You may have heard the children talk about their “Dojo” points recently so we thought we would give you a little information about these funny little creatures

We have created a character for each child in the Foundation unit as a way of rewarding positive behaviour. When we have noticed the children doing something positive and they have shown that they are a good role model to the rest of the class, we ask them to press on their dojo character.

They are then shown a list of skills and we reinforce how well they have done by pressing the skill they have used. It then adds points onto their own personal Dojo.

At the moment the children are just enjoying the experience of getting a Dojo point. There may be certain times in the year where we set challenges to reach  a certain number of points.

We have decided to do that over the next half term in fact! We have added an extra little character to our class. He is called Sleepy Head!

Lots of the mums and dads have been letting us know that they have been having long nights where their children have had trouble sleeping. As parents too,  we remember those days (some of us are still going through them!) We wanted to see if we could help, even if it was just a small gesture. 

Sometimes having a little incentive from school can just give parents a tactic, helping them to persuade their little ones to go to bed.

We had a chat with the children and talked to them about the reasons why they needed a good night's sleep. We talked about how they need to sleep if they want to grow strong and healthy. The children themselves said that they are often grumpy and tired if they have not had a good day and can sometimes end up getting into trouble. We also talked about how mummies and daddies also need a good night sleep so being woken up doesn’t help them be in a good mood!

So as an incentive we said that if they had had a good night’s sleep, the grown up they come to school with could just quietly let Mrs Boon, Mrs Lindley or Mrs Gerrard know, either in person or send us a message on Tapestry, then at some point in the day we would take their child aside to let them put a Dojo point onto Sleepy Heads character. We reminded the children that it has to be the grown-ups that tell us not them! When Sleepy head has reached the grand total of 100 points, we will arrange for a mini pyjama party one afternoon!

We are going to keep this reward quite low key as we are always very careful not to build up children’s expectations that they will get a reward every time they do something correctly. We want them to understand that feeling proud when they reach a goal is also a reward in itself.  

However, as it has been a difficult year and so many of you have mentioned sleeping as a cause for concern we thought we would try to support all of your efforts!

If you want further information about bed-time routines that can help, here is one link that may be of assistance. Let us know if you want to have a more detailed chat.

https://www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/tips-and-advice/bath-book-bed/faqs/

One other Dojo incentive we will be introducing next week – Show and tell Dojo!

If you have uploaded something from home on your child’s Tapestry Journal, then we will give them a ‘Something from home’ Dojo and give them some “Show and Tell’ time where they can talk about their achievement or activity.

Let us know if you are having any trouble with your child’s Tapestry account so we can get you all connected.

Welcome b b b b b b back!

This week as the children are probably still thinking about Halloween and bonfire night is on its way.  We are going to have 'Room on the Broom' as our story focus this week.

If you haven't got this story to read with your child, then watch this video.

or you can click here and you will be taken to the  BBCiPlayer to watch the longer animated tale.

We will be looking at the witches b b boots as a way of linking it to our RWI letter of the week 'b'

Down the boot, back up and around the laces!

We will be sorting out our school wellington boot collection into matching pairs and painting a beautiful matching set of boots for the busy witch to wear!

We will be watching  Evie and Dodge learn about the letter b and we will go on a letter b hunt around the classroom. Why not have a letter b hunt at home too and send us a photo of the things you find by adding an observation on your Tapestry journal. We love to see the things you do at home!

We will be learning a simple song about the story too. Here is the video that gave us the inspiration but we will try and make our own video  and swap it over so you can see us all singing along!

For children who are already familiar with the letter b we will be extending  their learning by looking at the 'oo' sound used in 'room on the broom'

To support this we will also be looking at the stories of "Poo at the Zoo" and Dear Zoo.

Poo at the Zoo is also the phrase that we say to help the children remember the digraph 'oo' (a digraph is when two letters join together to make one new sound) 

We have been informed today that someone in the Foundation unit began to feel poorly with covid-19 symptoms on Saturday and had a test on Sunday. Although the result hasn't come back yet, we wanted to let parents know because the person in question lives with 2 other people that had positive test results returned on Sunday – this seems to increase the likelihood of this being a case of Covid-19.  As such, we felt parents would want to know so they can be extra vigilant about social distancing and monitoring any potential symptoms in their households.

We will let you know the result of the test asap. If it is positive, we will consult with Public Health England and inform you of their advice, which may include keeping your children in self-isolation.

At the moment the F2 children have had their new reading diaries and have started to enjoy getting stickers for the last few weeks every time they have read. F1 children will be getting their reading diaries after half term and they too can earn their Bronze Award!

Delve a little deeper into your child's diary and you will find information about how your child can get their school Bronze Reading Award.

Stuck on the green card in your child's reading diary after all of the information pages is a page with lots of robots on.

Take a look at some of the skills underneath each robot. These are the skills the children need to show they have used a few times in order for them to get their Bronze Award.

A grown up from home or school can put a tick or a cross in the numbered circles each time they have noticed your child using that skill. When all three of the circles for that skill have been marked in and your child has been noticed using those skills at school they will get an extra special robot sticker from Mrs Lindley to stick over the robot face for the skill they have completed.

When every robot skill has been completed they will be sent to Mrs King to receive their Special School Bronze Reading award.

The robot page is for the Autumn term so there are another couple of months to have a go at getting those skills coloured in.

We will have a different sticker theme for the Spring term and move the skills on to get a silver award.

Please message us or ask after school if you need any further information about our sticker rewards.

The Meadow class have all been settling in together over the last few weeks.

For a lot of the children it has been their first experience of being in school for longer periods of time.

We wanted to share some of the photos that we will be putting on one of our display boards this week.

Have you been spotted.............................doing something amazing in the classroom and setting a really good example.

This we are going to have a couple of stories. Stickman and Rosie's walk

We will be challenging the children to hear lots of 'c' sounds in their activities this week.

We will be teaching them that there is more than one way to make a c sound.

You can use a 'c', you can use a 'k' or you can put them together and make the special friend sound 'ck'!

Lots of the activities will be using stick. We seem to have an abundance of sticks all over the place at the moment so we are going to find imaginative ways of using them.

Stickman is available as an animation on BBCiPlayer.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b06t09rk/stick-man

alternatively, listen to the story being read with sound effects in the video below.

Visit our new favourite pair to hear the letters of the week.

Evie and dodge – letter c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxE0uTRDVxw

Evie and dodge letter k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiVHB0th0sA

The alphablocks also get in on the game.

alphablocks – c k ck 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnOfoSe18Dg

Our letters of the week

Here are just some of the activities we will be making available for the children to choose.

For our Maths this week.....We will be reinforcing the numbers 1 2 and 3 as well as learning all about triangles. We will be making patterns out of all the natural materials we can find. We will even be using timers to see how fast we can build a shelter for stickman to hide in.