete and look at all we’ve achieved together. Children who are reading words and sentences, making new friends, singing in front of an audience and attending a theatre trip! By the way, the children were fantastic during our Dear Santa trip!

Wishing you all a Happy Christmas with fun, laughter and plenty of rest. Here’s to a wonderful 2024!

Mrs Webb and Team Red Class XXX

Red Class Friday Fanfare 01.12.23

01.12.23

Hello Red Class Families,

Thank you for supporting our Big Blackwell Book Festival. We should be entered into the Guinness World Records for most people in a classroom 😊. The children were really excited to see you today and to dress up too! They looked fantastic in their costumes.

We started with a ‘Book Swap’ where the children selected a book and then moved to different classrooms and read with different teachers. Later on, we linked our dough dance to ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ before making goodie bags for the festival. We hope you enjoyed sharing the children’s books and watching the retell of the class story, ‘The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon’. We’ve taken lots of photographs of the day for the children’s learning journeys.

Next week, we move on to Christmas as we start to learn about the festival and we prepare for ‘The Nativity’. Leggings and tights have already started to appear in book bags, thank you.

Many thanks for a lovely day, Mrs Webb x

Red Class Friday Fanfare 24.11.23

24.11.23

Hello Red Class Families,

We were scientists in Red Class as we investigated animals from around the world. We named, described and sorted animals and played a guessing game to identify animals from their silhouette. The ‘Odd One Out’ tested the children’s ability to reason as they explained which animal didn’t fit the group. The children started to talk about nocturnal animals and those that hibernated. We’ll continue our investigation next week.

In Phonics, we introduced ‘z’ including words using the digraph ‘zz’ e.g. buzz. We also focused on ‘qu’ and ‘ch’. Every lesson, we blend phonemes to make words and read a sentence as a whole class. We also spell a word using our magnetic letters. We’ve introduced new tricky words: go, no, to, into. Our tricky words need the most support as we need to learn them by sight. Putting these words in places where your child will frequently see them (bathroom door, fridge, bedroom) will help your child to remember them. Also playing games such as matching pairs or odd one out (show 3 cards with 2 the same and 1 different) will help.

Early next week, I will send home your child’s part for our Christmas play and any costume items that might be needed. In the past, parents have bought multipacks of tights and shared them out or just shared what they have at home. If there are any problems sourcing items for the costume, please just let me know. This year, Red Class will be leading ‘The Nativity’.

It’s our ‘Big Blackwell Book Festival’ next Friday at 2pm. Further information can be found on ParentApp. We look forward to sharing a good book or two with you. 

Best wishes,

Mrs Webb and Team Red Class

Red Class Friday Fanfare 24.11.23

24.11.23

Hello Red Class Families,

We were scientists in Red Class as we investigated animals from around the world. We named, described and sorted animals and played a guessing game to identify animals from their silhouette. The ‘Odd One Out’ tested the children’s ability to reason as they explained which animal didn’t fit the group. The children started to talk about nocturnal animals and those that hibernated. We’ll continue our investigation next week.

In Phonics, we introduced ‘z’ including words using the digraph ‘zz’ e.g. buzz. We also focused on ‘qu’ and ‘ch’. Every lesson, we blend phonemes to make words and read a sentence as a whole class. We also spell a word using our magnetic letters. We’ve introduced new tricky words: go, no, to, into. Our tricky words need the most support as we need to learn them by sight. Putting these words in places where your child will frequently see them (bathroom door, fridge, bedroom) will help your child to remember them. Also playing games such as matching pairs or odd one out (show 3 cards with 2 the same and 1 different) will help.

Early next week, I will send home your child’s part for our Christmas play and any costume items that might be needed. In the past, parents have bought multipacks of tights and shared them out or just shared what they have at home. If there are any problems sourcing items for the costume, please just let me know. This year, Red Class will be leading ‘The Nativity’.

It’s our ‘Big Blackwell Book Festival’ next Friday at 2pm. Further information can be found on ParentApp. We look forward to sharing a good book or two with you. 

Best wishes,

Mrs Webb and Team Red Class

Red Class Fanfare 18.11.23

18.11.23

Hello Red Class Families,

Another busy week in Red Class. From exploring hot and cold countries in Geography, dancing like fireworks in PE and learning about road safety. We focused on ‘j’, ‘v’, ‘w’ and ‘y’ in Phonics and tried hard to read ‘and’, ‘has’, ‘her’ automatically. In Maths, we used the power of 5 to make numbers to 10. For example, we made 6 by finding 5 red beads on the Fabacus (our fab abacus) and adding 1, rather than counting 6 individual beads.  

Thank you for sending in special books from home. We’ve created a display to share the children’s recommendations. Each day, we shared a new story and spent time talking about our favourite books in a small group. If we haven’t shared your child’s book yet, please leave it in their book bag.

This week, the children met mysterious little creatures called pebblings at Forest School. Red Class decided to make homes for their new friends and soon nests and dens were scattered across the forest. Who will they meet next week? Thank you, Mrs Hipkiss, for helping our little ones to flourish in the forest.

Finally, we’ve started our slipper routine! At Blackwell, all the children wear slippers to feel comfortable and relaxed. By wearing slippers, we can also keep the indoor classroom clean and tidy. Well, when we don’t lose our slippers! 😊

Best wishes,

Mrs Webb and Team Red Class

Red Class Friday Fanfare 10.11.23

10.11.23

Hello Red Class Families,

Welcome back to the Friday Fanfare and our new topic, ‘Best Books’. This week, we shared our new class story, ‘The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon’. The book is based on the nursery rhyme, ‘Hey, Diddle, Diddle’. With this in mind, we spent some time role playing the rhyme and finding out why the dish ran away with the spoon.

We’ve also been talking about our Big Blackwell Book Festival. The children have decided that they would like to dress as their favourite book character during the event and they would like to invite their families into school to share their ‘Best Book’ (learning journey) and their favourite story. Talking of favourite stories, we would like the children to bring in one book from home on Monday, 13th November. We’re planning to make a Best Books display using the children’s favourite stories, poems and non-fiction books from home.

In Phonics, we concentrated on ‘ll’, ‘ss’, ‘ff’ and ‘j’. We call two letters making one sound a digraph. Try spotting digraphs in your reading books e.g. hill, puff, miss. Every day we read a challenge phrase. First, we sound talk and blend the words and then we read the words automatically. Try to do this in your reading at home to help with your pace and fluency.

In Maths, we used a range of equipment to make numbers to 10. We also played the arrangement game. We call a style e.g. dice style and the children arrange their counters as quickly as possible to match the style. Playing games like this will help the children to quickly recognise numbers and develop number sense. We count every day too, counting on and back from different starting numbers.

Every Friday, we attend a celebration assembly where two children from each class receive a gold award certificate. During the week, we look for skills needed to be a good learner: resilience, problem solving, co-operation, communication and independence. Congratulations to our gold award winners so far. Who will it be next week?

In Geography (Understanding of the World), we met Blackwell Bear who will be exploring the world with Red Class. Blackwell Bear showed us the world map and we found our country and our continent. Blackwell Bear asked where the children wanted to visit and then we used Google Earth to fly around the world to France, Portugal, Cyprus, USA and Australia.

To find out about Remembrance Day, we watched a short film and we all fell silent to remember. We looked at poppies and thought about why we wear them at this time of year.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend with plenty of play, rest and time to remember.

Best wishes,

Mrs Webb and Team Red Class

Red Class Friday Fanfare 20.10.23

20.10.23

Hello Red Class Families,

Thank you for attending parent consultations. It was lovely to celebrate the children’s progress. If we met via Zoom, you should find a mental maths progression sheet in your child’s book bag and their personalised target sheet. This is a long half term and the children have worked incredibly hard. Not long to go now before we can all enjoy a good rest.

This week, in Phonics, we revisited all phonemes/graphemes and practised our three tricky words: the, is, I. We used magnetic letters to spell CVC words (sit, sat, pat). During Write Dance lessons, we used circles and lazy eights to create a picture of an owl.

In Maths lessons, we explored length. At home, see if you can find two different socks and compare them. Is one sock shorter, longer or the same length as the other sock? Find 3 different types of pasta. Which piece is the longest piece?

In PE, we developed spatial awareness by practising movement skills within our ‘gateway’ (the space between 2 cones) and rolling a ball through the gateway to a partner.

As well as playing games to stay safe in the Forest, the children discovered different parts of a tree by collecting and sorting leaves, seeds and sticks.

Wishing everyone a lovely weekend. If you’re visiting the scarecrow trail, remember to look out for Betty and Harry.

Mrs Webb and Team Red Class xxx

Red Class Friday Fanfare 20.10.23

20.10.23

Hello Red Class Families,

Thank you for attending parent consultations. It was lovely to celebrate the children’s progress. If we met via Zoom, you should find a mental maths progression sheet in your child’s book bag and their personalised target sheet. This is a long half term and the children have worked incredibly hard. Not long to go now before we can all enjoy a good rest.

This week, in Phonics, we revisited all phonemes/graphemes and practised our three tricky words: the, is, I. We used magnetic letters to spell CVC words (sit, sat, pat). During Write Dance lessons, we used circles and lazy eights to create a picture of an owl.

In Maths lessons, we explored length. At home, see if you can find two different socks and compare them. Is one sock shorter, longer or the same length as the other sock? Find 3 different types of pasta. Which piece is the longest piece?

In PE, we developed spatial awareness by practising movement skills within our ‘gateway’ (the space between 2 cones) and rolling a ball through the gateway to a partner.

As well as playing games to stay safe in the Forest, the children discovered different parts of a tree by collecting and sorting leaves, seeds and sticks.

Wishing everyone a lovely weekend. If you’re visiting the scarecrow trail, remember to look out for Betty and Harry.

Mrs Webb and Team Red Class xxx

Red Class Friday Fanfare 13.10.23

13.10.23

Hello Red Class Families,

In preparation for the Scarecrow Trail, we’ve been busy making a scarecrow. We shared ‘The Scarecrow’s Wedding’ and then set to work making Betty O’Barley. Thank you, Mrs Allen, for helping us to make our scarecrow. The Nursery children have made Harry O’Hay. Look out for the scarecrows as part of the Blackwell Scarecrow Trail, Saturday, 21st October.

In Phonics, we introduced ‘h,b’, f and l’ and the keyword ‘the’. Remember to open your mouth a little, put your teeth on your bottom lip and push the air out to make ‘f’. When saying ‘l’, pop your tongue to the top of your mouth behind your teeth and press saying ‘l’. Try to find objects beginning with ‘h’, ‘b’, ‘f’ and ‘l’. Practise oral blending by listening to letter sounds e.g. l-e-g or h-i-p and touch the correct body part. I’ve added new eBooks to your accounts.

In Maths, we explored 2D shapes (rectangle, square, circle and triangle). We created 2D shapes using elastic bands on pegboards and cotton buds. We counted sides and corners and identified shapes in different positions and sizes. See if you can find some 2D shapes at home. Can you find and count the sides of the shapes?

In Write Dance, we created circles and eights with our hands, arms and feet. We then traced circles and lazy eights (eights on their side) in shaving foam and on chalk boards. You can find a link to support learning at home here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFEZzcJRtVQ

In Geography, we looked at a familiar place (Forest School) and talked about the main features. We named, described and sorted places by looking carefully at photographs and we made a 3D map of Rosie’s farm to link to our class story.

Parent evening slips were added to the reading folders today. Hopefully, I’ve managed to give everyone their requested time slot. If you requested a Zoom meeting, I will send the link via Parent App closer to the time. If you need to change your day or time, please just call the office.

Finally, thank you for your chicken feed donations! Greta, Ellie and Rosa have been feasting on tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli and pears this week. They will definitely be ready for winter.

Best wishes,

Mrs Webb and Team Red Class xxx