Cygnus2017-2018: Gorgeous sunny Sunday

Hope you had a lovely weekend. I spent time watching my youngest play rugby in Sherborne on Sunday. Unfortunately he took a kick to the head and as a parent all I could do was watch as others with more experience rushed in to help ( At the age of 16 he would also have been slightly embarrassed having me rush onto the pitch although once away from his team he wasn't too old for a cuddle and tears). It brought me back to reception days and handing him over to the teacher and having the confidence and trust to know that he was in safe, caring hands and that I would be supported if there were greater needs arising. This weekend, the Bq family were very thankful to the ambulance and hospital services on two different occasions, ( my oldest received a concussion blow on Thursday night ). The support was amazing and something that we often take for granted. This fits nicely in with our Religious Education learning where we are looking at people who help us in the wider community. We had the police cars last week so this week we are going to celebrate people who help us get better. I think perhaps a lesson for the Bq boys is that chess might be a safer sport from a mums perspective.

We are having lots of fun in class and we are always busy. This has been a bit of a peculiar week in some ways and it has been stop/ start with hearing readers and doing lots of other lovely learning.. We generally try and hear readers twice a week although at the moment listening to the tricky words is as important. We will change books if you have recorded in the reading record two or three times to say that you have listened to/ shared the reading book. Please do look at the back of the book for ideas. As a key stage we are trying to encourage all children regardless of the level they are at to look carefully at what is going on in the book rather than changing after it has been heard once. I love revisiting books and children do as well. It often supports confidence or the ability to discover new things that were passed over the first time. Please do try and spend 5 minutes 4-5 times a week looking at the tricky words.

With the handwriting/ letter formation, please feel free to encourage your child to complete it in felt tips or coloured pencils. I added the green and red dots to help you with where to start and stop. Green for go and red for stop. Usually we don't take the pencil off the page until the formation of the letter is finished.At this stage for many children it is the wrist movement and strength of grip that we are encouraging. A great exercise for strength is to let children even scribble as hard as they can using crayons or to use play dough or Plasticine. Can you encourage your child to write their name on the page as this is now a daily activity. Please return home learning on a Friday as we will tick it off on a record and file it. I am going to award certificates to children who get five ticks.

For now, my laptop is refusing to connect to the printers at school so I am unable to print information for home although I think the blog usually includes it. Please come and speak to me if you are not sure about something. Don't forget to put letters in the blue tray by the door.

See you tomorrow,
Mrs Bq

Now for the photos, these are snapshots of some of our learning from the past week.